Chapter 35
Chapter
Thirty-Five
LYRIANA
The world was breaking apart. Rocks thundered from the cave’s ceiling—the fissure widening, letting in more night sky, raining down more chaos. Every crack in the wall was webbing out into more. And all I could do was scream. My vision blurred, blinded by tears.
“RHYAN! RHYAN!”
I could hear what sounded like an earthquake erupting. A boulder rolled down the side of the cliff, spinning right past us, until it exploded against the wall. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t leave Rhyan’s side. Not until he changed. Not until he woke up.
But he just lay there, in his akadim body, his fangs still protruding, his claws limp against his unmoving hands. His skin was still stretched over his akadim height, and he was still pale. Too pale.
Gods. I felt like I was dying. Like I had died right there with him. Every breath hurt, my arm felt like it was on fire, and so did my hand. And my heart—my heart was breaking all over again.
He wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t moving. He was … dead. But no, no, no. He couldn’t be. He couldn’t be! I had the shard, and the light. I’d seen the fire, the golden aura around us. I was Asherah reborn. The Moon Queen had promised me. The Valya had promised me. Auriel had promised me!
Auriel …
“LYRIANA!” he screamed my name in the distance, his voice carrying through the cascade of crashing rubble. “Lyriana, where are you?”
Another crack formed above, pebbles raining down. A rock dislodged, ready to fall right over us. We’d be crushed when it landed.
I flung myself over Rhyan, screaming out in pain as I rolled us over, crushing my broken arm further as we turned.
His akadim body flopped over mine, lifeless with dead weight.
I panted with exertion and pain as I continued to push him, shifting him just out of the way, barely avoiding the rock that flattened the ground beside us.
“Lyriana!” Auriel screamed again. “Where are you? Lyriana! Answer me, damnit! We have to go! NOW!”
“I can’t,” I yelled back. “I’m sorry.”
“Where are you?”
“Here. I’m here with him,” I sobbed.
“We have to go!” he roared.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave him like this. I knew the cave was going to collapse soon. I could feel it. And yet, not one part of me could get up, could leave him, could abandon him. I didn’t care if the cave collapsed, didn’t care if it buried me alive. I wasn’t going to abandon Rhyan.
“Lyriana!” Auriel screamed.
Thunder struck, but it was just the ceiling breaking apart even more. I flung my body back on top of Rhyan’s, burying my head in his neck, and sobbed.
“Please don’t be gone. Please. Please. Don’t. Don’t do this to me. Rhyan, don’t leave me. You have to come back. You have to come back to me. You promised, you swore. You swore you’d always come for me. I need you to do that now, okay? Rhyan, please. Please.”
Auriel was screaming my name, and the rocks continued to fall.
They were hitting my back, my head, my arms and legs, raining down around us. But my body had gone numb. Nothing could hurt me. Nothing mattered.
“Lyr!” Auriel cried out. “LYR! MEKA! Do not give up on me now! We have to get out of here. We have to take the shards. Come on! I’ve got the green. Now take the red and let’s go! Before you’re crushed. Before I can’t reach you.”
I stared down at Rhyan, my chest heaving in painful, broken spurts.
I couldn’t bear it, couldn’t bear to leave him like this.
But my hand was bleeding, and my arm was broken.
I couldn’t carry him this time, not like before.
My tears were so heavy, they were now rolling down his face.
And still, still he didn’t breathe. Nothing inside me was willing to move, or leave him.
It was bad enough he’d been turned akadim.
Bad enough he’d been subjected to this fate.
I wouldn’t let what remained of him be crushed.
I wouldn’t allow his remains to be destroyed—I didn’t care what form he was in.
Gritting my teeth, I looked up, and found an emptied cart used to carry the more massive rocks out of the mines.
It had turned over in the chaos and was just big enough to fit Rhyan’s body.
And mine.
I jumped up and reached for him with my left hand, blood still gushing.
I didn’t care. Because I was doing this.
I was going to protect his remains. With what little will I had left, I dragged him toward it, grunting as I pulled his body inside, sliding it over the metal, pushing him all the way in, until we both had a makeshift roof.
I started clearing the debris that had fallen on him, trying to clean him up as best I could.
“LYRIANA!” Auriel roared. “Get out of there!” His voice grew louder. He was coming closer. Risking everything to get to me. Again.
‘‘Rakame,’’ I whispered to Rhyan, my voice broken. I brushed his hair back, fingers running through his bronzed curls. He’d kept them as an akadim. Like his neatness, like his strength. And his lilt. They never left him. Never went away.
