51. Raya
RAYA
“What did we have left?”
- RAYA.
Alias was thrown back against the tree we had spent most of our youth climbing. Elian’s fire charring the trunk. Khol pulled him back, his hands damping down the fire that bloomed everywhere.
“Give it back!” Elian roared. “He has killed them! He has ruined my home and murdered my family. And now you defend him?” He turned to me. My body was numb and my chest aching. Joy mirrored my face and body language as the rain continued to fall around us.
Everyone Joy and Elian held dear had been in the cavern. Had they survived? Had anyone?
My body moved and I didn’t know I had punched Alias until blood trickled from my knuckles.
“Thousands of people lived in the cavern!” I shouted, thunder and lightning brewing at an accelerated pace. Alias staggered to his feet, blood dripping from his nose.
“Sorcerers,” he corrected me. I punched him again, a bruise already forming beneath his eye.
“They are people!” I turned to Joy, still slack and not moving, and then back to Alias.
“And you have murdered them.” I turned from him, unable to deal with the betrayal, while my friends could be dying.
“We need to go, now,” I motioned to the group.
“What’s the point?” Joy finally spoke. “The firebombs have been dropped; the damage is done.”
“There could be survivors,” I countered.
“Do you hear yourself, Raya?” She narrowed her eyes. “There could be survivors?” She scoffed.
“He lured you here,” she shouted, pointing at Alias, “because he knew! He knew you were the only one who would protect them! He knew that without you, this would happen!” She began to pace. “He doesn’t care about you, he only cares about destroying Sorcerers.” She stormed toward him, the rain seeming to part for her. “There were humans in the cavern, just like you and me,” she spoke softly, her anger thrumming just beneath the surface. She walked back to me and nodded.
“We need to g—” she began but never finished, she disappeared.
Fear tugged at me as I turned in a circle fiercely. But she was gone, blown away with the wind.
“Where…?” Khol’s word trailed off.
And then heavy breathing erupted from behind me and there she stood.
I stared at her, and she stared at me.
“Did she just jump?” Khol asked, moving forward.
Joy wobbled on her feet; Elian moved to steady her.
“I was near the cavern, The Circle,” she heaved a breath. “I was thinking about it and suddenly I was there.”
We all stood in shock.
“She jumped,” Khol murmured. “But I’ve never known a Jumper to travel that far.” He walked toward her, inspecting her from a distance.
“What did it look like?” Elian asked, almost scared to hear the answer. Joy trembled slightly, her lower lip quivering.
“It had collapsed completely,” she began. “But there are survivors, and lots of them. They must’ve got out before the brunt of the explosions.” She glanced up. “I wasn’t close enough to see who had survived and who…” she stopped herself.
The rain slowed as I thought of the survivors. Elian seemed to ease slightly, but Joy shook softly.
“Do you think you can travel back?” Khol asked, still pacing around us, Joy nodded weakly. “Can you take us with you?”
I glanced up at Khol, my brows furrowing.
“It’ll take us days to get back and by then there could be another attack, or the group will begin to scatter. We need to get to them as soon as possible. Before it’s too late,” he stated and Joy nodded, stronger now.
“I can do it.” She stood firmly, no longer resting on Elian.
As she prepared to jump again, I turned to Alias. He stood watching us.
“I no longer recognize you,” I spat. “You are a disgrace to Matron’s family.” Tears of anger bloomed in my eyes. “And I never, ever want you see your cowardly face again.” He moved toward me; his hand extended.
“If you touch me one more time,” I whispered between gritted teeth. “I will kill you where you stand.” My breathing was labored. I was so furious with the man that stood before me, but I mourned the boy I once knew. I mourned our friendship and our past together. The ride to The Foothills when we had our futures ahead of us.
Futures that will now never come to pass.
“Now go,” my voice was cold. “Before I change my mind and kill you now.”
Alias’s eyes lingered on mine, but eventually turned and left.
Like the coward he was.
I turned to Khol, burying my head in his shoulder, his hands rubbing my back in small circles. I felt selfish for being soothed when so many people had lost their lives today.
“I’m ready,” Joy looked up from her hands, a glow radiating from her skin. I nodded.
We decided she would ferry me first, and then Elian and then Khol.
“Be safe,” Khol whispered, before planting a quick kiss on my lips. My hands joined with Joy’s.
And then we disappeared.
