Chapter 34 #2
Lila stood, intent on finding her own way out. Eva was staring trance-like at Adrianna; Castor merely looked annoyed, as if he didn’t understand the gravity of the situation at all. And Beni…He looked like he might break into song, but only because he couldn’t abide tense situations.
Someone screamed in the back corner of the hall, and Lila couldn’t see what had happened through the wall of bodies now on their feet, but she heard the rumors soon enough.
Not moving, not moving, not moving. She’s not moving.
Her soul is gone.
Lila hauled Eva up before she could hear another word.
“We’re getting out of here.”
“But Adri—”
“Now!”
All at once, the hall exploded into chaos. Tables and chairs overturned. Platters crashed to the floor. Bodies crashed into bodies, some getting knocked off balance and thrown underfoot. Lila tried to weave a path through the crush, but Eva was dead weight behind her, pulling her backward.
“Eva, we have to leave!” Lila yelled as angels shoved her left and right.
Her best friend shook her head, her face pale as a sheet.
“Eva!” Lila tugged her into a shallow alcove; it offered little protection from the crowd but wasn’t next to the doors, at least. “Listen to me.” She cupped her friend’s terrified face.
“We have to leave or—” Lila cut herself off as an angel dropped right in front of them, blood soaking the chest of his white robes.
Eva tried to turn, but Lila gripped the back of her head and forced her to look at the wall.
The angel’s body twitched; it convulsed as though possessed by something other than itself. A shimmer of gold rose from the body, so brief that someone not watching intently may not have caught it. It rose, and then was gone.
Lila blanched.
Her soul is gone. Was that what the crowd had meant? A simple spark rising into the aether? A soul?
It couldn’t be. There was no way that…
But the angel’s motionless body and the crimson liquid staining a nearby warrior’s sword didn’t lie.
The warrior looked as shocked as Lila did at what his sword had wrought, but he had no time to react before the crowd rushed him.
They swallowed him up, stripping his sword from him.
Soon, the blade was held aloft by someone who, no doubt, knew less how to use it than he had.
Eva wrenched herself free of Lila’s grasp, but her annoyance quickly turned to horror.
“Is that…What’s wrong with…” she rasped, but didn’t finish either sentence.
Lila used her confusion to shove her forward and away from the scene. They couldn’t get out through the doors, but Lila could break a window. Pausing at a marble sculpture of a warrior angel, of all things, she tried to lift it up with no success.
“Help me!” she shouted at any angel who passed by.
It took a few tries, but some of them caught on to what she was doing and helped her heave the sculpture up.
Collectively, they tossed it into one floor-to-ceiling stained-glass window, and the green and blue glass shattered and rained down on the new path leading outside.
Angels poured through the opening, feet pounding over the glass. Lila dragged Eva by her wrist, determined to be one of the first to emerge into the courtyard.
Unfortunately, once there, she saw that the fighting had already spread.
Screams pierced Lila’s ears from every direction. The clang of swords and the roar of warriors rent the aether. The wood tables that Lila and Castor—mainly Lila—had carved so diligently thudded to the ground as they were thrown. They splintered and cracked on the marble and broke into pieces.
There was nowhere to go. The fighting was thick in front of the Great Hall, but in the aether above, it appeared even thicker.
Lila and Eva pressed themselves against the stone wall and huddled behind one overturned table.
Lila peeked over the top of it, keeping an eye on the warring angels.
She wondered if she should return for Castor and Beni, but she couldn’t be guaranteed to find them, and Eva was trembling beside her, looking unfit to go anywhere.
She couldn’t leave her there alone. Eva had been barely responsive since they’d seen the angel who’d lost his soul.
On the other hand, they couldn’t stay where they were. Armed angels were spilling into the courtyard in increasing numbers, and their safety would be forfeit if they didn’t get moving.
But to where? Where could they go?
Where could they go?
At that moment, Castor and Beni rushed through the opening in the glass. They rushed so fast that they didn’t see the sword till it was too late. Beni dodged, but Castor hesitated. The sword slashed his midsection, missing its intended target, who had sidestepped.
The sword-bearer dropped his blade immediately—Felix, one of the student warriors—and Lila waited for Castor to drop too, but he didn’t. He merely stood there as blood began spilling down his torso. He stared with emotionless eyes, and Felix stared back, equally stunned.
First blood. They were taught to fight until first blood.
Felix looked like he might reach out and comfort Castor, but Beni pushed his friend out of the way. He’d noticed Lila and Eva, and he guided Castor over to their hiding place. Castor argued with Beni every step of the way.
“I can’t stay here. I need to change. Look at this.”
“Castor, you need to sit down.”
“It’s ruined!” He flung out his arm, gesturing to the wreckage in the courtyard. “Look at it! It’s all ruined.”
“Castor, sit down,” Beni hissed, yanking his friend behind the barricade. Castor plopped down beside him and scowled. Blood flowed freely from his abdomen, soaking his robes; his wound was deep, cutting a wide path across his upper abdomen, but he appeared not to notice.
Lila knew that sword wounds didn’t always sting. Sometimes they caused a numbing sensation. Sometimes a warrior didn’t realize they had a wound until another warrior pointed it out.
Castor didn’t know how much danger he was in, but Lila sensed it.
She sensed how wrong all of this was. All warriors knew that wounds were to be knitted up with healing salve immediately after injury.
But Lila didn’t have healing salve, only the dread gnawing in her gut, growing at the pace of Castor’s blood loss.