I kissed his forehead, and placed my hand over his heart, willing it to beat. Willing him to turn back. “Rhyan, please,” I cried.
“Lyriana!” Auriel crouched down before the cart, his hands wrapping around my waist, pulling me toward him.
I gripped my unbroken arm around Rhyan. “No. No!”
His green eyes paled, for once devoid of their emerald light. They were sea green, like the ocean after a storm.
“He’s gone,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But Lyr, you can still get out. Come. Come with me. Survive.”
“I can’t. I can’t. I can’t do this. I can’t go on like this. I don’t want to.”
“Yes, you do,” he said. “You have to.” His voice broke. “Get up. Lyr, get up. You have to get up, and run!”
I sobbed, clinging to Rhyan. As if I could cling to his soul by holding onto him, as if I could bring him back.
“I can’t leave him.”
“We’re going to be crushed if we stay. And I’m not letting you die. Not again! I watched it happen once before and it nearly destroyed me.”
“Then you know what it feels like!”
“I do. I do. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Lyriana, please. If we die here, the shards will be found, the Empire will go to Aemon and Morgana. So many will suffer like they did before.”
“Then take the red shard from me, and go.”
“What about Meera?” he asked. “What about Jules? Tristan? What about Bamaria? Do you think Rhyan would want this for you?”
My chest heaved.
“Do you think this is what he fought for? Died for? So you could end it here? Crushed to death? So it could all fall? So his fight meant nothing?”
“No.” I shook my head, crying even harder.
“Then get up! Get up and keep fighting. You have to keep fighting.”
I didn’t want to try. I was done. I was so fucking done.
Every time I got back up, and tried again, I failed.
Every time it just got worse. But as I looked back and forth between Rhyan and Auriel, Auriel whose heart still beat, who was still alive, and still desperate for me to live, to get up, and go on, I knew he was right.
That this was what Rhyan would have wanted for me.
It was what I would have wanted for him.
I’d done what I could. I’d given him a roof.
The last bit of protection I could manage.
I kissed Rhyan’s cheek and placed my bleeding hand on his chest, right over his heart. Over the wound my sword had made.
I love you, I thought. Praying that he wasn’t in the in-between anymore. That he could somehow hear me. That he was at peace. Wait for me, Rhyan. I’ll find you. In the next life.
Me sha, me ka.
“Come on then, come to me,” Auriel said.
“He broke my arm,” I cried. “And my hand’s cut up.”
Auriel crawled inside the cart, reached for the red blade, and strapped it to his back. Then he scooped me into his arms, crushing me to his chest as he crawled out and stood.
“Can you run?” he asked urgently.
I nodded.
“We’ll fix your hand, and your arm, but you have to swear to me. You’ll live,” he said. “And you won’t give up. For Rhyan.”
“For Rhyan,” I whispered. Then I took his hand. And we ran.
The rocks were falling harder now. We couldn’t avoid getting hit, no matter how much we dodged, or how quickly we raced. The back of the cavern was sinking, the ground shifting and rising beneath our feet. The wall was in sight, the fissures breaking apart, widening, making a way for us.
We burst outside into the night, and I nearly choked on the cold, fresh air.
I stumbled into the grass, my body clenching in pain.
A chorus of bone-chilling growls sounded in the dark.
“Auriel?” I hissed.
“We’re surrounded,” he said, his body going still. “The akadim escaped when I took the green shard.”
“And now they’re all out here?” I asked, turning my head and seeing at least two dozen sets of red eyes popping up in the dark.
“Most ran—especially when they saw the light. But not all of them. Lyriana,” he said slowly, “You’re going to need to heal your arm. Right now.”
My pulse pounded in my ears as I stepped back, feeling the cool of the stone wall behind me. “I can’t heal a broken bone that fast!” I hissed.
“Well, you’re going to need to try.”
But a part of me didn’t want to. Didn’t want to try. Because it was starting to feel like nothing in the whole fucking universe was on my side. I’d made it out. But it was only my body. I’d left my soul inside, clinging to Rhyan.
“Lyriana, come on!” Auriel urged. “Do it. Please.”
I took a deep breath and focused on my arm, not sure exactly what to do.
I’d never healed myself before. But I did what I always did, what I’d done for Rhyan and Auriel.
I saw the outcome I wanted. I imagined the bone was whole, the arm back in place and healed.
Then I reached for it with my left hand, still covered in blood, imagining sending all of my power to it. All of the red light inside of me.
Heat began to flicker in my chest, more so than the heat already present as I ran through Asherah’s power.