Smoke clouded my lungs as we arrived around half a mile north of the entrance to The Circle. Or rather, what used to be the entrance to The Circle.
Joy wavered ever so slightly, sweat beading on her forehead.
“Are you sure you can do that again?” I asked, stepping from her grasp. I was met with a nod.
“Go,” she rasped as she vanished with the breeze.
Sprinting toward the carnage, I couldn’t help but pray to every Goddess that my friends had made it out alive. I pumped my arms, pushing my legs faster and harder than I ever had before. The clouds of smoke became thicker and thicker, until I could barely see my hand in front of my face. SkyChangers worked hastily to clear the air, but the smoke kept bellowing like dragons’ breath.
I slowed at the first sign of life, a group of Circle members huddled together, blood dripping from various cuts and wounds. Healers ran from group to group attempting to fix the damage.
Finally, the air started to clear.
And then I saw the real destruction. The sheer massacre of land and life.
Bodies were strewn across the charred grass, some covered in white sheets, others not. I noticed Circle members scrambling their way back into the half collapsed underground cavern.
It took me a while to realize why they were making the journey.
But when I saw the lifeless girl held in another’s arms, I knew they were collecting bodies. They wouldn’t leave their family behind, not even if their family had not survived.
Bodies kept piling up, one after another and all I could do was watch.
I had all this power. But no power to reverse death, no power to ease grief. I jogged further into the chaos. Screams of the injured piercing my skull. My stomach plummeted as I kept moving without finding my friends. Were they were being carried from the rocks and rubble? Were they laid lifelessly in a stranger’s arms?
A sob built inside my chest, tightness wrapping around me like a rope.
The hundreds of voices and screams around me blurred into a blank sound. My knees wobbled, threatening to drop me.
How had everything got so awful, so quickly? Only a few months ago I was lying in a field covered in wildflowers, my best friend beside me.
And now?
I had just scorched that same field, ripped it apart like it was a scorned love letter. My best friend now dead to me.
My friends now possibly… dead.
“Raya!” a familiar voice shouted, and I locked gazes with Erin. Bloody and scared and dusty but very much alive.
“Erin!” I shouted back without thinking, running toward her, and crushing her into an embrace. A hiccup escaped my mouth and suddenly I was sobbing. Jodie hobbled toward us, her injured leg making her slower than her sister.
“Is she alright?”
Erin nodded. “She caught her leg on a shard of rock.” I embraced her sister.
“How did you get here so fast? Where is Joy?” Jodie asked by way of greeting.
I told them swiftly, not bothering to include every little detail.
“Where are the others?” I asked once my story had ended. A shadow crossed the girls’ faces, a loose tear slipped from Erin’s eye.
“We don’t know,” she tried to get her words out, but they wouldn’t move passed her lips.
“We escaped before the building collapsed on itself,” Jodie finished.
Pressure, hard and heavy, fell on top of me.
I was the reason this had happened. I may not have pulled the trigger, but I killed these people. I killed my friends.
And suddenly I was seven years old, standing in the field of corpses, watching my mother die at my feet. I was the fire in the huts, the sword in the flesh, and the scream in their lungs. I was everywhere. A memory surfaced.
“They will come for her tonight,” a male voice rung out, it was warm and soft and comforting. “We must leave, Raya.”
Warmth filled my veins, remembering that I had been named after my mother, the leader of our village, of the Sorcerers in our village.
“We cannot leave the others,” a female voice countered, it was my mother’s. I knew it as clearly as I knew the sun rose in the day and the moon rose in the night. “They will come tonight whether we leave or stay, and I will not leave my people behind!”
“Raya! Listen to yourself, you’re willing to sacrifice this…” my father had motioned between the two of them and then the rest of our home, “you’re willing to sacrifice our daughter, for your people?” His voice became pleading. Silence followed his last words, the last words I would hear my father say. He left at my mother’s silence, he would be killed in battle only hours later. As would my mother and everyone I had ever loved.
I was pulled back to reality. Erin and Jodie stared at me, their eyes wide as saucers.
“They’re alive!” Jodie’s voice boomed across the field, every head turned, hoping it was a loved one or friend.
Florence stumbled from the dusty wreckage, Jameson leaning heavily against her. Tears parted the dust and dirt on their cheeks as other Sorcerers helped them to safety.
I knew in that moment.
I knew that we had not all survived.