“What do you mean he’s gone? What happened to him?” Sharmaine glanced around the courtyard, as if hoping those two words had a different meaning in our language—that he might appear, well and whole, at any moment.
Tell her I love her. His last words before the Chimera attacked him. Before he’d saved us with his sacrifice. The memory was a stab of pain, the knife formed of regret, the blade twisted by guilt. That I had survived because he’d died.
If she’d been given the choice—which one would Inara have chosen?
I gritted my teeth together, willing the storm of emotions to still.
“That monster … it was going to attack us…” Mother spoke when I couldn’t, her voice thick, her words halting. “He … he saved us.”
Sharmaine’s eyes met mine and the truth she saw in my face was enough; her shoulders sagged as she squeezed her eyes shut with a rough shake of her head.
Raidyn’s arm around me tightened, his fingers digging into my shoulder; I wasn’t even sure he was aware of doing it, but I didn’t say anything. I’d finally managed to stop crying, but I was ravaged by the death and carnage that had taken place, hollowed out by the sudden loss of Halvor.
“Where is everyone else? Where are all the other Paladin? And Sami?” Mother stared at Sachiel’s body still hanging over Father’s lap, her lips bloodless.
A shiver of dread scraped down my spine when no one answered. Surely, if any of the others had survived whatever had happened here, they would have come out by now. I could only pray Sami had gone back to the village.
Mother’s question spurred Father back into action. “I don’t know. But we have to heal Sachiel now—or she isn’t going to make it.”
“I should go help him,” Raidyn said at last, his voice as hollow as my chest.
“You have nothing left to give,” I protested, but he ignored me and hurried to Taavi’s side. Together, he and Father gently lowered Sachiel’s battered body to the ground.
Her wounds were even more horrific up close. Her chest barely moved. My father looked to Raidyn. When their eyes met—and Father noticed how dim the fire in Raidyn’s irises was—his expression fell. “You’re nearly drained.” A comment, not a question, but Raidyn still nodded, miserable and ashamed.
“He stopped the rakasa that attacked Sachiel and saved us from the Chimera,” I defended, walking to where they stood beside Sachiel. “I can help whichever of you has enough left to try.”
Father swiped a hand over his face, leaving a streak of blood on his cheek—Sachiel’s blood. “I’ll do it. But only enough to keep her alive. And”—he looked to me—“you will not help me. We need you to save your stores.”
He didn’t have to explain why. We all glanced to the citadel, where more unknown horrors could await us.
Father knelt beside Sachiel, placed his hands over the worst of her wounds, and closed his eyes. His veins lit, his power racing toward the dying general. Within seconds, his hands began to tremble. The shaking rapidly moved up his arms, until, with a ragged gasp, he yanked his hands away from her, his eyes flying open. Her wounds had stopped bleeding, and some of the more minor ones had closed, but the largest ones remained open and unhealed. “It’s the best I could do,” he said, panting slightly. “She was almost gone. Anything more would have drained me too.”
“It’s enough for now.” Raidyn placed one steadying hand on Adelric’s shoulder.
We all stared at her for several long moments, watching her chest rise and fall.
Then Father shook off Raidyn’s hand and stood, his expression grim. “We need to search the citadel, make sure there aren’t any more rakasa.” He sounded as weary as I felt, like a rope pulled too tight, fraying and about to break.
“I’ll go with you,” Raidyn said.
I shook my head. If they did find anything else inside there, I wasn’t sure they would be able to stop the beast. Raidyn was nearly drained, and I wasn’t sure my father was much better off after saving Sachiel. “Not unless I go with you too,” I said.
When I looked back at Raidyn, he was shirtless, his tanned, muscular body a shock. I glanced past him and my heart constricted at his thoughtfulness; Sachiel’s torso and shredded arms were hidden by his shirt, giving her the courtesy of being covered, the severity of her gruesome wounds hidden underneath the soft material.
“No,” Father said before Raidyn could respond. “I am not risking losing you too.”
“He’s nearly drained,” I argued. “And so are you. If you do find something in there, how do you expect to be able to stop it? It’ll kill you both. I’m useless on my own, but if I can add my power to either of yours—then at least we’d have a chance.”
“Or no one goes in,” Sharmaine interjected. “We stay together and wait. If anything else is in there, it will come out soon enough.”
Father and Raidyn shared a glance. I sensed the relief course through Raidyn’s body at her suggestion, proof of just how drained he really was.
“What about the gateway?” Father looked up to the ruined window. “We need to find out if it’s still open or not. And if anyone else…” His voice cracked. “If there are any survivors,” he finally managed.
“There’s nothing any of us can do about the gateway. Not until we rest and regain our strength,” Shar said quietly. “And if there are survivors, let’s hope they come out to us. It’s not worth risking our lives too.”
Sharmaine had a point, but I also understood Father’s need to know; if the gateway was shut, then whatever had come through was it. But if it was still open … what we’d faced so far was just the beginning.
“Take Taavi and fly up there. If the room is empty, fly in—just long enough to see if the gateway is open or shut. Then come right back.”
