Darkness.
Light.
Both had their places in life and both had worked their way through me.
I lay there, at the crossroads of both, struggling to find my direction—my way home.
Darkness: when I had felt empty, broken, reduced to a shell of my former self.
Light: when I had been saved, when I had saved others.
Who was I now?
I was Inara, Ray of Light, and I was Inara, daughter, sister, friend, healer.
You have done well, my daughter.
Her voice was unexpected here, at the crossroads, where the light existed, but was nowhere near as strong as the luxem magnam.
You used your gift well, as I’d hoped. And so we will leave a piece of it with you, to keep. To heal, not only others, but yourself.
I wanted to thank her, but somehow I knew she was already gone.
Someday … when I went into the light for good. Then I could.
But for now—
When I opened my eyes, I was lying on the ground, dark clouds roiling overhead. Raindrops fell, landing wet and cool on my face. Someone held my hand, fingers tightening around mine when I turned to meet his worried green-fire eyes.
“She’s awake!” Louk called out, his gaze never leaving mine.
I blinked against the rain. My body ached in a way it hadn’t since I’d emerged from the light—like I’d been drained and was still recovering. I still sensed power within me, but it felt like my old power, the one I’d been born with, not the unspeakable gift I’d been given that had saved us all.
And, even though it had gone beyond description to wield that kind of power, I was actually glad for it to have been taken back. I’d never wanted more than I’d been born with; I’d only ever wanted what had been stolen from me.
“Inara!” Zuhra crashed to her knees beside me, streaks running through the dirt on her face, as though she’d been crying, though her eyes were clear for the moment. “I was so scared … I thought…”
I squeezed Louk’s hand back and then let go to push myself up until I was sitting on the dirt, tiny splotches of wet surrounding us. The rain was growing more insistent by the minute, but when I glanced around, I saw Paladin rushing across the grounds, some kneeling beside other Paladin, treating wounds or attempting to heal them, while others were digging a large pit.
I quickly looked away from it—and the far-too-large row of bodies near it.
“What happened after we stopped him? How did I end up here?”
Zuhra quickly filled me in on how I’d lost consciousness and fallen from Sukhi’s back and how, though others tried, she’d managed to save me—at the last second, in the instant before we both would have died or been gravely injured.
“Where is she?” I glanced around, but didn’t see my gryphon anywhere.
“She hit her wing on the garden box when she caught you. One of the other Paladin took her over by the stables to tape it up for now. We have to use the healers for the Paladin.”
I climbed shakily to my feet. “I need to go see her—and then I can help heal the injured.”
“No, you’ve been through too much,” Louk protested. “You need to rest.”
“I can rest later.”
“You really shouldn’t go over there,” he insisted, sharing a dark glance with Zuhra.
“He might be right…” she agreed hesitantly.
But I refused to be swayed, even though the look they’d shared sent a chill skittering down my spine. “I need to see her.” Before either of them could try to convince me otherwise, I strode away, pretending to be stronger than I felt.
Louk grumbled something under his breath in Paladin—something I apparently could no longer understand—but I ignored him, rushing toward the stables, on the other end of the grounds, all the way around the citadel.
I sensed Louk shadowing my steps, but staying far enough back that I couldn’t hear his boots on the dirt over the other sounds that filled the air. I had to weave between Paladin and gryphons, many moaning or crying in pain. Burns, exposed bones, bloody gashes … so many wounds, so many injured. Gryphons and Paladin alike. The air was a potent mix of charred flesh and the crisp hint of evergreen carried on the wind and rain. They needed my help—and soon. There were far too many injured and only a handful of healers who already looked exhausted, on the brink of being drained.
But Sukhi had saved my life and I needed to see her, at least for a moment.
When I reached the stables, I saw a dozen gryphons with various injuries being treated by their Riders, but Sukhi wasn’t among them. The door was wide open, so I hurried past the unfamiliar mounts to duck inside, but stopped short. It was dim, shadowed from the clouds blocking out the sun, but it was silent—too silent—and there was a fetid stench heavy on the humid air, something I instinctually recognized as the smell of death. Though they’d assured me Sukhi had only injured her wing, fear gripped my heart, squeezing it as I rushed to the nearest stall and then slammed to a halt, my stomach lurching, caustic acid rising in my throat.
A gryphon lay in the stall, dead, a hole burned through its breast.
“Inara—stop!”
Loukas’s shout echoed dully through the roar in my head. I backed away and then hurried to the next stall, only to find another dead gryphon. My blood was a rush through my body; dizziness struck me and I stumbled away from the corpse.
Strong hands closed over my shoulders, spinning me around and pulling me into a warm, strong, living body. “I tried to warn you,” Loukas murmured, but there was only sorrow in his voice, not censure.
“Where is she? Did she really survive or are you all lying to me?” I pulled back, though part of me wanted to bury my head in his chest and let him hold me until all of this somehow went away—the death, the pain and suffering. We’d stopped Barloc, but not before he’d taken far too many lives—human, Paladin, and gryphon alike.
