29. Chapter 29
Vaelin's stomach pitched as he watched Aurelia slip on the smooth stone, slick from the mist, throwing her arms out to the sides in an attempt to counteract the sudden loss of balance.
Isla made a strangled cry from behind him.
Aurelia screamed. Evric lunged forward, as though he might grab for her.
"DON'T!" Vaelin roared, a furious panic edging his voice.
His yell thundered through the Pass, echoing off the mountains. Evric stopped in his tracks, dropping to his knees, his fingers curling into fists.
Time seemed to slow as Aurelia teetered, her body leaning at a dangerous angle. She let out a sound of mingled terror and frustration as she attempted to stop the motion of her body.
Power ripped from Vaelin.
His wind formed a solid wall around Aurelia, allowing her to catch her balance long enough to steady herself.
The corners of his vision darkened and he blinked furiously, pushing away the sting of burnout as he pushed his magic to its limit.
He watched Aurelia as though his will alone might assure her safe passage.
She took the last few steps to the edge of the bridge and stepped onto the safety of the plateau, where Evric pulled her roughly into his arms.
Vaelin’s lungs screamed as he released a shaky breath, flexing his hands at his sides. Relief washed over him like a flood as he fought to calm his breathing.
He looked to the bridge before him, gauging the remaining distance. Not far now. A handful of steps.
Evric called his name suddenly and Vaelin's eyes snapped up to where concern rippled across his friend’s features as he pointed over Vaelin's shoulder.
His blood ran cold as he slowly turned his head to see Isla, more than twenty paces behind him, visibly shaking where she stood, frozen to the spot. She stared at the mists that swirled around her hungrily, snaking around her ankles like tendrils of smoke.
For a moment he found himself paralyzed by fear. She was too far back. When had she stopped moving? Gods, why had she stopped moving?
"Isla," he called carefully.
Slowly - so slowly - she lifted her eyes to meet his. Her terror was so thick he felt like he could touch it, even at this distance.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice cracking, and he felt like the air had been punched from his lungs.
He turned before he was consciously aware of doing so.
He took one step towards her, the edges of his vision darkening again and he halted, growling at the reminder that he had next to nothing left.
Exhaustion pulled at him mercilessly as he fought to maintain his shield, holding it tight around both himself and Isla, even at this distance.
“Keep moving,” he called, but she remained where she was, her panic palpable. Vaelin clenched his jaw, squeezing his fists so tightly his fingers began to ache. In this state, it would take little more than a light breeze to knock her off balance.
“I can’t,” she whimpered, and his chest clenched painfully.
He could see her shaking. Trembling. Tears slipped down her face and his own throat burned, and in that moment, he realized that if she were to fall, he’d jump after her. The certainty of it stunned him into momentary stillness.
She shook her head at him, and he knew she was telling him to leave her, to forget her. He nearly laughed at the impossibility of that request.
“Stand. Still.” His order was low and steady, a demand that would not be refused. “Breathe.”
With effort, he turned away from her and swiftly covered the remaining distance on the bridge. His knees threatened to buckle in relief as his feet hit the comfort of the broad expanse of ground now surrounding him, but he thrust the feeling aside.
He met Aurelia and Evric’s eyes with a furious intensity.
“Heal me,” he barked at Aurelia. “Now.”
Isla watched him cross the remainder of the bridge and step through the thick fog on to the safety of the plateau, a combination of relief and regret swirling in her chest. She wanted to focus on it, untangle it, tease apart its meaning, but it fought for purchase with the sheer terror that seemed to have replaced her blood.
She had looked down. She hadn’t meant to. And now she couldn’t move.
The mist wound around her ankles like snakes, and she swore she could feel it revelling in her terror.
It drank in her fear greedily, as though it was starving.
The fog seemed to have thickened below her, and for that she was grateful.
When she fell, she wouldn’t see anything but grey.
She raised a shaking hand and watched as the mist coiled up and around her arm, slipping around her neck with a gentle caress.
“Isla.”
His voice threaded through the mists like a song and she blinked rapidly, as if to clear her head. Eyes ringed with that ethereal glow, Vaelin stood before her.
