25. The Call
The Call
Flora screamed at the top of her lungs at the pain in her neck and chest, burning as though salt and lemon were poured into her wounds. Slowly, she opened one eye as the tingling pain receded. The world was quiet, her ears muffled beneath the water.
The fading darkness of early morning cloaked the roaring ledge above the spring, the glow of the night lilies beginning to dim. Winged creatures dropped injured bodies gently into the cool crystal water from their talons.
Men and women groaned all around, some aiding the injured and some injured themselves. Those who were already healed dragged to the bank all those who had died too soon to be saved, either with their hands or by their teeth.
“This one hasn’t moved,” a man said, shading his eyes and hovering over the body just downstream of Flora. Flora turned to look.
“Davy?” Flora cried. Drops of crimson slipped from her brother’s mouth to the stained water below. For a brief moment, his eyes dilated, and a weak smile cracked across his face. His hand squeezed around hers.
“... sorry, bean,” he coughed, shedding more blood. His pain-stricken smile slowly faded and the darks of his eyes began to shrink until they had nearly disappeared into the stormy sapphire.
“Davy!” Flora yelled, shaking him as she pulled his arm. “Davy, wake up!”
She demanded that he move.
She demanded that he breathe.
He was messing with her, right? He was holding his breath, laughing on the inside until Flora came just short of tears. But this was too cruel of a joke, even for Davy.
Tears began to fall, streaking down to Lunara’s water.
One by one, they met the water with a flash of dim blue light, diffusing beneath the clouds of red like fading stars.
Flora watched her brother, and she waited.
But still, he didn’t flinch. Davy’s body remained all too still, his eyes all too empty.
Davy couldn’t die. Not when he was never supposed to be here in the first place.
The tired shadow of the man stood above them. He scooped his scar-streaked arms beneath Davy, whispering gingerly to Flora that she had to let go, and that he needed to make room for the others.
“Leave him,” someone ordered. Flora burned with anger at the sound of his voice. “There’s room in the brook above and the stream below.” The man with the scarred arms stepped away, his gray hair wet against his neck as he shielded his eyes from the mist of the falls.
“All injured scythe-blood soldiers remain downstream of this point!” a voice that must have been Aria’s commanded. “Pure-bloods are to be brought upstream to minimize infection!”
Flora grunted in pain as she sat up, gripping the bloody hole in the side of her dress where the skin had healed. The wound was gone, but the sharp tingling remained.
“Flora, you’re alive…” she heard Noec say.
“Where were you?” she demanded through her teeth, seething as she tasted salt on her lips. She rose to her feet in the shallow water.
Noec’s clothes were torn and stained, just like hers. He sloshed closer, wrapping his arms around her as she remained stiff.
“I can’t believe you’re alive…” he murmured, relief and guilt grating his soft voice. Then, almost inaudibly, he whispered, “I’m so sorry, Flora. I should’ve been there sooner…”
She couldn’t move. Of all the stupid things Noec had done, this was the most cruel. Where was he? The bell had rung. He was supposed to be there to save her, not Davy.
Noec’s arms stayed firmly wrapped around her as his breath slowed. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, his voice cracked and pathetic.
“It was supposed to be you,” Flora said in a coarse monotone. His tight grip around her fell limp.
Now, something vile and suffocating swirled within her.
For everything Noec was and everything he pretended to be, Flora hated him.
She shoved the boy with the scratched face and tattered clothes away, and he fell back into the water.
Flora glared down at Noec, and she felt no pity as he looked back with his hand over his mouth.
Red webbed through the whites of his eyes like hairline cracks, remnants of tears that hadn’t had a moment to dry.
He deserved those tears. He deserved every one.
“Flora…” Noec mumbled as he crawled back to his feet.
She turned and stepped out of the water, heading straight toward the stone path to the Shrouded Village.
“Flora, please,” he called after her. “I got there as fast as I could.” His words meant nothing, and her grief tasted more like bitter resentment.
“Don’t follow me,” she commanded coldly as her bare feet halted on the cold stone. “Don’t you have bleeding soldiers to ferry from Asilia?” She heard the tapping of his shoes falter, and then the crackle of fire behind her.
