The stranger—Loukas—lay on the bed, unmoving. Sami sat beside him, mopping his brow with a cool compress, one of her poultices on the wound he’d concealed from us. Not life-threatening, they claimed, unless it grew infected before Raidyn—the other stranger, the one it seemed my sister had feelings for—regained the strength to be able to heal him.
Not me. Never again would it be me.
I stood near the doorway, silent, listening. Halvor had left an hour ago, going through the hole Barloc had blasted through both the hedge and the iron fence it had hidden. He said he was going to slip down to the village below, listening for any word on the whereabouts of Barloc and the other Paladin who had followed him. There was also the fear that the garrison was still nearby—especially now that there was a hole in the hedge. One it didn’t seem to be able to repair itself.
I’d never hated anyone before—had never wished violence upon anyone before.
Until now.
Now, I had to forcibly lock away any thoughts of Barloc. But despite my efforts, they kept slipping free—memories and feelings made of panic that turned my palms slick with cold sweat and sent my heart racing at such a speed that I grew light-headed. Terror seized my throat—right at the spot where he’d sliced it open to drink my blood, and white-hot rage curled my fingers into claws that ached to rip him apart.
Zuhra sat on the other side of Loukas’s bed, Raidyn beside her. Both of them were stiff, tension swirling between them so thick it radiated past them to the rest of the room. I didn’t understand it—I couldn’t figure out the reason why Zuhra’s hands were clenched together in her lap, and his arms were folded over his chest, his fingers curled in tightly to his palms. Why, when they even leaned slightly toward one another—as though the draw between them was so strong they couldn’t even sit up straight—did they fight it?
My father—my father—walked into the room, pausing to hug me briefly, something that still took me off guard. Both the having a father who wasn’t the villain, here, in the citadel, and the hugging. Mother was right behind him, still seeming dazed by his reappearance. She was never more than a step or two behind him, as though terrified that if she left his side he would disappear for another fifteen years.
Apparently, she’d forgiven him. And based on what Zuhra had told us, he’d deserved the forgiveness after all.
Zuhra looked up at them, her eyes bloodshot and her face ashy. “Nothing?” she asked, and they both shook their heads.
They’d been in the Hall of Miracles, hoping for it to live up to its name.
“I just need a few hours. Then I can heal him,” Raidyn said, his voice that was so melodic, yet deep and somewhat smoky, breaking across the room like thunder from a summer storm. I noticed Zuhra’s fingers tighten—if that was possible—at the sound of it. It was a remarkable voice. One that was somehow both gentle and commanding.
“I can do it, Raid,” my father offered, as he had twice already.
“No,” Raidyn refused yet again. “It’s not life-threatening. You save your strength, so we aren’t both depleted, in case…”
He didn’t have to elaborate. We all knew the danger we were in. Especially if the garrison was still close by and realized there was a hole in the hedge.
“This is all my fault.” The words burst out of Zuhra’s mouth, as though they had been building and building inside her and could no longer be held back. “If I hadn’t pushed so hard—if the council hadn’t said yes—no one would be hurt, no one would have died—”
And then she crumpled, folding in on herself.
I lurched forward, unused to being the one able to offer comfort to her, rather than the other way around, but before I could reach her, Raidyn hesitantly unfolded his arms and I paused, waiting—
He gently wrapped one around her shaking body, while the rest of us watched.
“That’s not true, love,” Sami said quietly from across the bed. Poor, sweet Sami who had been knocked unconscious by Barloc in the morning room and left there, until she woke up to find her world in upheaval yet again. “Inara would have opened the gateway eventually; she was just waiting for her power to build up, and that … that monster,” she spat, “would have come through and taken the Paladin unaware. And Inara would have died.”
“No,” my father said slowly. “She wouldn’t have.”
My gaze snapped to his, at the same time Zuhra straightened, her face splotchy and tear-streaked, and said, “What?”
“Inara wouldn’t have opened the gateway—not by herself.” He turned to her. “You told me that she was in so much pain … that even though Halvor was blasted backward from trying to pull her free of the door, you still grabbed her hand to do the same—except you weren’t blasted backward, were you?”
Her eyes grew wide and then a look of utter horror overcame her—why?—and she shook her head.
“It took both of you to open that gateway. Inara alone would never have been able to do it.”
Now it was my turn to stare at him. “It wasn’t just me that did it?”
“No,” he confirmed gently. “It took your sister’s power joining with yours, and enhancing it, to open the gateway, and even then, only for a brief moment.”
I didn’t know why that mattered, especially now, but for some reason … it did. I’d held the blame of what had happened that day—and everything following it—squarely on my shoulders, knowing that it had been my fault, my power, that had opened the gateway, brought destruction to us, and stolen Zuhra.
But it had never been just my fault after all. And for some reason … it was just too much. Without a word, I turned and left the room.
I vaguely heard someone ask if they should go after me, but Mother murmured, “Let her go. I think she needs a minute alone.”
As I walked through the citadel blindly, hazy memories of Barloc dragging me toward the Hall of Miracles resurfaced. I had been lost in the roar, so it was only brief flashes, but it was still enough to summon waves of panic that broke over me, alternatingly between ice-cold terror and fire-hot rage. Until Halvor had quietly filled me in, I’d thought Barloc had dragged me there to open the gateway. It was only later that I found out it had already been opened, and they’d all felt the shock wave of power, even across the citadel. He’d reacted quickest, snatching my wrist and yanking me out of the drawing room, knocking Sami out because she was in the way, and blocking the door behind us before any of the other two even realized what he was doing, trapping them in there, unable to reach us or stop him, until they’d managed to break down the door using a fire poker.
I tried to clamp down on the memories, but the horror of what he’d done to me rose unchecked, and suddenly it felt as though the very walls of the citadel were closing in on me, crushing me, trapping me. I ran, stumbled, tripped my way to the front entrance.
I had to get out—I had to breathe—I had to—
I burst through the ruined doors, out into the cool embrace of the rain that had begun to drip from the weeping sky, and had to bend over and grasp my knees to keep from passing out. My blood was hot and cold all at once, rushing through my veins. But as I stood there breathing in and out, in and out, slowly, slowly, sense returned to me and I was able to lock away the terror once more.
For now.
When I finally straightened, I was facing the singed hole in the hedge.
Silence.
There was nothing but silence.
I swallowed and forced my feet to carry forward, toward the massive, wounded beast of a plant. A Paladin plant that I, and I alone, had learned how to control.
The hole ripped through it had jagged, burned edges that matched the unseen wound within me. The gaping, torn cavern left where my power had once pulsed.
I lifted my hand slowly. It trembled in the small space between me and the hedge, the droplets of rain that fell onto my skin shivering and rolling off it. With a tiny exhale, I pushed it forward so that my fingers brushed the large, uninjured leaf closest to me.
Nothing.
There was nothing to feel.
Nothing to sense.
Nothing to be.
Who was I?
I was nothing.
I had been many things: daughter, sister, monster, savior …
But now I was … empty.
I knelt down on the ground, dug my fingers into the soil, and tilted my face up to the sky so the rain could wash away my tears.