Chapter 42 #2
But I can’t tear my eyes away from Mae’s sister, who is struggling with her footing. She squats on the cliff’s edge, taking one foot over at a time.
Then, she slips.
She tumbles over the edge.
Mae screams, a gut-wrenching cry.
The coil of rope is eaten up inch by inch as the woman falls through the air.
“Hold on,” Dorian shouts. But when her sister’s rope pulls taut, it tugs so hard on Mae’s, it unwedges her hook from the rock. She plummets too. My shrieks fill the air. I lose all feeling in my body.
Dorian’s lost all his color. His eyes are wide with horror, and his knuckles go white on the cliff face. The weight of two people is about to tug like an anchor on his cord.
“He can’t hold all three on just his hook,” Caelus says. “It’s going to pull him too.”
When Dorian’s cord pulls taut, I shut my eyes.
The loud screams fade, growing farther and farther away.
Serafina cries.
I hear a distant wail, an animalistic wail, and it shreds my insides.
Then, there’s silence. The kind that feels like death in the bones.
Caelus presses my head to his chest.
“No!” I break, a cry tearing its way through me so violently I shudder.
I can’t open my eyes. I can’t bear to see if Dorian’s cord snapped or if he was pulled off the mountainside with them.
Serafina cries harder, and I fumble to cover her mouth before realizing there is no one here to hurt her.
I pick her up and hold her tightly against me.
She’s stiff at first, never having been hugged before.
But I press her head against me, hoping she feels how much she means to me.
Hoping she feels safe. I place her tiny arms around my neck, and she begins to hold on to me tightly. I plant a defiant kiss in her hair.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Caelus presses his forehead against mine. “But we have to move.”
I nod, unable to find words, still not willing to look back. I feel numb, hollow, and empty as I set Serafina down. She refuses to let go of me.
“It’s alright. We’re going to make it down,” I promise her. The words come out slurred, the exhaustion getting harder to fight.
“Take the other antidote,” Caelus says, removing the stopper on the first one. He guzzles it down. “Give her to me.”
I shake my head. “No. We hike down the long way.” The words sound absurd as they come out of my mouth. That will take forever. We don’t have enough provisions and Serafina is so hot. She needs to see a medic soon.
“Axira, we don’t have the rations or the time to hike two dozen miles. We have to go down the cliffs. And you have to take the antidote so you have a clear head. It, too, will be intense.”
Still, I can’t. “Serafina gets the antidote,” I say. “Her body is smaller, the Heartfillers are too powerful for her. How do we know the sedative won’t make it impossible to wake her up? How do we know it won’t slowly kill her?”
Caelus doesn’t respond.
“We don’t.” I grab the antidote and unstopper it. “Fina.”
Caelus grabs my wrist. “Axira, you need the antidote.”
I whirl on him. “You cannot expect me to let her go down that mountain attached to you after what just happened. You can’t expect me to risk that.”
His jaw sets. “I would not promise you this if I was not certain that I can do this. I know you love her. I know the ship is for her. I will do this. Even if it costs my life.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you, Axira! Don’t you believe me?”
Hearing it again rattles something loose inside me, and it feels like being shoved to the edge all over again. I shake my head.
“Not love in this twisted, sick way my father and the Skyborn tout it,” Caelus presses, “but in the way my mother loved me. She did everything she could to make sure I see my father for who he really is. It cost her her life.”
“That’s too high a cost.” The words fall from my lips like a whispered confession. “Losing people you care about. It’s too much.” I unstopper the vial and hold it to Fina’s lips. “Drink up, quickly, now.”
She drains it.
“Axira!” Caelus shouts. “How do I get both of you down now?”
I blink, my head a world of chaos. He is right about hiking. We’ll never last.
“Over the cliff is fastest,” I say. “You’re right.”
He growls in frustration, but it’s done. The only way is forward. “Let’s move quickly,” he says. “We’ll see how far we can get.” He hooks us up to our gear, strapping Serafina to me with a harness. He double-checks the clips, and we start our descent.
The first few feet go well. My toes find holds in the rock like muscle memory.
Serafina is pressed tight against my back and her breath tickles the nape of my neck.
Going down is a lot faster than going up.
I let out my rope inch by inch, and we manage to descend a few hundred feet.
Then a few hundred more. The mountain swallows the sound of our gear clinking and the scrape of stone beneath our boots.
Wind whistles sharp between the cliffs. My muscles burn and my eyes get heavier.
I force them open, digging my nails into my skin to urge myself awake.
In a half an hour, we’ve covered what took us hours to climb. We should feel proud. Relieved.
I just feel tired.
Devastatingly tired.
And the weight of Serafina, as little as she is, isn’t helping.
An hour passes. Maybe more. Soon we reach the first ledge.
We hike, bent against the wind, until we reach the next cliff drop.
We immediately start securing our ropes and ease over the side.
The sun will be setting soon. We’ve made good progress, but I’m not sure exactly how much.
Weariness pushes needles behind my eyes.
The base of the mountain is thousands of feet below.
The cliffs blur together in tones of gray and shadow.
Serafina hasn’t said a word. She’s rigid on my back, coughing every few minutes, wheezing in the thin mountain air.
The harness keeps her anchored to me, but I can feel her squirm occasionally.
The tension of the straps holding her to me is crushing my chest.
“You okay?” Caelus calls from just below.
I nod. Or I think I do.
We keep going, dropping another hundred feet. The setting sun casts a warm haze across the cliffs. The elevation still presses on my lungs, like the air is too thin to breathe anything but regret.
I should have let Caelus take her.
My legs tremble. A pulse beats behind my eyes, blooming heat. The world moves—just slightly, like the tilt of a ship. I blink. The cliff shifts out of focus.
My left foot scrapes the rock. I pause, gripping the cord harder, and I catch myself, barely. I press flat to the wall. I try to breathe deep. Focus.
Find one hold, then another. I try to focus. One hold. Another.
But everything feels…far away. Like I’m sinking into myself. The wind dulls. The light dims at the edges. The burn in my limbs doesn’t flare the way it should. It’s quieter.
No.
Serafina’s nails dig into my shoulders. But my arms don’t respond. They’re slow and heavy like iron. My muscles lag, like I’m dragging them through sand. I try to flex my fingers. Nothing.
The sedative.
The thought barely registers before my limbs buckle inward, tingling and distant. My eyelids feel too thick, my thoughts, syrup-slow. “Almost there,” I whisper to Serafina, though I don’t know if we are. She shifts, adjusting her grip.
That’s when it happens.
She slips to one side, her weight jolting the harness between us. I reach to grab her.
But my hand—
My hand won’t move.
It brushes against hers. Fingers to fingers. But there is nothing behind it. No strength. No control. Like trying to move underwater. Like trying to catch fog. “Fina,” I scream, but my words slur. My mouth is slow. My mind is faster than my body.
The harness strap snaps taut.
Then whips loose from my side.
A hook tears free.
She falls sideways, arms flailing, suspended in the open air.
Caelus lunges for her.
He’s too far.
Time drips. Slows. Warps.
She looks up at me. Brown eyes wide with pure, searing trust. A trust I didn’t have for Caelus. A trust I’ve never had for anyone.
She doesn’t scream.
She doesn’t panic.
She believes in me.
And then—she plummets.