“I’m sorry,” Noec pleaded, his low voice heavy with despair. Moments later, the rustling of wings signaled his departure.
Flora stopped in front of the tattered flag of Asilia, swaying weakly above the crumbling entrance to her village.
Roofs were torn off of homes beyond the open gateway, and blood streaked the grass from the assault on the villagers.
As Flora walked, her eyes swept over the scene at Crescent Creek—people in pain wading through the shallow stream in wraps and bandages, human scythes gliding in and out, placing more injured soldiers and civilians, and red, red all around.
The village she called home was painted red.
“Look at what I’ve done to our village, Sona,” Flora muttered low as she stared out at the chaos.
For a fleeting moment, she believed Sona had deserved to die for her foolish experiments.
For another, she believed Davy deserved the same for volunteering himself.
Then, as a chilling calm settled over her, she realized she deserved death most of all.
It wasn’t because of Noec that Davy threw himself at the Shadowkeeper, it was because of her.
It was because of her that the Scytherax had turned to such aggression, and, if Aria was right, it was because of her that they had murdered Sona.
Flora sat at the riverbank, her legs dangling playfully in the deeper current as streams of crimson drifted by. Her hand slid into her bag, and a twisted grin crept across her face as her fingers brushed against cold metal.
Her gaze fell to the red stains marring her torso.
The grin remained, even as a burst of hysterical laughter escaped her lips.
Around her, misery reigned. Men and women scrambled out of the shallow spring, making room for the next wave of wounded with barely a moment to mourn bodies of the too-far-gone piling up along the bank.
How stupid they all looked, she thought.
How stupid they must seem in the eyes of “Lunara”.
Flora lay back on the ground, her legs still submerged, cackling uncontrollably as the chirping of morning birds filled the air, the clouds floofing like cotton candy with the colors of the rising sun.
Somewhere far beyond that daytime blue, the shadowed moon was hiding safely in the sky, resting peacefully as the world burned below.
Flora’s laughter turned painful as it left her breathless, her chest burning with the force of it.
Hatred bubbled up between breaths, a madness slowly consuming her misery.
Florabelle swallowed what remained of her false hopes and rose to her feet. She flicked away a tear and scoffed at her own ineptitude, her own weakness. The water didn’t save him. Tears didn’t save him. What use was crying now?
She counted the dead lightly on her fingers as she made her way back to the spring, drawn by a soft humming in her ears toward the southward path.
Davy’s body was absent from the pile by Lunara’s Spring, so they hadn’t thrown him away just yet.
But, she had seen his empty eyes. Any more time spent soaking in that water was merely for show.
As Flora passed, she glanced up to see a distinctly wide wingspan gliding overhead, carrying a new bundle of dying soldiers on his back and in his talons.
Her feet slid along the path she had walked only once before, feeling as though she were drawn to a siren song.
Darkness enveloped the overgrown stones ahead.
She heard the giggling of three children as they emerged from the woods from their misadventure, standing where she had admired the spring for the first time.
Their phantoms dissolved as her fingers grazed the rough bark of the trees, a soft, forlorn chuckle escaping her lips.
Around her, clusters of lilies speckled the landscape like lightning bugs, their ethereal glow creating a surreal dance of light and shadow on the dark canopy above.
Flora bent down and plucked a delicate, glowing flower.
Turning it over, she studied its fragile beauty, a shard of her soul in her palm.
It crumbled between her fingers as she crushed it in her fist, and a smile of manic delight spread across her face as she gazed up at the fractured light.
“Flora!” a harsh voice called through the damp air.
It was a scythe's guttural tone. She ducked under a patch of large leaves against a tree, stifling her laughter with her hand.
Peeking around the edge of a black leaf, she spotted him flying overhead, bronze color catching what remained of the sunlight that trickled in from the entrance to the Forest. “Flora!” he shouted again, his tone growing desperate.
An idea plucked at her mind.
“Noec!” she called out. His wings faltered mid-flight at the sound of her voice.
He latched to a tree and spun around, his eyes reflecting with the green light as they searched the forest below.
Flora waved the remains of her crushed flower in the air, the glowing fluid oozing down her wrist as her other hand slipped into her bag.