Chapter 48
EVER
Ashadow swoops over us. “Are you feeling better?” Atom stares down at me, supine on the ground. His freckles flare in the gray morning light. Bits of leaves and grass stick to his ragged clothes.
“Uh, yeah.” I sit up, dazed despite the hours I’ve been awake. Kaleida stands behind him, her hair springing out in every direction, her dark eyes weary.
Maybe because of all the bodies. It was easy to forget about them with Eli’s tongue torturing me, then his little lesson, which lasted through to the morning. If I didn’t already know something was wrong with me, I’d be sure after that.
“We’re back from Milo’s, and we slept fine, thanks,” Kaleida says, frowning at Eli and me. Coen and Sola huddle together on one side of her, Sypher and Maverick J. on the other.
“I didn’t,” Sypher complains. “The weather was changing every minute and the sky kept lighting up through the window.”
I smile at the memory.
Maverick J. shuffles from one foot to the other. “My socks have been wet for days.”
“At least you have something on your feet. Eli and Ever are barefoot,” Milo says.
Kaleida scoffs. “By choice. All those dead bodies have boots on.”
“I’m not wearing another man’s boots,” Eli protests. “I have limits.”
It’s hard not to notice his concern has nothing to do with the men being dead.
Milo kneels at Eli’s side, giving him a once-over for new injuries and only finding the scratch marks I left on his cheeks.
“Look who we found.” He jabs a thumb over his shoulder, pointing at Sola and Coen.
They look as disastrous as the rest of us—bloodied clothes, cuts and filth, disheveled everything.
Sola’s coy smile twists her lips to the side. “I can’t believe you guys banged surrounded by corpses.”
Atom covers his ears and puffs out his cheeks.
“I can,” Coen retorts, slicking back his hair and perusing the scene. “But I’m surprised you didn’t bring the damn sky down.”
I don’t bother asking how they know. We probably reek of sex. Then it hits me. They know I’m linked now because of my height. And about the urges that come with maturation. All of them know.
Eli sits up next to me, but one look, and my stomach sinks. His eyes are liquid again, puddles of hazel and streaks of brown, a homicidal glint in them. Still, they’re heart-stopping. He grabs my thigh with a grip tight enough to bruise bone.
“What?” I whisper.
He puts his lips to my ear, pulling me close by my upper arm, each finger a painful point of contact he can’t control. “I need you again.”
I try to pull away despite the way my body reacts to his request, but he yanks me back and shoves his tongue in my ear. I yelp and clap a hand over the wetness, hurrying to stand up. I stumble into Kaleida.
Eli laughs. And Milo. Then the others. And straight from my chest, bubbling up beyond my control, I laugh too. I try to forget about his lethal look. About Kelter not wanting to see me. The visions from the last few hours. And the warmth of my mother’s blood when I took her life.
But I can’t forget about Zandrite. How he buried me alive. How killing him is the key to fixing Eli’s immortality.
Because taking one more life might kill me.
Kaleida hands out a round of bars, declaring these were all that were left at Milo’s house as she splits the last one in half for her and Atom.
I hold the smashed bar to my nose like I’ve done a hundred times now. Pecan. It smells a bit like pie. A pang of nostalgia drills into my chest. Not for Caldera or even pie, but for the days when I would wake up only afraid of dying in my head, not real death.
“We didn’t see anyone out looking for us,” Milo says, then stuffs half a bar in his mouth.
Kaleida snorts. “Of course not. No one in their right mind would stick around after what Ever did.”
“I don’t think they are in their right mind,” Atom adds, once again wise beyond his years.
“Speaking of which,” Sola says, leaning into Coen and staring Eli down, “are we going to talk about your girlfriend’s dark streak?
She tried to strangle the Centress—which I was fine with—and now Kaleida says she made puddles of metal out of nothing and called roots from the ground while killing hundreds of Vaile? ”
“She’s my prisoner,” Eli corrects, avoiding my stare.
I stuff another bite in my mouth and chug water from the nearest canteen.
Sola scoffs. “I wouldn’t keep announcing that to everyone if I were you.”
He glares up at her, but curiosity gets the better of him. “Why not?”
Coen laughs and pulls Sola’s head back to kiss her neck. “You’ll have half the realm lining up for whatever treatment she’s getting.”
Not a hint of emotion sparks to life on Eli’s face.
“She gets what she deserves.” He finally stands and stretches, twisting his torso with his arms above his head.
The black marks on his back shrink and cower under the rippling of his muscles.
“Nowhere is safe. And the kid is right—none of them are in their right mind. We’re going back to the Underbroke for Zandrite.
