Chapter 58 #2
Elara returned, barely able to stand, and grabbed Corwin’s wrist. Her hands smoked, but no fire came. She pulled, half-sobbing, half-screaming Corwin’s name.
“Brother.” Corwin’s voice was very small. “Sister.”
Richard hauled. Every muscle in his back screamed. The vines hauled back, and Corwin’s chest slid inch by inch over the circle’s lip into the green.
“She is only little,” Corwin rasped, coughing more blood. “We mustn’t be cross.” His eyes locked onto Richard’s. “She’s our sister.”
The vines heaved. Corwin sank another hand’s breadth, up to his clavicles now.
“DO NOT LET GO!” Richard bellowed in time to Elara’s wail. “HOLD ON!”
Corwin stared up at them, smiled faintly, and wrenched his hand free.
Richard’s fingers closed on empty air. Elara shrieked and lunged. She caught a fistful of his sleeve, but it tore away in her hand. Corwin’s head went under, and then he was gone, his brother was gone, the portal was gone, the circle solid wood again.
Elara howled. She threw herself onto the dais and beat at it with both fists.
Her words were barely intelligible. Richard could only make out Corwin’s name in there somewhere.
Her fists smoked and sparked, and her nails ripped at the floorboards until her eyelids sagged shut, and she slumped forward, unconscious.
Briony clambered onto the dais, her dress tangling around her shins, and her breath coming in wet, hiccoughing gulps. Her forefingers had gone into her mouth, but she pulled them out to shake Elara’s shoulder.
“S-Sister. Sister, wake. Sister.”
Elara’s eyes stayed closed, her cheek flat against the dais, mouth open with a string of saliva hanging.
“Sister, please—”
Richard shuffled to the dais’s other corner. He sat and drew up his knees. Above, the dome’s roof creaked.
There was blood on his hands. He pressed his palms against the wool of his trousers and dragged. Some of the red rubbed off, but streaks remained, having settled into the lines of his palm.
Richard frowned and tried again. When it didn’t help, he used his thumbnail to dig it out. It worked, shifting a tiny segment, and he gave a satisfied hum.
A small hand jostled his shoulder. He turned and blinked to see Briony’s face so close. Her eyes were huge and red-rimmed, with large, heavy bags, and her nose streamed. She was trying to speak amid sobs.
“Sister won’t wake, Brother. Her wellspring has run too low. Brother? Brother, we have to get her to a healer. Please, Brother—”
Richard blinked again. Then he looked down and continued to work at that stubborn patch of blood.
Briony slumped against his arm, tucked her face into his sleeve and began to cry.
Richard dug his nail into the next crease.
The fire along the upper benches and walls flickered out. Smoke fell, settling in grey drifts. A beam from the dome dropped with a thundering crack, and Briony flinched, tangling her fingers into Richard’s cuff. She sobbed once more, then grew quiet, wilting against him.
He licked his thumb and worked on his other palm.
Eventually, came the footsteps. Many footsteps rushing, the scrape of swords being drawn, and voices, many voices, calling out, calling names, and one voice closer, more familiar than the others.
“—chard. Richard. Richard!”
He lifted his eyes.
Kaelen was before him, hair plastered to his temples. Behind him, a knot of soldiers had spread across the auditorium. Two healers were already kneeling beside Elara, and another was pulling at a listless Briony.
Kaelen’s mouth was moving. Kaelen was saying something. And yet, Richard could not hear it. A ringing had started in his ears. Bells, again. The tolling bells—
Kaelen grabbed his shoulders and shook.
Never had Kaelen touched him with such force. The knight’s fingers dug through the cloth, right into the bone of him, and jerked him so sharply that his head snapped forward.
“Richard!” Kaelen’s bellow broke through the ringing, suddenly booming, wrapping all around him. “Where is Corwin?”
A hoarse gasp tore out of Richard, as if he was surfacing from underwater, and with the gasp came everything, all of it at once, the whole world rushing back—the taste of iron on his tongue, the glowing green of the portal, the barbed vines, the crack of Corwin’s spine against the portal’s edge, the smile, the smile, his brother’s smile—
“Galdran.” Richard couldn’t recognise his voice. It was bleak beyond measure. “Galdran has my little brother.”
The End of Book Two