47. Chapter 47
Vaelin blinked at the broken glass scattered across the floor of the bedchamber, momentarily stunned. His body had gone from a heated inferno to ice in seconds, the thrum of his pulse still beating hard in his neck. Then the screams reached his ears, jarring him back into movement.
His hand slipped from Isla’s hair, grabbing her hand.
“We need to move,” he clipped, his voice still husky with the cooled embers of desire.
Her eyes were wide with alarm as she snatched her blade from where it laid propped against the wall.
Vaelin reached for the hilt of his own sword out of habit, cursing himself for leaving it in his own chambers.
After all they’d learned in that damn library chamber, he’d been all but feral with the need to see Isla, to be near her, but had wanted to give her a moment to herself.
He’d returned to his own rooms, tossing his sword belt and vest away and parking his ass in a chair where he’d managed to make himself sit and stare at the door for fifteen minutes before his feet had been moving down the hallway and then he’d been knocking on her door and she’d been opening it and—
Another scream rent the air and he shook his head, growling. The winds roared outside, but they didn’t sound… right. He reached for the door, glancing to Isla. She nodded and he thrust it open, pulling her into the hallway.
It was chaos. Scholars spilled from the rooms into the stone hallway, some running, some attempting to stand their ground, as shadows seeped through the broken windows like inky sap, forming into vaguely human-like shapes, but contorted, blurred…
the Hollowborne. Vaelin’s stomach pitched and he tugged Isla closer.
The shadows attacked, ruthless, running anyone in their path through with strange, shadowy blades.
Vaelin turned, dragging a wide-eyed Isla in his wake.
He wrenched her roughly through the doorway to his own bed chamber, dropping her hand only long enough to hastily buckle his baldric and sword belt and yank on his leather jerkin, not bothering to secure it.
He snatched a dagger off the table, sheathing it at his waist and picked up his sword.
“The others—” Isla started.
“We’re here,” came Evric’s voice from the hallway, tight with tension, his expression grim.
“Drae's gone,” Aurelia said from behind him, something like concern lacing her words.
“Who?” Vaelin asked.
“The Shifter,” said Isla.
“Good,” said Evric, his tone savage.
“We need to move,” Vaelin commanded.
Isla’s chest tightened with concern for her sister. “Lyra— I have to—”
Rising screams cut her off. Closer now. They moved into the hallway as a unit, blades drawn and hearts thumping with adrenaline. Blood painted the walls.
Some Scholars died screaming in their rooms, while others burst from their chambers, steel in hand, attempting to face the enemy.
A fae Novice wielding a blade swung wildly at the Hollowborne that bore down on them, screaming in defiance.
Vaelin watched as the steel sailed through the shadow, leaving no marks, no trace.
The creature laughed, struck almost lazily, and the Novice fell like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Blood sprayed in an arc across the stone wall.
“There's nothing you can do for them! Come with me!”
Next to him, Isla sagged with relief at the sound of Lyra’s voice, clenching his forearm hard enough to leave nail marks. There was no time to spare. They ran after Lyra’s retreating form.
She led them down a short side passage, pressing on a mechanism that opened a covert passageway. Together, they slipped into the dimly lit passage. Swallowing the bile that rose in his throat and the heavy ache of guilt in his chest, Vaelin pulled the door shut on the screams they left behind.
Together, they jogged through the darkness, barely lit by the flicking lamp Lyra held. Isla’s heart beat so loudly she was sure everyone could hear it in the hollow stone passageway. Minutes that felt like hours stretched, until they arrived at the end of the corridor.
With Evric’s help, Lyra pushed the heavy door open, and they emerged in an alley outside the Scholars’ building, close to The City’s great wall.
The heat abruptly blanketed them all, like an unexpected weight.
Isla’s eyes darted left and right, wincing against the spray of sand, the muscles of her fingers protesting the iron tight grip with which she held her sword. Sweat began to bead on her forehead.
“This way,” Lyra panted.
She led them up a set of stairs carved directly into the sandstone that reached the top of the wall, where Asmarin surveyed the carnage from a tower, her expression grave.
Isla cast her gaze out across The City. Gate guards scurried along the wall and throughout the winding roads of the city, like rats in a maze.
The shadows were everywhere, as though someone had spilled an inkpot from the sky.
The Hollowborne had seeped into every inch, every breath within the city.
“Hold your weapons aloft!” Asmarin yelled over the din of the battle.
Her golden eyes sparked, and with a flick of her wrist, an astonishing clap of thunder sounded overhead, forked lightning reaching hungrily for the Dunovarians’ spears.
Isla watched as the lightning wrapped around their weapons, pulsing with power.
Nearby, a guard thrust his lightning spear deep into the chest of a Hollowborne soldier.
The creature snarled - almost animal - recoiling at the contact as a puff of smoke rose from where the weapon had made contact, as though it had been burned.
Isla took a sharp intake of breath, hardly daring to hope.
“Will any magically imbued blade hurt them?” Vaelin asked.
“Yes. But it will not kill them,” Asmarin warned. “Only wound.”