We don’t leave until the fucker is dead. ”
Milo paces in circles. “How’s that going to work? He’s a god.”
“So is Never,” Eli says. No explanation.
Milo nods skeptically.
“She’s a what?” Maverick J. asks, his jaw cranked open.
Coen crimps his face with skepticism. “So first she’s a Hollow. Then she’s not. Then she’s a Vaile, but not anymore. Now she’s a god? What’s next?”
The black of Eli’s eyes takes over all the color. “She’s whatever the fuck I say she is. Do not piss me off today.” He swallows tightly. “I’m out for blood.”
Coen backs off.
Sypher clears his throat quietly, looking up at Coen, nearly two heads taller than him. “I don’t think Eli ever said she was a Vaile.”
“It was implied when he told us she wasn’t a Hollow,” Coen says, shoving him.
“You’re all wrong,” I say, my mouth still full. “I’m a fucking demigod.”
Sola mutters Coen’s name as if her mind were elsewhere, and he retreats, wrapping an arm around her waist. She looks off into the distance where the teva fields are, the Underbroke below, and rubs her bandaged wrists together. “I’m not going back.”
Eli nods. Only once. Compassion masked with approval.
Milo weaves in and out of everyone in a chaotic pattern, tossing his arms out as he speaks.
“I don’t understand how killing Zandrite helps anything.
We still haven’t succeeded in destroying the teva fields, and the entire realm will eventually come for us again.
Even if we do stop everyone from sending more elixir to the falls, then what?
One realm isn’t aware of the other, and everyone in Sonnet wants the Hollows dead.
Not to mention the border separating the two realms.”
“We used to live together in peace,” Kaleida argues. “We have to show them what that looks like.”
“None of us were around then,” Sola says.
I hold my head still, refusing to look at Eli. He has memories of it all. He knows what it was like, how Calderans were a part of the magic cycle.
Kaleida steeples her fingers and breathes out her nose, containing her frustration.
“If none of you recall, I’m a storyteller.
All the families in the village of Lirica passed stories onto their children instead of sending them to be raised by a school and learn only what the Centress decided.
I grew up hearing vivid recounts of life from before the Separation every day—and who could be trusted.
I was a kid. It was hard to be told one thing and live another. I didn’t know what to believe.”
She fusses with her curls and continues despite the glassy sorrow in her eyes.
“But truth or not, one thing was certain: anyone who dared say Hollows weren’t dangerous ended up dead within a day.
Soon it was unspoken, at least out in public, but it was still passed on from generation to generation.
I know because my mother risked telling me.
A week later the entire village went up in flames. ”
Maverick J. shoves his hair back nervously, letting it fall over his forehead again in the perfect position. His whole body tenses in response to her story.
Atom rests a dirty hand on Kaleida’s hip and looks up at her. “How did you escape?”
Kaleida’s face hardens, her chin lifting, boosted by her inner strength.
“I ran when my mother told me to. I was up late after a nightmare, outside looking at the stars with her. She was telling me how Ametrine hung them one by one, so many lifetimes ago. We lived on the edge of the village. The fire tore through so fast. She told me to go, that she’d get my father and be right behind me.
I didn’t want to leave. I was ten. But she told me that I was born to tell stories, and every single one would be lost if I didn’t run and save myself.
And that losing the stories would be like erasing the souls of everyone who came before me. So I ran.”
I ache for her from the deepest depths of my heart. She had a loving mom. And lost her.
Atom sidesteps until he’s next to me, his hands in his pockets.
I suppose that makes sense with me being the one that found him…
after nearly drowning him. I consider putting a hand on his shoulder but settle for shifting my bare foot an inch to the side, against his.
He smiles up at me extra wide, his lips closed, almost goofy looking. I panic and look away.
Kaleida swallows and inspects every humbled face around her. “I will make the Hollows and Vaile see the truth. It’s what I’m meant to do.”
“We’re actually Calderans,” Maverick J. says, lifting one shoulder sheepishly and gripping the silver reflective strips on the front of his vest.
Milo laughs. “No amount of storytelling will change that, Mav. You’ll always be a Hollow to us.”
Eli steps forward. “Coen, take Sola and find somewhere safe to stay. Sypher, go with the Hollow to find more bars. Be back before dark. Alive, preferably.” He turns to Kaleida.
“Tell the kid some stories and keep an eye out. Kid, you’re in charge of Kaleida.
” Atom accepts with a nod, bristling with pride.
“Milo, stick around. I have some shit to tell you. And Never—” I look up at him, his eyes lush with the green molten threat of death. “I’m going to need you. Frequently.”