Chapter 33
LET IT RAIN
Iplunged through the air for the second time in as many days. The daggers tumbled from my grip. The world blurred. Wind screamed in my ears as my heart slammed against my ribs. The ground rose to meet me, fast, hungry, and inevitable.
Panic scraped up my throat. Wings, I demanded of the water inside me. Need wings now!
Nothing. No otherworldly strength. Not even a hint of a glow. Only burning air and the taste of failure, as if the Ember had been snuffed out for good already.
Strong arms caught me mid-air, the fragrance of sandalwood and orchids filling my nose. Jasher. Alive.
“Stop falling from high places,” he said, a study of anguish.
Instinct. I slung my arms around him, holding on. He flared his wings, jerking us up before we crashed. On impact, our knees gave out. We rolled over the ground.
The second we stopped, I lunged for a fallen sword. My gaze captured his as he popped up. He didn’t avoid the visual tether.
“You were right.” He shouted the words over the roar of battle. With a toss of his axes, he removed the heads of two monstra preparing to blast me with fire. “Words require action. Today, I prove mine.”
Burned too many times, I added bricks to the wall around my heart. I had a plan. I wouldn’t waver. I’d promised.
Jasher took out three more monstra. I shot past him, joining the fray.
The battlefield swallowed me, monstra on every side.
They poured into the valley in waves of fire and claw, their shrieks tearing at the sky.
Ash rained down like black snow, stinging my eyes.
Somewhere ahead, I knew Ahav fought in his golden armor, a living sun amid the carnage, drawing the enemy’s fury.
Using skills I’d gained in my other lives, I set off to find him. Monstra after monstra fell to my blade. Jasher trailed me, guarding my back as Elowen had done in my vision. He took every wound meant for me.
I didn’t let myself care. Just a trick. The long con.
We carved our way forward. My breath turned ragged, and my muscles screamed. I remembered the moves, thanks to what I’d seen in the Ring, but my body wasn’t as honed as it had been in past battles.
Fire scorched the sleeve of my gown. I hissed but didn’t slow. There. Ahav. He stood just a few paces ahead of me, making his way up a hill, leading many monstra away from the battle. Exactly as I’d foreseen.
He still intended to die.
“I need you here,” I shouted, surging forward. “Live!”
A claw sliced my midsection, pain blooming hot and bright. Poison? The heat flooded my bloodstream. Keep going, keep going. But the world tilted, and I went down hard.
The ground knocked the air from my lungs. My vision blurred, stars bursting behind my eyes. I tasted blood.
“Moriah!” Jasher shouted.
I tried to focus, tried to push up. Failed. My vision dimmed, and my arms trembled, strength draining fast. The sounds of battle warped, stretching and echoing, as if I were underwater again.
A flicker of light brightened inside me. A coil of new strength, the Ember stirring beneath my skin. Prickles. I held my breath. Was this the moment I defeated the monstra?
But no. My vision cleared, yes, and my thoughts sharpened. Nothing else. I gritted my teeth and climbed to unsteady legs, scanning for Jasher.
Horror hit. Four monstra, each biting into a limb, pulled his body taut, stretching him to the max, attempting to rip him apart.
He fought but only bled faster, their teeth sinking deeper.
No, no, no. I stumbled forward, desperate to reach him. I couldn’t trust him, but I refused to watch him die. Just couldn’t…couldn’t watch it. But my feet were dragging, as heavy as boulders. I wouldn’t reach him in time.
The air shimmered beside him. Elowen shot from it, sword already in motion. Fierce and heartbreakingly calm, she cut down a monstra, then another. She didn’t look at me, but concentrated solely on Jasher and the beasts doing their best to kill him.
No! I’d seen this. Knew what came next. She’d sworn to me she would stay away.
Swallowing bitterness, I forced my limbs to move. To carry me across the battlefield. Too slow, too slow! Reaching for her…
She moved swifter than thought, swifter than my vision, killing more beasts as they came. Then another appeared. He wasn’t the same as the others. He was bigger. Double Ian’s size, with scales a strange, glittering silver-black. Exactly as I’d foreseen.
His sinister grin sent cold shivers down my spine. His silver eyes glittered.
She faced him and stopped, just stopped, as if frozen. He looked past her—at me. Time slowed to a crawl.
Never glancing away, he blew a stream of silver fire straight through my sister’s chest, leaving a steaming, fist-sized hole behind.
The creature winked at me as she fell, then vanished in a puff of silver smoke.
Time picked up speed. “Elowen!” I dropped, too, dragging my useless legs, finally reaching her. Hands shaking, I gathered my precious sister close. “Tell me you brought serpens-rosa.” She must have. I’d warned her about this.
