A scream built inside me, cleaving through muscle and lung and heart, shredding its way out my throat, until I was nothing but that scream, nothing but horror and anguish given voice.
Naiki threw herself down on the ground, so that Raidyn landed splayed across her back, his arms open wide, his bare chest a mass of bloody, torn, charred flesh. His eyes met mine, the fire in them flickering weakly. His mouth moved but no sound emerged except the wet, sucking sound of each slow, laborious breath.
“Zuhra, take him and go! Now! She can’t hold them off any longer!”
My father’s shout echoed dully through the roar in my head, as if he were in a remote corner of the courtyard. But then he was there, dragging me over to Naiki and Raidyn. The ground trembled beneath my feet. Detonations sent waves vibrating through the air. Father turned Raidyn so he hung over Naiki’s front haunches on his mutilated stomach, the same way he’d brought Sachiel back to us.
“Take him and go! I will come as soon as possible to try to heal him!”
Then he grabbed me underneath my armpits and hefted me onto Naiki’s saddle behind Raidyn.
The numbness drained away when Father slapped her haunches and the gryphon launched herself forward, immediately taking off. Sound and awareness returned. I grabbed Raidyn’s shoulders, wincing at his low moan of agony, but couldn’t let go, even when his blood began to soak my pants, afraid he would slip off and fall. When I glanced back, Sharmaine sat on Keko’s back, hands lifted, her arms visibly shaking as she struggled to maintain a shield against the onslaught from Barloc and his fifteen Paladin who were spreading out to the side, searching for the edges of her power. Father was lifting my mother onto Taavi’s saddle and climbing on behind her.
Terror slicked my hands with sweat and throbbed behind my temples.
Then Raidyn’s body went completely limp; it wasn’t until he slipped into unconsciousness that I realized I’d been absorbing his agony and fear alongside my own.
“No! Don’t you dare leave me! Don’t you dare!” I shouted, my fingers digging into his shoulders as we soared higher and higher. I prayed we were out of reach—and that the other three would somehow escape too.
But part of me knew there was no way they would. I didn’t even know if we would.
Then—as if from a dream, conjured straight from wishes and prayers and hopes that had all seemed pointlessly futile—gryphons and Riders began pouring from the broken window of the Hall of Miracles.
Naiki cawed in welcome—in recognition—perhaps even in warning. Without a signal from me, she turned and headed for that window. I clutched Raidyn and scanned for anyone that looked even remotely familiar.
“A healer,” I croaked, my voice thick with unshed tears and strangling terror that still hadn’t abated. “I need a healer!” I tried again, louder this time as Naiki soared through the Paladin—so many, so many!—into the Hall of Miracles.
The gateway glowed with power and a constant stream of gryphons, their Riders pulling swords and knives out and following their comrades out to battle the jaklas.
Naiki landed as gently as possible, but it still made Raidyn slip to the side. I tried to hold on to him, but he was deadweight—far too much for me to manage. He toppled off, pulling me with him. He crumpled into a disjointed heap beneath me, breaking my fall, but, I was afraid, injuring him even more severely. Quickly scrambling off of him, I strained to roll him over. I nearly crumpled at the sight of his ruined body and ashen face.
“Help! Please, I need a healer!” I cried out, desperate and terrified he was already too far gone.
“Zuhra?”
I froze. My heart slammed against my ribs. It couldn’t be—
Hope shot through my body like lightning. I looked to the gateway where it had come from and everything went completely still and silent.
She sat atop a beautiful, golden gryphon, soaring into the Hall of Miracles, her eyes brilliant with Paladin fire as I’d always remembered them—powerful and poised and alive.
My sister was alive.
The gryphon swooped over to us and landed, crouching down on its front haunches, and then Inara was there, rushing to my side, her eyes moving over Raidyn with a dawning horror.
“Barloc,” she said, low and fierce. Then she looked up at me. “We can heal him, Zu. Together.”