Evric's own eyes sparked, lines of rage-imbued hunger carved into his face as his veins lit beneath his skin. “That'll do.” Ropes of flame flared to life, winding around each of their blades.
Isla tightened her grip on her own now-blazing weapon, but the hope that had flared in her chest quickly dulled as she cast her eyes out across The City.
There were so many. Shadows bled into The City over parts of the crumbling rise. Unarmed civilians were dying, screams rising as the shadows rolled through the streets like an unrelenting nightmare.
“We have to do something,” Isla said.
“They must be lured from the city,” Asmarin said. “There is too much for them to feed on here.”
“How?”
Asmarin looked at her meaningfully. “I believe they are drawn to the memories. When you unlocked the shard, it called to them.”
She felt Vaelin stiffen beside her, the realization dawning on her a moment later.
“It’s me,” Isla said. “I’m the bait.”
“Fuck that!” Evric grunted.
But Isla was already moving.
“Isla!”
She turned to see Lyra hurrying after her. “No— absolutely not,” Isla snapped.
“But I have something to tell—”
“Stay here, Lyra,” Isla snapped over her shoulder, “You can’t help with this.” Lyra halted as though she’d been slapped. Mingled hurt and anger flashed in her eyes as she snapped her mouth shut.
Isla turned and ran, swallowing the swell of guilt in her chest — she'd deal with the fallout from that later. For now, at least, Lyra would be safe within the walls of The City, where Asmarin could keep her safe.
The others kept pace with her, Vaelin at her side.
He didn't try to convince her to stop, or tell her this was a bad idea. Though, she wasn’t entirely sure she could have stopped even if she wanted to.
It felt as though she was being pulled along by some unseen force, following a bone-deep certainty she couldn't put words to. Her gaze met Vaelin’s, eyes shining with meaning.
“Vaelin, the vision—”
“I know,” was all he said. A solid presence at her side, unquestioning.
“Move! Move!” came Evric’s call at their back, and Vaelin pushed them forward, his wind lending them an extra burst of speed as a building came crumbling down where they had been moments earlier.
Together, the four of them moved through the streets, Isla desperately trying to block out the screams of the injured and dying.
They hugged what was left of the city wall, ducking as earth-shattering booms sounded, sending crumbled sandstone cascading down the ruined walls where towers had fallen. Lightning flashed overhead.
Vaelin took the lead as they moved quickly, doing their best to stay undetected for as long as possible.
Overhead, lightning-streaked arrows flew, meeting their mark in the shadowy figures that screamed in fury.
Isla’s heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest as she gasped for breath.
They careened to a halt, Vaelin peering around the rubble of a fallen building.
“There,” he muttered quietly. “There’s an opening where this portion of the wall has come down. We can make it through, then draw them out into the dunes.”
Lightning flashed again, a deafening thunder clap close behind it.
Isla’s ears rang with the sound of the storm that raged right on top of them.
Another flash of lightning lit the Hollowborne in sharp relief as the shadowy figures seemed to ebb and flow, human shaped, but wrong. They were terrifying.
Isla glanced around. Across The City, the gate guards wielded their lightning wrought spears valiantly, struggling to push the Hollowborne back, the shadows hissing at any contact with the magically imbued blades. But the Dunovarians’ ranks were dwindling, weakening. Bodies lay in the streets.
Isla swallowed the bile rising in her throat, her grip tightening on her sword, the rope of flame still writhing around it. “They can't hold them off,” she said, urgency tinging her voice. “We need to go now.”
Hurriedly, she looked to Evric and Aurelia. “I don't know how this ends," she said. “You know that I saw us facing a battle in the sands — that's it. I have no guarantees for you. No promises. I get it, if you'd rather stay back.”
Evric smirked, flipping his own flaming sword in his hand almost playfully. A ball of fire kindled to life in his free hand. “And miss all the fun?" His eyes sparked, veins alight, fire made flesh.
Next to him, Aurelia's eyes glowed with her own power and the earth around them seemed to shudder in response. She clenched a flame wreathed dagger in her left hand. "We're with you, Isla."
And then Isla looked to Vaelin, who she knew would be at her side, undeterred by the outrageous odds against them.
He would run headlong into the unknown alongside her — after all, they'd been doing nothing but that since they first met.
His eyes, too, glowed with power, the ring around the striking, pale blue a molten silver.
But there was more than just magic shining there, and Isla's heart tugged toward him despite the dark reality they faced.
"Let’s move," Vaelin said.
Evric and Aurelia moved, sprinting for the opening in the damaged wall.
Taking a deep breath, Isla steeled herself and made to follow.
But suddenly, she was spinning, Vaelin’s hand gripping her elbow as he crushed her to his chest and kissed her fiercely.
Somehow, she managed not to drop her sword as she clutched at the front of his armour reflexively with her free hand.
This kiss wasn't like their last, explorative and thorough — it was desperate, like he sought to pour all of his thoughts and emotions into her before they faced the impossible. He buried his hand in her hair at the back of her head.
Then he tore his mouth away, pressing his forehead firmly to hers. "You will not die," he growled. A commander’s order.
And then he released her and together, they ran.