CHAPTER 24 #3
I didn’t dare touch her as she choked on nothing.
She stretched forward, her fingers grasping at the snow, knuckles white, a pale glow coating her skin.
She bared her teeth in anguish. I watched in amazement as her body changed, fingers stretching and ears lengthening.
Her blue eyes flashed violet, and I shielded my own against the glare of a blazing golden arc.
When the light dimmed, I found her eyes had returned to their normal pastel blue hue.
Lana stared up at me, shock coloring her face.
She was even more beautiful than she had been as a mortal.
“The Rite…” she breathed.
I stared down at my fingers for a second time, still as surprised as she was. “We made it. We… We’re elven.”
I helped Lana to her feet, holding onto her as she adjusted to the new weight of her bones. She pulled me to her, tears streaming down her face. I held her tightly. She was alive. I was alive. Against impossible odds, we had survived.
“The others?” she whispered. I let her go and we took a few steps to the side, to where we had last seen Moric and Rayna.
They were both sprawled on the snow, unmoving.
I blinked, sure that in a few seconds I would see Moric’s fingers twitch, his chest heaving as he rose onto his elbows. I waited, but he remained still. I dropped beside him, my hands roaming across the planes of his shoulders.
“Moric.” I shook him.
He did not stir.
“Moric, wake up.”
Lana had crossed to Rayna, checking for a pulse. She looked at me and shook her head. It couldn’t be.
Moric… Rayna… It just couldn’t be.
I shook him again, this time more violently.
His neck rolled to the side, hazel eyes staring out unseeingly.
Lana collapsed beside me, tears streaking silently down her cheeks.
I didn’t understand why she was crying. Moric was fine.
His body just needed a minute to recuperate from the current.
The pain had been intolerable. I knew how it felt. His body just needed time.
“Lirah.” Lana placed her hand on top of mine, where it rested on Moric’s shoulder. “He’s gone.”
“He’s not gone!” I snapped. “Just… give him a second.”
Lana swallowed. “He… he struggled with the earth magic.”
“No. We’ve been practicing. He knew what to do.” I tried to keep my voice steady, but a sob ripped free from my throat unbidden.
I was not going to fail Moric like I had failed Anama.
I was not going to let him die. I pushed at his chest, slamming my hands against his sternum.
I lowered my lips to breathe air into his mouth and pumped his chest. He grew blurry beneath me, tears obscuring my vision.
I wiped them away, hot, metallic anger coating my tongue.
This was not how the Rite was supposed to go. I was supposed to leave here with my friends, or not leave at all.
“Lirah.” Lana clutched at my wrist, and I whirled blazing eyes at her.
I wrenched my wrist from her grip. “Why are you trying to stop me from saving him?”
The heartbreak on her face cleaved something inside me.
She drew her hand up my arm, pulling me toward her.
I let her, my face crumpling as I finally registered just how pale and cold Moric had become.
The spark in his hazel eyes had been extinguished.
He would never return to Foulkan or make maps for his brother.
He would never tease Lana or recite facts about Lortan.
He would never leave these mountains. All the pain, all the worries that had plagued him, all his hopes and dreams and every thought he’d ever had, vanished in a wink. Snuffed out, like it had never existed.
And Rayna. Rayna had been so young. She should have had decades more to live. Now, there would be nothing left of her but her bones on this mountaintop, and a memory that would exist only in others.
Life was cruel. It took too much.
Great, heaving sobs wracked through my body as I held onto Lana. She clutched me tightly, her fingers clawing at my cloak as she cried too. We sat for what seemed like hours beside their bodies, grieving the loss.
As the cold crept into our bones, Lana sniffed and said, “We can’t leave them like this.”
“We don’t have tools.” My voice cracked.
“Then we’ll use our hands.”
So we did. We dug snow until our skin frosted with ice burn, and then we continued. I owed Rayna for her hint on the third Trial. And Caleb, for sticking with me in Cosanus, for going back through the scry and telling Kilian what had happened.
Most of all, I owed Moric, for being my friend.
My hands were raw and bleeding by the time we patted the last bit of snow on top of the final shallow grave. But my heart did not feel any lighter.
When the sun began to peek over the horizon, throwing pale arcs across the peaks, I allowed it to wash over me.
Prayed it would give me the strength I needed.
I had cried so much that my throat felt hoarse and my cheeks stung from the biting cold.
I looked to the sky and wondered why becoming elven had not taken away the pain of death and loss, the humanity I’d thought would surely disappear with the transition.
Lana stood, reaching a hand to help me up. I rose beside her, sunlight warm on my face as the new day broke across the summits. Before we crossed the boundary, I gave one final look at the three new graves along the expanse of the mountain, sending a prayer to Azrael to watch over them in death.