I nodded, almost blinded by the tears swimming in my eyes.
Another gryphon landed nearby, and I barely registered that Loukas was also alive.
“No—Raidyn—no!” His guttural cry caused Inara to glance up at him.
“I will heal him,” was all she said.
“You don’t even know if that’s what power you have anymore!” Loukas cried, eyes wild, dropping to his knees with a thud on the other side of Raidyn’s inert body.
Instead of responding, Inara pressed her hands to Raidyn’s charred, bloody skin, her veins exploding with light, her power gathering and then flowing out into his ravaged body. He was barely even drawing breath anymore, his lips the bloodless white of a corpse.
Please. Please. Please.
With every painfully normal beat of my heart, that one word became my mantra, my prayer.
Then I put my hands on top of my sister’s.
I’d shared my sister’s power once before, to open the gateway; I’d joined my power to Raidyn’s multiple times, to heal and to kill. I’d felt the magnitude of both of their gifts in those moments. They had both been blessed with incredible amounts of power.
But nothing compared to what I felt when my power joined with Inara’s as we knelt beside Raidyn on the floor of the Hall of Miracles.
Whatever power she had once possessed had been a stream, beautiful and capable of bringing life to many, but so very small compared to what she now wielded—the roaring might of a waterfall, of a river, of an ocean, endless and incomprehensible in scope.
I was almost certain she didn’t need me at all, but I clung to her anyway, as images filled my mind—some I knew, from her childhood, but many were completely new and shocking in their unexpectedness. Saving Loukas on the back of Maddok; nearly dying; a voice telling her of her gift—a voice that the core of me knew somehow, though I couldn’t put a name to her; a light that was endless and eternal and powerful beyond imagination; a gift of power from that same voice that even now was pressing forward into Raidyn’s body; a kiss with Loukas that was so full of passion and need and love it took my breath away; and finally a bond with a gryphon that had carried her here.
Then we pressed on, together, her power interweaving with mine, letting me join my soul with hers as we saw flashes of Raidyn’s life together. But, even as images of his parents, of Naiki, and moments with me flew past, I felt … different. Inara wasn’t using my power at all; if anything, I felt stronger, more revitalized than I had in days—maybe even weeks.
Somehow I was still with her as her power infiltrated Raidyn’s wounds, healing with a speed and perfection that left me in utter awe. What had happened to my sister? She’d always been powerful but this … this was something else entirely. Where had it come from? Whose voice had I heard in her memories?
Always when I’d helped heal before, it had caused me pain and exhaustion—I’d felt myself being pulled out and into the person I was healing; and I’d lost consciousness nearly every time after reeling back into myself. But as Inara swiftly but gently finished her work and then pulled us both back out, turning her hands over to squeeze mine for a moment before releasing me, I felt … fine. More than fine. I felt as though she’d somehow healed and strengthened me at the same time as Raidyn, curing my exhaustion, erasing the strain of all the trauma and travel and lack of sleep and anguish.
My eyes flew open to meet hers.
Her smile was so full of joy and satisfaction—and peace. So much peace. Somehow, in that moment, I felt as though I were the younger sister. Whatever had happened to her in Visimperum had changed her, but in remarkable, breathtaking ways.
Then I looked down at Raidyn. His exposed skin was smooth, unmarred—not as though he’d been healed, but as if the injury had never occurred in the first place.
His eyes were still shut, but he looked as though he were just resting now. The color had returned to his lips and face.
“You did it.” Loukas’s murmur held all the relief and awe that coursed through me.
When I looked up, he was staring at my sister with a look so heavy with emotion, complex and full of meaning, it felt as though I were intruding on a private conversation taking place without words.
Then I remembered what I’d seen in her memories—the kiss they’d shared.
Eyes wide, I looked to her and was shocked to see just as much emotion in her gaze as she smiled that same peaceful, confident smile at Loukas.
“I told you I would.”