No. That couldn’t be right.
He had made it across. She’d watched him step on to the safety of the plateau just before the fog had swallowed him whole. How could he be here now?
Had she already fallen?
“What are you doing?” she asked softly. She felt dazed, as though in a dream, as she lifted a trembling hand and pressed it gently to his chest. Her eyes widened as her skin met the solid warmth of him. His own hand covered hers, dwarfing it entirely.
He was real. He had come back for her.
She raised her eyes to his and shook her head, at a loss for words. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop. Apologizing.” He snapped, closing the last of the distance between them.
He captured her chin between his thumb and forefinger, gently tipping her head back as he dropped his forehead to meet hers.
The warmth of his skin bled into her own and she felt her eyes flutter closed as tears slipped down her cheeks.
“You can do this,” he assured her, his breath ghosting across her face. “You are far too stubborn to die.”
Her skin tingled as she felt his magic surge anew, reinforcing the shield he’d wrapped around them like an embrace. A deafening quiet descended, as though the air around them - the world itself - had completely stopped.
She kept her eyes closed, letting the cadence of his voice calm her breathing, her trembling.
“Focus,” he murmured, threading his fingers through her own, their hands still tucked protectively against his chest, between their bodies. “Feel your feet on the ground. Feel your weight on each toe, in your heels. I've got you. I won't let you fall.”
She took a shaky breath, feeling an echoing hitch in his own as they filled their lungs together.
And then the mountains were gone.
Heat slammed into her from all sides, the wind angrily whipping her hair loose of its braid.
Sand scraped her cheeks, and she threw an arm up to protect her eyes, squinting.
She stood in the endless, shifting sands, the crimson sun a glowing ball of fire on the horizon.
Lightning flashed in the skies above the city walls and a tendril of glowing, golden light wound its way around her right arm and between her fingers.
Isla stared at her palm in wonder as she held her hand out before her.
Metal clanged, shouts carving their way through the wind.
Isla turned, spotting dark figures dotting the dunes.
They moved like smoke cloaked in darkness, hooded and ominous, seeming to float along the sands.
At her side, her friends stood grim and determined.
A foreboding warrior laughed darkly, fine, dark hairs sprouting from his burnished skin, red eyes glowing with challenge.
Evric held fire in the palms of his hands, liquid flame lighting his veins beneath his skin.
Blonde hair streamed behind Aurelia as she sunk her hand deep into the sands, drawing power, shifting the sands at will.
The fatigue that pulled at her eyes had Isla’s chest tightening.
They were already so tired. All of them.
The wind shifted, a powerful gust blowing the sands away from them, and Isla turned to Vaelin, sensing him there.
He stood at her side, his steel at the ready.
A hurricane of wind blew around them, Vaelin’s eyes glowing with power as the endless wave of shadows bore down upon them.
His eyes slid to hers, a burning intensity there that had nothing to do with the magic he wielded.
The corner of his lip quirked, but his jaw stayed tight. They hadn’t had enough time.
A sudden call sent Isla spinning, squinting at a slight figure that sprinted through the sands from outside the crumbling walls of The City.
The wind snatched greedily at her robes, tearing the hood from her head.
Her light brown hair was woven into a tight braid that crowned her head, her green eyes set with determination. Isla’s eyes.
“Lyra, no!” Isla screamed, the wind drowning out her voice.
A fork of lightning split the sky, striking the rise, an earth-shattering crack cutting through the winds.
The ancient stone wall shuddered, then crumbled just as Lyra passed beneath it, sending a plume of sand and smoke into the air.
Isla screamed and a voice rose above the din, muffling all other sounds.
“Beginnings and endings and unwritten futures. You must seek the shards. They are waiting.”
The biting cold of the mountains slammed back into Isla as her eyes snapped open, staring straight into Vaelin’s.
She swallowed, pulse racing, feeling like she was seeing him for the first time.
He looked just as shocked as she did, the glow in his irises still there.
Somehow, he’d managed to hold his shield in place despite the vision that had swallowed them both.
A vision.