CHAPTER 21 #3
The orblight flickered once and then disappeared.
I heard the glass smack and crack, before chancing a look over my shoulder.
Caleb had tripped over a root, his hand outstretched toward the smashed globe.
I turned back. Gripping his hand, I heaved him up and yanked him across the boundary.
I collapsed on the dirt, panting, as the fae came flying into view behind us.
The veins in his neck had softened slightly and color had returned to his face, flushing his cheeks with a faint pink tinge. He was a marvel to behold. Terrifying in his beauty. Large, leathery wings unfurled behind him as he licked the blood off his lips.
Onyx eyes pierced straight through me. “I have waited many years to destroy your kind,” he said, voice harsh. He looked down at the salt line before him with distaste curling his lips. “I can wait a while longer.”
Caleb yanked on my arm, but I ignored him. Calendula stirred the air around me, wings flapping anxiously.
Bold with the knowledge that he could not cross, I stood. “Why do you want to destroy us? We have done you no harm.”
A cold, cruel smile touched the corners of the fae’s lips, and he spoke in that commanding, primeval voice. “You do not know? How foolish you have allowed yourself to become.”
I stepped forward, despite Caleb’s insistent tugging, but the fae was moving, back into the depths of the cave. Darkness swallowed him instantly.
“Wait!” I shouted.
The rustling faded to a soft slither as the fae disappeared. Hollow, abject disappointment struck through me. Caleb succeeded then in spinning me around to face him.
“What?” I half-shouted, frantic with adrenaline, questions burning through me like acid.
“We need to go. The hour is nearly up!”
I looked down at my watch. Ten minutes left. It wasn’t enough time.
We took off in a blind sprint, scrambling back up the hill.
The dagger clanged against my chest with each stride toward the scry.
I slipped at the peak, skidding down the slope and into the flatter part of the plain.
I didn’t allow myself a moment to catch my breath before hurtling after Caleb, gaze swinging between the land and the stars ahead, making sure we were going in the right direction.
When we crested a mound and I saw the brilliant blue light of the portal up ahead, I nearly sobbed with relief.
But there wasn’t time to cry; we had to keep going.
There were only three minutes left until the land discovered us and took whatever energy it could.
My lungs protested and my throat was parched, but still I ran.
The ground rumbled beneath us and Caleb faltered ahead, tripping over his feet.
A massive gurgle came from below and the ground fissured, soil cracking and warping.
Boiling water spurted from the slivers in a rapid stream, so hot and close it felt like my skin was melting right off.
I instinctively shielded my face with my arms, my knees dropping to the ground.
“Get up!” Calendula screamed.
But I couldn’t. My arms and hands were raw, the skin around my eyes so sensitive.
When I blinked, all I saw were waves of silver and gray.
Strong hands grabbed me beneath my armpits, yanking me to my feet, and I blinked again.
Caleb’s face was blurry as we ambled across the desert, my weight leaning heavily against him.
We were too late. Our time was up and the land was waking.
I was only slowing him down. He had to leave me.
The both of us didn’t have to die in here.
I shoved weakly at his arm, wincing at the sharp pain that shot through my body. “You have to go. I’ll be right behind you.”
Caleb paused for just a second, and I knew he was considering it.
“Go!” I insisted.
He took off as I wheezed. I wiped a hand over my brow. I knew the sticky substance there was not sweat, but peeling flesh. Through my hazy vision, I saw blood coating my fingers.
Calendula was yelling at me to run, but I barely heard her. I could hardly hear my own thoughts through the blood pumping in my ears. My legs moved forward, slow and lethargic. I considered crawling the rest of the way.
The ground lurched beneath me once more, thrumming with energy it could only be taking from us. The hour had to have passed by now.
It was stiflingly hot on Cosanus, but a chill swept through me. It was a foreign sensation, sharp nails dragging across my chest, splitting me open so the land could drink from me.
The sky lit, a brief flash of brilliant light that pained my eyes.
The scry. Caleb had surely made it out. He would tell Kilian what happened.