Her blood poured over me, warm but cooling fast and changing from scarlet to black to fading gray.
“Wouldn’t help,” she said. “No longer…works for… me.”
Her scars, I realized, shaking my head. No.
“Mom with Daniel. Memory wiped.” She spoke between panting breaths, her grip on me weakening, her eyes desperate. “Malkom key.”
“What was that creature? Why did you come back?” I sobbed, cradling her. “You swore—you swore—”
Her lips curved faintly, already pale. “Didn’t return… for you. Kept word.”
Tears streamed down my face, blurring her features. But though the tears glowed, they didn’t absorb into her skin. Not as they’d done with Ahav. Why? Why, why, why? “Why won’t it absorb?”
“Can’t. Already died. Not twice.”
“Yes! Yes twice.” With my free hand, I rubbed the moisture in, trying to force the absorption. “This isn’t fair,” I cried. “Who? Who did you come back for, if not me?”
Her glassy gaze flicked to Jasher, still fighting, still standing. “Him.”
The tears fell faster, harder. Because…because she couldn’t survive this. No one could. Smoke was curling from the edges of the wound—a wound that was spreading, eating through her. The hole continued to widen.
“Saw his death. Not mine.” She laughed a little.
“Just wanted one of us… to have a chance. Love.” Her voice faded.
“Let it…let it be you.” She reached up weakly and fisted my shirt just above my heart.
“Malkom key. Sin lock. Tell Mom. Sisters until…” Her arm fell.
Her head lolled to the side. Her body went slack…
and crumbled into ash, those silver flames eating through her entire body, leaving me with nothing.
“No. Elowen. Elowen!” I slammed my fist into the ground, crying. Sobbing. “Stay. Please. This isn’t the end. It can’t be the end. I’ll fix it.”
A ball of heat uncoiled in the center of my chest. The Ember, stirring. “Is this what you demand of me?” I screeched. “Everything?”
Around me, the world stopped. Sound folded into a dull, distant hush, the battlefield dissolving into smears of meaningless color and motion. There was here, now, me with the Ember but no Elowen. Terrible stillness occupied the space where her breath should’ve been.
We’d reached a crossroads, the Ember and I.
“I’d only just found her again, and now I’m supposed to say goodbye forever?” My chest caved inward, ribs compressing around a scream with nowhere to go.
Going cold all over, I folded over. Sobbing harder. “Her loss is too much. The price is too high. Give her to me, and I’ll do whatever you want. Anything!”
I heard the answer in my heart. Give me everything, and I’ll give it back.
Give her, get her back? “She’s been given.” I leveled fast, my spine shooting straight. Heat infiltrated the cold, and my tears dried. Light flickered in me, each spark unleashing a fresh tide of determination and strength. Truth. “Now give her back.”
My beloved sister hadn’t died so I could fold in on myself. She hadn’t bled out in my arms so Ian could walk away smiling.
More light. Staying longer. Growing brighter. Brighter still. But not igniting. Not yet.
Understand later. Fight now.
For Elowen? “Yes,” I breathed out. I rose to my feet. “Ignite.”
No response. Not anything I heard. But the world rushed back in—sound, motion, enemies. Royal soldiers were losing ground, falling one after the other, but I wasn’t cowed.
I would save Ahav, get Elowen back, and then we would finish it.
Strong hands gripped my shoulders. “Moriah,” Jasher said, his voice breaking. He pulled me against his chest, shielding me as fire blasted where I’d been kneeling only a split second before. “I found Ian. Come.”
Trust him?
No.
Jasher pulled me forward, the heavy weight fading from my feet with every step. He steered me away from the hill. Away from Ahav.
I wrenched free and darted toward my father. I would take him to Mom. But tell her about Sin and Malkom, as Elowen instructed? No. Mom was pregnant with me. She had no memory of this life. How could I destroy her peace?
But how could I deny my sister her dying wish?
My hands fisted. And what if Malkom was the monster who’d killed Elowen? I did not want my mother facing such a beast.
“It’s too late, Moriah.” Anguish coated Jasher’s words as he followed me, killing anyone who made a play in my direction.
“Ahav entered the Ring of Truth with me. Told me he’s seen the end of the monstra, but the price is his life.
A royal sacrifice made willingly. There’s no other way to save his family or people.
” He beheaded a monstra. “He told me his death is the reason you can develop golden armor. It’s how the Ember sparks. And spreads.”
“No. He’s wrong.” I couldn’t lose two loved ones in a single day. Let me be the sacrifice. If I died, so be it. Maybe I was always supposed to take the monstra down with me.
But though I strained within, the Ember did not ignite. It did, however, speak again. Understand later. Fight now.