Father considered my suggestion and then nodded. “All right. I’ll hurry.”
Mother hurried to his side before he could go to Taavi and grabbed his hand.
“Be careful.”
He pressed a swift kiss to her forehead. “I will.”
We watched as he climbed on Taavi’s back and the gryphon took off once more.
Within seconds, they hovered near the shattered window to the Hall of Miracles, and then they swooped through it, disappearing inside the citadel.
Mother came over to stand next to me and Raidyn, reaching out to clasp my hand. Sharmaine stayed on Keko, tense and alert. We were silent, frozen with dread, waiting … and waiting.
This is taking too long.
I didn’t dare speak the words out loud, but Mother’s hand tightened around mine as though I had.
After another breath-stealing minute passed without any sign of my father, Raidyn shook his head.
“Something’s wrong. I’m going to go up there.”
I grabbed his arm before he could walk away, our eyes meeting and holding. “Please—don’t go. Stay here. If something did happen to him—”
“There he is!” Sharmaine shouted.
We both spun to see Taavi emerging through the broken window, Father seemingly unharmed on his back.
Mother sagged with relief beside me, her fingers going slack on mine.
Taavi dove for the ground and landed with a thud only a few feet away. Father was pale but otherwise safe. Mother rushed to Taavi’s side, but Father merely sat there, staring at the ground.
“Adelric?” Mother gently touched his knee; he startled as if he’d forgotten the rest of us were there.
When Father looked up, his cheeks were streaked with tears, cutting tracks through the dust and grime on his face. I reached for Raidyn’s hand, his fingers flexed back around mine.
“The gateway is closed,” he said, his words toneless, no hint of relief on his face, his normally bright eyes dulled. “But it was too late.” His voice cracked; he stopped, his gaze dropping back to the ground.
I wanted to slam my hands over my ears, to keep him from continuing, wishing I could stop him from saying anything else.
But I already knew wishes were as useless as I was beginning to believe hope to be. With a strangled noise that I realized was his attempt to keep himself from crying, he finally said, “They’re all dead.”
The shovels we’d used to bury my grandfather were still leaning against the side of the citadel where we’d abandoned them in the storm. Though we were all exhausted, broken, and losing hope, we still took turns digging a huge pit in the courtyard, big enough to bury all the bodies, including Halvor … or what was left of him. I’d gone with Raidyn to get the shovels and had finally forced myself to look to where I’d last seen Halvor. The horror of what the Chimera had done to his poor body would forever be branded into my memory, certain to haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life. The monster had only partially burned him, choosing to slash and tear him apart, rather than incinerate him. I’d spun away from the remains, acid surging up from my throat while tears burned in my eyes once more. Raidyn had immediately pulled me into his arms, burying my head in his bare chest, holding me close as I shook and tried to keep from retching.
He stroked my hair and waited, as patient as ever, even though he had also suffered a huge loss.
Every single Paladin we’d left behind had been massacred. Some appeared to have been attacked by the rakasa, but others looked like they’d been attacked by other Paladin.
Which could only mean Barloc was back. And if that many Paladin had been unable to stop him, I was afraid he’d brought others with him.
The only two pieces of consolation we had were that Father hadn’t found Sami among the dead—giving us hope that she’d somehow survived—and that the gateway had closed behind them. There was no way to know how many Paladin had come through, or if other rakasa were now loose in Vamala, but at least it wasn’t an unleashed stream of them.
Yet.
There were no gryphons in the citadel, however, which led us to believe the Paladin had been taken completely unaware—without even time to call for their mounts. Father had gone to the stables, hopeful, but he’d returned even more shattered.
Every single magnificent beast had been slaughtered in their stalls.
“It must have happened right before we arrived,” Father had said, his shoulders bowed under the weight of so much loss. “Since Sachiel…” He’d broken off, unable to finish, but I understood.
She’d been horrifically wounded but alive when we’d landed—barely in time to save her, but too late for all the others.
If only we hadn’t had to stop again … if only I hadn’t caused a two-day delay. If not for me, we would have been here—we would have been able to stop the massacre.
Or become part of it.
Tears mingled with our sweat as we took turns digging. My muscles burned from the strain—the pain a welcome distraction from the overwhelming grief and rage.
The sun had begun to set when we finally finished. It was shallow, but sufficient. And none of us had any strength left to make it any deeper. Raidyn and my father could barely manage carrying the bodies down, one at a time, on the backs of their gryphons—none of us dared go through the citadel yet.
We laid them out in the shallow grave, side by side. Somehow, in the hours since those first ghastly moments when I’d been too upset to look at Halvor’r remains, I’d grown numb to the horror of what had happened to their bodies. I stood between Sharmaine and Raidyn, my parents next to him, and stared down at my friends. Some I’d known better than others, but every single one of them had been willing to come here to Vamala, to risk injury and death to help protect our world.
And they’d all paid the ultimate price.
All except Sachiel, who lay just beyond the grave, unconscious but breathing, thanks to my father.