I suddenly remembered the dagger.
I hadn’t given it to Caleb. Kilian needed the dagger. I let loose a ragged scream.
I had to make it past the boundary. I had to give him the dagger if that was the last thing I did before my body failed.
Each step felt like I was walking on glass.
Sand grated against my eyeballs, blurring my vision, but I forced one foot in front of the other.
The air was thick around me. I could barely breathe.
I stumbled forward, falling on my hands and knees.
Grains of rough sand ripped through the exposed flesh on my palms, burning as if I were holding my hand above a flame, but I inched forward, desperate and praying to whichever of the gods were listening.
Salt.
The thin white line yawned before me and I cried, a gasping choking noise as I shoved myself forward, the salt stinging each wound simultaneously. I rolled across the line, back into Lortan, just as the ground splintered and another shot of sizzling water spurted right behind me from deep below.
The heat was unbearable, the steam so excruciatingly painful that all I could do was curl into a fetal position, allowing my back to take the brunt of it.
The leather of my pants seared into my skin; I screamed but there was nothing except empty field to hear me.
I couldn’t remember what it felt like to not be in pain.
It was all I could think about, all I could feel.
There was only agony and the teasing lure of oblivion if I just allowed death to take me.
But Calendula was there, her voice a lifeline.
“Lirah, you must get up!”
I wanted to tell her I couldn’t, but I was so exhausted.
My body no longer worked. The flesh had melted right off it, leaving charred muscle and skeletal remains behind. I could hardly see through the blood and sand in my eyes.
Still, Calendula urged me, “There’s a scry opening! Just up ahead. You have to survive. Please, survive.” Her voice in my ear was urgent, her plea a broken whisper.
The last of the heat evaporated into the air, and I forced my eyes open, my lids scraping like sandpaper against the sensitive, innermost gel.
I blinked through the grit, just able to make out the shadowy shape of an arch, blue light filtering through it.
Gods, it would be so easy to close my eyes again.
I longed to slip into nothing. A place where pain did not exist. There would be no Trials, no Rite, no more death and loss.
Just peace. I considered it. Considered all I would be trading in.
I’d never hear Lana’s laugh again, or Moric teasing her over her infatuation with Septimus.
I thought about my room in Valhan House, which would be stripped bare of all traces of my stay in it.
My mother breaking down with the news. I thought of Lana’s hand in mine over a grimy table in a tavern not so long ago.
Kilian’s hands on my waist, lips on mine.
His voice at my ear. I could almost hear what he’d tell me.
It would be easy. But it’s a coward’s way out. You are many things, Lirah, but a coward is not one of them.
Trust Kilian to ruin my plans for a peaceful, early retirement without even being here.
I sucked in a breath. I was dying, could feel each precious gasp for breath rattle my lungs. But there was a single thread which I was hanging on to. It shimmered bright and golden, refracting into brilliant shards that reflected the faces of everyone I loved.
I was not ready to give up. I wanted to live. To hug my friends, even if it was just once more. My muscles trembled as I crawled toward the scry, skin tearing on my forearms as I dragged my body forward. I grunted, expelling all the air in my burning lungs.
Calendula gripped my belt-loop. I heard her tiny wings fluttering as fast as a hummingbird’s as she tried tugging me along.
I reached one blood-slicked hand out, fingers scraping the side of the scry.
In one final push, I heaved forward. And then I was falling.
Falling… falling… falling through the scry’s murky depths.
Starlight and inky darkness pooled around me, and then blessed, cool air enveloped me.
I stared up at the night. The stars were fuzzy, their light distorting into a million dazzling streams across the sky.
My thoughts cleared in one startling moment of clarity as I wondered why, if Kilian had re-opened the scry, he hadn’t just come through it to fetch me himself.
Dread sank talons inside me as an indistinct face came into view.
His voice was rough and unfamiliar as he said, “Who the fuck are you?”
My lips parted to answer but darkness clouded my vision. And then my wish came true, and finally there was nothing.