“She’s alive,” he said, gently guiding me back to the doorway and out into the rain. “They must be treating her somewhere else nearby. I promise, she’s alive,” he repeated as I began to tremble, a delayed reaction to the horror we’d endured.
“Are there more injured gryphons nearby?” Louk called out, and a couple of Paladin looked up from their work bandaging and treating their mounts.
“There’s one or two more around the side,” one said, pointing. “We ran out of space over here.”
Loukas nodded and turned me toward the other side of the stables, walking around the outside of it. When we turned the corner, relief coursed through me, so powerful it was heavy somehow, draining my strength so that, even though I wanted to run to her, I could barely lift my legs to walk to where Sukhi lay on her side, her leonine hind legs tucked in and her left wing extended. An unfamiliar Paladin was wrapping it, holding a thick piece of wood in place to splint her wing with a long length of bandage that looked a lot like a sheet that had been torn into strips.
She lifted her head when I hurried to her side, and gave a soft hoot. I dropped to my knees by her beak and pulled it into my lap, stroking the soft feathers back from her eyes. She closed them with another soft noise in her throat.
“Thank you,” I murmured. “Thank you for saving my life.”
“I’m almost done here,” the Paladin wrapping her wing said. “She won’t be able to fly for a few weeks, unless someone heals her before then.”
I longed to heal her, but I knew there were other more life-threatening injuries I had to save my strength for … but soon. Once the Paladin who still lived had been healed and I’d regained my strength fully.
“Thank you for helping her,” I said to the Paladin securing the bandage with a knot.
He looked to me and there was something akin to awe in his expression. “Thank you for saving all of us.”
My neck flushed. “It wasn’t just me. We all did it. Together.”
Loukas crouched down beside me and Sukhi, and the look he gave me filled me with warmth even as the rain sluiced down my hair and face, slowly soaking my clothes. “He’s right. Without you, we would have failed.”
Our gaze met and held, and everything else faded away. There was only Louk and the heat in his green-fire eyes, and a sudden realization that we had survived. That we were alive. So very alive. Hearts beating and lungs breathing and lips speaking. I suddenly wished we were alone so our lips could be doing something very different. His eyes dropped to my mouth, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. Heat unfurled in my stomach, and I suddenly became very aware of my skin, of the current that rushed over it, like lightning had distilled into the rain and coated my body with sparks, just waiting for him to close the space between us and touch me, igniting the fire he’d awoken in me by the stream.
Had that only been one day ago? How was it possible that only one night and one day had passed, when it seemed an entire lifetime had been encompassed in those hours?
Louk’s eyes burned, his body tensed as though the pull between us was just as strong for him as it was for me. But wishes weren’t easily fulfilled; we weren’t alone and there was too much to do, too many people suffering who needed me, to indulge in something as miraculous but untimely as another kiss. And alongside the wonder of having survived was also the blistering guilt of it … because so many hadn’t. Including Halvor.
I looked down first, ripping my gaze from his as though tearing our souls apart. Later. There would be all the time in the world because, whether we deserved it or not, we’d survived and we were alive. But for now, I was needed elsewhere.
Hours passed in a blur of rain, mud, blood, and summoning my power again and again, until my hands shook and my muscles trembled with exhaustion. I couldn’t fully heal the worst of the injuries, knowing it would drain too much of my power. It was much more finite now that the Mother of all Paladin had taken back the endless well I’d wielded for such a short time—but at the most crucial moment I ever could have needed it. So I did just enough to save their lives, to minimize their suffering, and had to fight the urge to keep going to finish what I started, pulling back instead and moving on to the next injury. Six, seven, eight … ten, eleven, twelve Paladin before I glanced around and there were no more to work on. The other healers’ gazes met mine and I saw my own exhaustion echoed in their dull eyes, their Paladin fire barely flickering after the massive drain on all of our power.
My legs barely held me up, I was covered in mud, my clothes were soaked from the rain that remained a steady drizzle while we worked. Some of those who weren’t injured as badly were moved inside the citadel, but the worst ones remained where they were until we got to them, and then were taken inside after we stabilized them. I was cold, exhausted, and on the verge of collapsing.
Somehow, we’d done it. We’d saved everyone that we possibly were capable of saving.
But there were far too many that we’d lost.
Now that the work had ended, I stood there in the middle of the nearly empty grounds, shaking and wet and overcome. As I’d healed and healed and healed, I hadn’t been able to think about the ones I’d lost—hadn’t allowed myself to think of them. I’d forced myself to stay focused, to do what had to be done.
But there was nothing left for me to do, and with that nothingness came a tidal wave of grief.
Zuhra had taken me aside at one point and told me Halvor’s last words—how he’d asked them to tell me he loved me. His loss was sharp and terrible. It knifed through my heart, a blade formed of grief, serrated with guilt—that we hadn’t come back in time to save him, that he had sacrificed his life to save my family. Zuhra had held me as I sobbed, tears of despair and shame and relief—because of him my sister and mother lived.
I would never be able to thank him for caring about me—for loving me. For being my first kiss, and my first … everything. He had changed our lives, and mine in particular, forever.