I hadn’t had a drink of water since our last stop. I was devastated but also dehydrated. So though my eyes burned with my grief, no more tears fell as Father brokenly attempted to sing the same song Raidyn had at Grandfather’s burial.
Raidyn and Sharmaine joined with him, their voices only slightly stronger than his.
Past the hedge, the sunset streaked across the sky in fiery bursts of tangerine, honey, and even shots of crimson. It was breathtaking and terrible, as though the sky itself wept tears of blood for the lives that had been lost.
When they finished the Paladin burial ritual, we again took turns with the shovels, covering the bodies with the heavy, dank soil we’d just dug up.
Each low thud of the earth landing on the lifeless bodies made me flinch.
When it was my turn, the blisters on my hands from digging the grave burned, some of them breaking open, but I ignored the pain, falling into a rhythm of dig, heft, twist, turn, and drop. Thud. Dig, heft, twist, turn, and drop. Plop.
With each shovelful I thought, I’m sorry.
Dig, heft, twist, turn, drop. Thud.
I’m sorry.
Dig, heft, twist, turn, drop. Thud.
I’m sorry.
But no matter how sorry I was, it would do nothing to bring any of them back. It couldn’t save Halvor or spare my sister the grief his death would cause her.
If she had managed to survive whatever had happened on the other side of the tear between worlds.
The plan was to sleep outside the citadel. No one wanted to go in at night, even though no other rakasa had made themselves known yet. We were to take turns keeping watch so the others could rest, but I was pretty certain I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep. When it wasn’t our turn to sit up, I lay next to Raidyn, hands clasped between our bodies. But whenever I closed my eyes, a barrage of images assaulted me—Inara bent over Barloc, drinking his blood; the moment she disappeared through that rip in the air; Halvor disappearing beneath the onslaught of Chimera fire; the Chimera lunging toward us and Raidyn shoving me away, also prepared to die for us; Halvor’s destroyed body; Sachiel swinging in the air from the edge of the shattered window, her arms shredded …
I would open them again, staring at Raidyn’s face instead, drinking in great gulps of air, desperate to calm myself and wishing I could somehow erase sections of my brain entirely.
More often than not, his eyes were also open. And so we lay there, silently seeking solace in each other’s gaze, side by side, hand in hand, exhausted but not sleeping, broken but alive, until dawn finally brushed the onyx sky navy, then ashy gray, desultory and nowhere near daylight yet, but it was enough to claim night had ended. I sat up, giving up the pretense.
Raidyn sat up as well. In that faltering first light of a new day, his burning blue eyes met mine and his arm came round my shoulders. He murmured, “What’s wrong?” Because somehow, he knew—he felt—the extra layer of sadness upon all the other sadness. Like the worst kind of cake—something I’d seen in the fairy-tale book I’d read Inara so many times.
It had been a slice on a plate with delicate layers of pink and white. I’d asked Sami about it once—if she’d ever eaten cake. She’d tried to describe it to me, the way it melted on your tongue, the sweetness of sugar and cream and flour—almost too good to be real. She’d told us it was usually for celebrations: weddings or birthdays or anniversaries.
I’d never had true cake, but we’d tried to make something similar for Inara’s birthday one year, layering bread—a delicacy for us—with fruit from her orchard and a drizzle of honey that Sami had hoarded from one of her visits to Gateskeep to procure more food during winter. But Inara hadn’t emerged from the roar to even recognize it was her birthday, and so we’d had to eat it, and instead of being sweet, it had tasted like heartache and frustration, and I’d never asked Sami to make it again.
As I sat there in Raidyn’s arms, marveling that he’d noticed a different sadness, I couldn’t help but think of cake. Layer after layer of sorrow. And the bitter frosting on top—the extra layer he’d sensed.
“It’s midsummer,” I whispered, soft and defeated. “It’s Inara’s birthday. She would have been sixteen today.”
“She is sixteen today,” he whispered back with a squeeze of his arm around my shoulders.
I was the one who had told him to hold on to hope, but after a long, sleepless night, wondering if we’d managed to survive again only to die today … after the waking nightmare of what we’d already endured … I’d lost that kernel of belief. We didn’t know where they’d gone; we couldn’t fathom how she and Loukas could have had any chance against Barloc. I’d failed her, I’d lost her, and I couldn’t bring myself to cling to any more hope only to have it turn to ash in my mouth as all the others had.
A tear slipped down my cheek as I turned into Raidyn’s embrace. The little bit of fruit and vegetables we’d managed to force down last night had apparently been enough to enable me to cry again, but not much. Not enough for my sister, who deserved far more than one measly tear.
I wondered if my parents would even realize what day it was—if I should tell them if they didn’t.
“Maybe we should go find some breakfast for—”
Raidyn’s suggestion cut off at the exact moment I stiffened, both of our heads going to the shattered window in the Hall of Miracles.
“Did you feel—” Sharmaine, who was sitting up on watch, turned to us.
“The gateway,” I cried out, terror slicking over my skin like ice despite the flash of heat we’d all felt—the rush of power emanating from that cursed, death-filled room.