As she bent over Castor’s wound, its metallic scent filled her nostrils, laced with something unpleasant.
She didn’t have words to describe the new scent, but she knew it wasn’t good.
Castor’s eyes were almost solid black, and his chest barely rose and fell with each rapid breath.
Besides that, he wasn’t himself. Castor wouldn’t care about their work being ruined. Was Castor about to lose his soul too?
No, no, no. She could not let that happen.
Despite everything he’d done, Castor was her responsibility.
He was her other half, and she should never have left him in the hall.
All she had to do was get to the Healing Chamber where she had her sword-fighting lessons.
They could get there if they could just get up.
If they could all get up and move and get out.
But first, Lila needed a sword. She needed a sword, and she could fix this. She could fix this. She needed healing salve and a sword.
“Lila.” Castor stared at her, fixated on her face. “They ruined our tables.”
“Tables?! What are you talking about?! Castor, you’re…you’re…” Lila wanted to scream in frustration. She didn’t even know what she wanted to say, but she knew he was losing too much blood, and he didn’t seem to notice. Or care.
Eva had gone white; she’d pressed herself against the wall as if she wanted to become one with it.
Beni looked concerned as he propped Castor up against his shoulder, but not as concerned as he should have been.
Maybe he hadn’t yet seen a body lose its soul.
She wondered when Castor would start twitching.
She had to move him before that happened.
And Castor was laughing! Weakly laughing, but still.
“You spent…so much time on this.” He chuckled, grazing his fingers over the carvings in the splintered wood. “Look at it.” He took a few shallow, rapid breaths. “I told you…it was a…waste of time.”
Finally, he’d said something that sounded like him, but Lila could not rejoice.
“Castor, shut it!” Lila peeked around their feeble fortress, and there, on the ground next to another twitching angel, lay a sword for the taking.
Before she could think, she darted out into the melee, dived for the sword, and scurried back with it in her hand.
Maybe she could get out by herself. Beni and Castor and Eva could stay hidden, and she could go to the Healing Chamber and…and…
That was assuming that the fighting wasn’t thickest in that area, where the warriors were sure to gather. Lila pounded the marble with the heel of her palm. The adrenaline that had fueled her earlier succumbed to her heightened anxiety.
She was out of ideas. There was nowhere to go. And she wasn’t even sure she could use the sword, trembling as she was.
No, no. She could do this. She’d taken lessons.
Lila’s grip on the sword’s hilt slipped. Her fingers were shaking too much to hold on. And besides that, they were slippery. Wet and sticky. There was so much blood. It soaked Castor’s robes and pooled on the ground and slicked Lila’s fingers.
What could she do? What could she do?
Hold him. The thought came immediately.
She’d never wanted to hold Castor in all of her existence—she’d hated herself for it, but it was true—but she couldn’t help but be moved upon seeing him so helpless. If his soul left his body, at least he’d have what he’d always wanted at the end.
They couldn’t easily shift him from Beni’s arms to Lila’s, so Lila took his clammy hand in her trembling ones. She pressed his hand between her palms and rubbed warmth into it.
The fighting was thinning out as more and more angels collapsed or fell from the aether. Some angels had tossed their swords away. Many of the angels who had drawn blood were in no better state than Eva, frozen or crying or kneeling over their fallen comrades.
It didn’t matter. Lila couldn’t move. She could only watch Castor’s gaze float down to his stomach; it lingered there, noticing his wound for the first time, then returned to her face.
“Li…” he began in a hoarse whisper. His eyes filled with fear. Drops of moisture collected on his brow.
“Castor, I…” I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
Castor didn’t reply, didn’t twitch, didn’t flinch, didn’t move a muscle, but suddenly, his eyes were vacant. Not mocking. Not cruel. Not demanding. Just…not.
Wide open, but seeing nothing.
Beni jostled Castor, attempting to wake him up. He shook him, and Castor moaned, but his eyes remained empty. Devoid of…himself.
And that’s when Lila saw it, rising through the aether like an errant flame.
A flicker of gold. There, and then gone.
“Castor!” Beni shook Castor’s limp body. “Castor! Come on, quit joking around!” He shook his body violently. Additional moans passed through Castor’s lips, but the light didn’t return to his eyes.
“Castor!” Beni cried. “Lila, you’ve got to do something. He doesn’t look right. Lila, you can help him. You’re supposed to help him!” he pleaded, but his voice was far away.
Lila wasn’t there either; she was floating above the scene, watching Beni panic and Eva remain still as stone save for the rise and fall of her chest. Lila lingered there, watching them, and at the same time, seeing only Castor’s vacant eyes, asking why she hadn’t done more to help him.
Why she had abandoned him. Why she’d never loved him the way she should have.
She’d made him like that. She’d made the light in his eyes fade. She’d rejected his heart, and now she’d made him lose his soul. The one thing that was hers to protect.
And the worst part was, he didn’t get angry. She stared into his eyes longer than she’d ever chosen to on her own, but they didn’t notice her at all. They didn’t demand or punish. And they should have. She deserved it.
Then she was back in her body, and everything hurt.
Lila had felt the sting of open wounds before, but this pain shot through her so fast and so fierce that she doubled over from it. A thousand swords sliced into her simultaneously, ribboning her body like she’d thought the Void would do.
She couldn’t breathe. Her ears rang. Her limbs gave out, and Beni’s terrified face, mouthing words she couldn’t hear, was the last image she saw before everything went black.