The citadel rumbled beneath us, a reminder that a battle was being waged outside. I wondered how much time had passed while she’d healed him. It had felt so fast …
I looked to the gateway. It was dark, closed once more.
But standing at the base of it was a handful of Paladin and gryphons—and one indomitable woman, well and whole and staring at me.
“Zuhra,” my grandmother said, soft, hesitant—but still audible even from across the hall. As different from the woman I’d left at the gateway a week ago as a person could be in such a short time.
Though I wanted to stay by Raidyn’s side, waiting for him to wake, I stood, my gaze never leaving hers.
She didn’t run, but she did hurry forward, and when she was only a foot away, she opened her arms. Before I even knew what was happening, my grandmother wrapped me in a hug as tight as it was shocking. I stiffened in disbelief for half a heartbeat. Ederra—my implacable, emotionless grandmother—was hugging me?
But then I quickly wrapped my arms around her narrow waist.
“I’m sorry,” was all she said, but it was enough.
I squeezed her tighter, until Inara said, “Zuhra, he’s waking up.”
Grandmother released me and stepped back. There was too much to say, and no time for it. She was already rushing back to her gryphon, to join the battle, a sword strapped to her back.
I turned to Raidyn to see his eyelids fluttering and then opening, his eyes as bright as I’d ever seen them. I dropped to my knees beside him as he struggled to sit up, his gaze roaming wildly over the room, until they landed on me, and then he exhaled and stilled.
“You’re alive,” I managed to choke out, through the emotion that rose up as he lifted one arm to wrap around me, pulling me into him with a fierceness that warmed every remaining inch of ice that Barloc’s attack had—
I stiffened so suddenly, he jerked back.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” His gaze roamed over me.
“My parents … Sharmaine … they were out there, with him—”
“We have to go help,” Loukas said, standing.
Raidyn startled at the sound of his voice. “Loukas?” he said in disbelief. Then he noticed my sister, who had also risen to her feet, moving to stand by Loukas. “Inara! You’re both alive!”
“Thanks to Inara, yes, we are,” Loukas said, shooting her another one of those meaningful looks that almost brought heat to my cheeks.
Raidyn’s eyebrows furrowed, but with a slight shake of his head, he climbed to his feet. Naiki stepped forward, butting her beak into his back, with a low hoot.
“Zuhra? Inara!”
The tiny cry came from the doorway behind us, across the large hall.
I spun to see Sami, white-faced and trembling, staring at us.
“Sami!”
She hurried as quickly as she could across the wide expanse, tears streaking down her face. “I thought for sure you were all lost,” she said and pulled me into a hug.
“Where have you been? I thought you went back to Gateskeep!”
“I hid in the library,” she said into my hair as she squeezed me tight. “Why would I go back there when my family is here? I was waiting for you to come home. Praying that you would.”
Another explosion outside rattled the citadel, and my heart lurched up into my throat. Sami released me, and I turned to see Grandmother flying back through the shattered window, the blood drained from her face. She waved her arms with a shout. “Make room! Hurry—they’re bringing the wounded up!”
We rushed to obey, clearing the center of the room, just as a handful of Paladin soared through the broken window, carrying broken, bloodied bodies with them.
Everyone was covered in soot and grime and blood, so it took me a moment to realize one of the wounded was Sharmaine, being carried by a Paladin I didn’t recognize.
“Shar!” Loukas’s eyes widened. He ran to the gryphon carrying her, Inara right behind him. Raidyn sucked in a gasp when they gently laid her body down, exposing the extent of her wounds.
The other Paladin who stood by the gateway dashed forward and began helping to pull the other wounded down. Healers, I realized. Waiting here for this very moment, rather than joining the fight.
But there were too many for them, with more continuing to come through the window. Another Paladin I didn’t know even brought Sachiel and laid her body down near Shar’s.
I stood beside Raidyn, Naiki behind us, and stared at the carnage in horror. There had to have been at least a hundred Paladin that had come through the gateway—against sixteen. How were we losing this battle?