Around me the other Paladin hurried to finish carrying the survivors in, but I stood in middle of the courtyard in the rain, my body and mind completely drained, my defenses weakened so that I could no longer avoid the one death my mind had darted away from, like a skittish deer through all the hours of healing.
Sami.
The pain of her loss nearly doubed me over. The only death that could have hurt worse would have been if I’d lost Zuhra. Next to my sister, Sami was the one who had always been there for me—the mother my mother hadn’t been capable of being for either of us. She’d taken down one of the jaklas with her death, but the cost was far too high. If only she would have stayed in the citadel. My eyes burned and I tilted my face up to the sky, letting my tears mingle with the rain slipping down my cheeks.
“You are truly remarkable, do you know that?”
I spun at the sound of Louk’s voice. He stood a few feet away in the rain, his dark hair dripping, his brilliant green eyes a stark contrast to the charcoal clouds above and the mud below. When our gazes met, his brow furrowed, his smile slipping.
“What is it?”
I shook my head, unable to speak, the tears coming faster and harder.
Without another word, Louk opened his arms, and I let him envelop me in his strength and warmth, holding me as I sobbed, grief slamming into me like waves, over and over. I would surface just long enough to suck in a breath of air before another one pulled me under again.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed before my sorrow spent itself—for now—and the tears slowed and then finally stopped. The rain had petered out sometime while I’d cried, soaking his shirt even more.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice low, and a little hoarse. “I know what he meant to you.”
I pulled back to peer up into his face. His face was shuttered once more, revealing none of the hurt I sensed coursing through his veins from the sanaulus we now shared after healing him during the battle. He thought all of this was because of Halvor. And it was; it was confusion because I had cared for Halvor and instead of coming back to have the heart-rending conversation with him I’d been preparing for, I’d never seen him again, to tell him anything. Not thank you for being there for me or I’m sorry or please forgive me or any of the other inadequate words I’d tried to come up with to explain myself and my actions with Louk. Halvor was just … gone. And I didn’t know how to handle that—yet. On top of all of that was losing Sami. Her death gutted me in a way I didn’t know how to heal from. There was no magic fix for the pain both of their losses left inside me.
But … I didn’t want all of that to push Loukas away. I needed him, now more than ever. I reached up and cupped his jaw as I had by the stream. He winced at the touch, a tiny prick of hope sparking but met and overcome by doubt. It amazed me, the way I could read his emotions so clearly. It almost made me feel guilty … except that it gave me hope—that perhaps he did care for me. Naïve and young as I might be, as he’d pointed out more than once.
“I’m not going to lie to you—you’re right. Halvor’s death … hurts. A lot. I cared for him … deeply,” I began.
Louk stiffened, his jaw clenching beneath my hand; I pressed on before he could withdraw or shut me out again.
“And he … he sacrificed himself to save my sister and my mother. If he were here, it would mean they were gone.” My voice broke, but I forced myself to continue. “So yes, I will always have a special place in my heart for Halvor, for being there for me and for what we shared, for helping me find hope when I wasn’t sure I could … and for saving my family. But also because without him coming into our lives, Zuhra never would have met Raidyn, we wouldn’t have ever seen our father again, and … I never would have met you. I … I never would have learned what I was capable of feeling … of what I do with you.” My words were woefully insufficient, but it was all I dared say—as much as I could bring myself to admit.
Louk’s mask slipped, his face softening, filling his eyes with a warmth I’d never seen before. “Inara, I—”
I barreled right over him. “And I was also crying because of Sami.” Even saying her name made my eyes sting again. My arm began to shake and I had to let my hand drop. “She was like a mother to me, when my own mother was incapable of showing me love. She didn’t need to die. I don’t understand why she did that—why she thought she could stop him.” My throat tightened and I finally stopped.
He cupped my face this time, with both hands, gently stroking my damp hair back. He opened his mouth, but when no words came out, he merely bent down and pressed his lips to mine. His kiss was soft, gentle even, speaking what he couldn’t say. One of his hands wove through my hair, while his other arm dropped to encircle me, carefully pulling me into his body. I sank into his embrace, heedless of where we were, of who might be watching, losing myself in the warmth and strength of his arms.
Our first kiss had been desperation and heat and need, a crashing of wills and hearts; this kiss was softer, his lips moving tenderly on mine, a meeting of souls, a celebration of survival, a surrendering that was like falling and being caught all at once. I felt his walls crumbling as our mouths slowly moved together, the rush of pure emotion that filled his heart and body flowing into mine through his hands, his kiss—the connection that had begun that day I climbed onto a gryphon for the first time in front of him and culminating there in the courtyard, where everything had begun all those weeks ago when the hedge had let a young man through the gate.
Though I was a mess inside, grief and relief, sorrow and joy, guilt and wonder, all twisted up in each other—a tangle of memories and wishes—in that moment, in Louk’s arms, I could relinquish it all, and just be. Even if it was only for that moment, for the length of a breathtaking, soul-healing, heart-stopping kiss.
For now, that was enough.