Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
The three of us are split up in the current of people. At some point, I stop fighting and allow myself to move with the herd rather than looking for them. They’ll go to Siren’s anyway. It’s where all the locals end up after the festivities, and where my friends and I hang out most nights.
I'm so lost in thought, replaying Arlo and Cas in their gold wings, that I don't realize I've been walking in the wrong direction until I find myself standing across from the northernmost bridge.
I close my eyes and force myself to breathe.
The universe, it seems, has other plans for me tonight.
I swallow my irritation and decide to make use of the detour.
I stop by the clinic to check on the birds and grab the maps Jordi left behind.
I'm not sure what Kage hopes to do with them, or why Draven hasn't provided his own, but my brother would want to help.
He always wants to help. The thought of him brings back the image of his face in the carriage window.
That look of determination. As if he knew exactly where he was going and why.
I don’t know what he’s up to, but I need to speak to the Sages.
If anyone has answers, it has to be them.
But then I remember the looks on their faces when Cas and Arlo were on that stage and Naima’s words come back to me.
Between the Reckoning, the sprites, the blood moon we were never allowed to see, I don’t know what to believe anymore.
I hear music and people chattering nearby, but thankfully the bridge is empty when I reach it.
I tip my head back as I walk, but all I find are the usual thick, dark clouds that coat the sky.
Still, I stop at the center of the bridge and rest my hands on the parapet to scan over it again.
Nothing happens, but I stay a little longer, listening to the faint rush of water below, the River of Sorrows murmuring its secrets to the dark.
I'm staring down into the darkness, thinking of all the times I met Cas here in the middle of the night to sneak kisses, when a flash of light pulls my gaze upward.
It vanishes before I can track it, but I hold my breath and wait.
My breath catches when the lamps around me flicker, and again when a flash of red light splits the sky above the forest. At first, I think Naima is right, it looks like lightning, but when it disappears and returns, what I see are roots.
Or branches clawing upward from invisible soil in the sky.
The light blinks out quickly and returns. Six of them now, larger, closer, burning against the clouds like wounds. The lamps around me stutter and dim. The sprites disappear and reappear in a heartbeat.
Bigger. Closer. My pulse hammers against my ribs as I stare. They don't look like roots at all now. They look like limbs. Like red-winged figures suspended in the sky, looking down at me.
This time, when the sprites disappear, they take the lights around me, plunging me into complete darkness. I stand frozen. Barely breathing. Waiting for the sprites to return, for the lamps to flicker back to life.
Nothing happens.
I turn slowly. Every lamp is dead. The bridge, the streets, the buildings beyond. Lunaris has gone dark.
My hands tremble as I raise them and summon fire. The flames that answer are small and wavering. Abysmal, Mother would say. The memory of the word brings another with it.
The crack of a wooden ruler against my lower back, my stomach, my thighs, teaching me to focus through pain. My shoulders snap back. The flames grow taller, steadier, casting long shadows across the stone. I start moving, slow shuffling steps toward the end of the bridge, counting as I go.
Forty-seven steps from one side to the other. I've walked this bridge a thousand times. I'm already at twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Twenty-six. Something moves in the darkness ahead. I freeze.
My flames shrink and sputter as I sweep them left, right, then forward again.
From the corner of my eye, I catch a ripple in the dark, but there’s nothing there.
I force myself to breathe. In through my nose.
Out through my mouth. Focus. Then I notice the silence.
The lack. Even the river has stopped flowing.
A light, cool breeze passes through. So light it barely makes the flames in my palms waver, but I feel it. The hairs on the back of my neck rise just before the stillness arrives. Fear seeps into me slowly.
So slowly that by the time it settles in my bones, my flames have already died. I shake my hands at my sides, desperate, as if friction alone could reignite them. But I'm not a match. I'm a conduit who has lost her focus. Worse, I'm a conduit who has lost her belief.
I squeeze my eyes shut and reach for my gift, but doubt floods in instead.
Ignata. Mortiana. The Flame I bargained with.
Which god have I been praying to all these years?
Which one am I supposed to search for now?
It doesn't matter. None of it matters if I'm dead.
And if the Shroud creatures are near, death is exactly where I'm headed.
I force myself to focus. Find the source of the stillness.
Figure out which way to run. A sob builds in my chest when I locate it.
I swallow it down, careful not to make a sound as I clench my fists and open my eyes.
A pair of glowing eyes stares back at me from the darkness. Then I scream. And run.
For all the stories, all the warnings, all the training, I am completely unprepared for this encounter.
I scream again when something cold grazes the back of my neck, and trip on a raised cobblestone, but I keep running.
Goddess, I don't want to make another bargain, but I don't want to die, and I'm not sure which fate is worse.
As if one of the gods heard my thoughts, the lamps at the edge of the bridge flicker to life.
Hope surges through me. Then the lights die again, and the hope dies with them.
“We remember you, empath,” a voice hisses in my left ear, scratchy and wrong.
I scream and stumble. This time, I go down hard, hands and knees slamming into the cobblestones. Adrenaline forces me to push up, to keep moving, but before I can rise, a cold weight crashes onto my back. I'm slammed face-first into the stone.
The weight presses down, pinning my chest, my knees, the side of my face against the cold, damp ground.
I can't move. I can't breathe. I thrash beneath it, trying to twist free, but the weight shifts and pins me harder.
The sob I've been holding breaks loose as a whimper.
Those glowing eyes appear inches from my face.
“You were ours to claim,” it rasps. “You are ours to claim.”
I try to refuse, to scream, but the sound comes out muffled and broken. Cold air slides down my throat, thick as smoke, choking off my voice. I brace for it to take my soul. It doesn't.
It just stares. The accounts say the Shroud creatures can be killed, so I assumed they were made of flesh, but the thing in front of me is all smoke and shadow. Formless except for the faint outline of a face. Soft features. Almost delicate. Almost beautiful.
My eyes fall shut as the cold sinks deeper. Into my spine. Around my heart. Through my lungs.
In the darkness behind my lids, I see everyone I love, flashing through my mind like pages torn from a book. Jordi's face. Hear Naima’s laugh. See Margot’s knowing smile.
Feel Arlo’s hand squeeze mine. Casimir’s arms wrap around me. Mother’s stern expression. The arguments we've had, the words I never got to say aloud. Freida’s fierce embrace. Anala’s warm smile.
The thoughts shatter and suddenly I feel myself being pulled upward, outward, somewhere else entirely. Weightless. Untethered. Floating in a void that has no beginning and no end. Then, a flash.
My eyes open. I’m no longer on the bridge. I’m standing before the Undying Flame in the Temple of Veritas, warmth flooding my face, two hands clasped in mine. Anala’s voice reaches me, distant but clear.
“Your gift is precious and singular. That’s why you must stay behind closed doors, away from outsiders who would use it to harm you.”
A memory. One I'd buried so deep I'd forgotten it existed.
“You were ours to claim,” the voice scrapes through it, dragging me back. “You are ours to claim.”
Another voice joins the first, layered over it like an echo. “We know what you are. What you hide. He unmade us with that gift.” Cold fingers trace my jaw, and I shudder. “But you... you, healer, could undo it. You could undo him.”
My heart seizes. They can't know that. No one knows that. Unless … unless they saw me heal Jordi? Ronnie did. But why not take me then? I open my mouth to scream, but the cold pressure on my lungs is too much.
“Ours,” the voices hiss in unison. "Ours to—”
Heat punctures through me suddenly. My eyes fly open and I gasp as the warmth travels through me, thawing my lungs and flooding my limbs with strength. The weight vanishes. I shove myself upright.
The lamps ahead flicker to life, wild and stuttering. I run toward them. A cold tendril grazes my neck, and a massive shadow swallows my own on the cobblestones below. I stumble again. My knees hit the ground hard. Before I can rise, something wraps around my torso and hauls me off my feet.
I scream and kick, thrashing against the grip, but it only tightens.
“Stop moving!” a voice roars, and the sound cuts through my panic like a blade.
My entire body goes taut. “Mal … Malachi?”
He grunts in response. I twist, trying to see him, but he has me pinned against his side like a sack of grain, my back pressed to his ribs, my feet dangling uselessly.
“I said stop moving!” He whirls us around, and my scream dies in my throat.
Three pairs of glowing eyes hover in the darkness before us.
“What are you doing?” My voice is raw, shredded from screaming. “You need to run!”