by Jodi Meadows
“How, you ask? How can we take actions that seem opposed to what we wanted? I answer you: If we are followers of the Great Flame, then we do it gladly. We let go of our attachment to the Fallen Isles, our dependence on the Fallen Gods, and forge a new land of our own. Though our time with Anahera has ended, her teachings live on through us. A new beginning waits just beyond today’s eclipse, fulfilling her divine promise.
“But to earn it, we must be willing to let go of the past—to relinquish what makes us weak. That is why sacrifice is required. In the words of our holy book, ‘It is sacrifice that enables change.’ So that is what we will do today. When the moons begin to cross before the sun, our old world will fall away.”
A huge cheer rose up from the crowd of people he’d assembled, calling for our deaths, calling for the new world.
I bent my wrists and felt around for a way to free my hands. But they were bound tight, held in place with another rope tied around a column. If only I could find the knot— But my fingertips grazed over the prickly fibers, and there was no way I could get enough leverage.
My heart kicked faster as I considered my options.
I was still the Hopebearer, and I wasn’t gagged. If I spoke up over Paorah, surely someone would object to his treatment of me. But . . . no. They all knew who I was. They didn’t care. They wanted him to do this. Or, at best, they were just going along with whoever seemed the most powerful right now.
I could summon noorestone fire, but there was no guarantee it would burn off the ropes without also hurting Aaru or the others.
Even if I tried to burn only my ropes, it might not work fast enough—before Paorah and his guards noticed.
Perhaps if I just pushed the noorestone fire into Paorah . . . But that was the same problem as before. Even if I managed to bring him to his knees—or worse—we’d still be tied up and at the mercy of all his guards. And, from what I’d seen so far, they outnumbered us.
But I had to do something. We had only hours before the eclipse and slaughter began. And with two gods left in the sea, Anahera and Darina, one was sure to rise any moment now.
I took a deep breath, forcing myself to think past the sedatives making my mind like sludge. I’d come here for a reason: to merge with the first dragon.
I needed to find her. Get to her. Stop the gods from rising.
I closed my eyes and felt for her presence.
She was nearby, not even a league away, but she might as well have been across the ocean. I needed contact to merge. Which brought me back to the problem of how to get free.
Just then, someone touched my hands, fumbling around the rope. I stiffened, but as the ropes began to loosen, I forced myself to relax, even as the cool skin—no, not skin—brushed over my wrists.
Aaru shifted toward me and murmured, “Chenda says to wait until she’s finished.”
Her shadow.
She’d set her shadow to freeing us.
I resisted the urge to twist my head and look.
Finally, the bonds slipped, and I caught only the edges of darkness flitting away—toward the wagons and the rest of the people we’d brought with us. I forced myself to look at anything else while she worked.
I wished Chenda would hurry. And where were the dragons? In the distance, I could feel LaLa and Crystal circling in the sky, being of absolutely no help. But that was for the best; they were safe.
Kelsine . . . She was here, trapped inside the building. I could feel her fear, her worry. She might have been a dragon, but she was still a juvenile, and she’d been through a lot in her short life. I just wished we hadn’t been reconnected only to bring her into more danger.
It seemed like ages slipped past as Paorah spoke on the glories of cleansing fire, but the sun hadn’t moved far by the time Aaru leaned toward me.
“She said everyone is free. In one minute, our people will attack. Can you get to the first dragon?”
I flexed my fingers and wrists, my legs and feet. Lying flat on hard stone had done nothing for my circulation. But I could do it. If given the chance, I could reach her. Slowly, I turned my face back to Aaru, memorizing his features while I counted the seconds. His lips, soft and warm, so often tilted up in an expression of neutral pleasantness.
Forty-five.
Those dark eyes that saw everything.
Thirty-two.
The sharp lines of his cheekbones.
Nineteen.
Everything. Everything about him.
Five.
I wished we had more time.
Four.
I wished I’d told him sooner how I felt.
Three.
I wished there’d ever been a future for us.
Two.
But given our different lives, the world we lived in, the choices we’d have made if left alone, maybe it was a miracle we’d ever met in the first place.
One.
“I love you,” I said.
He smiled, because he knew what would happen next—of course he knew—and then silence descended over the ruins, darkening every noorestone.
Soundless, chaotic motion burst all around us, with our fighters leaping out of wagons, through the ranks of Paorah’s soldiers, and taking fallen weapons for themselves. Even dishonored, even far from their risen god Khulan, they were faster and stronger than Anaherans. And when Gerel hurled herself into the fray, she was a vision of perfectly practiced violence.
Without the noorestone light obscuring Chenda’s shadow, it loomed darkly in the golden morning sun, holding a line between the fighting and the portico—protecting our group up here. And for Chenda’s part, she was pulling Safa into the dubious safety of the building and the juvenile Drakontos ignitus within.
Then, almost as soon as the sound vanished, a pulse of charm rippled across the space, so strong it almost pulled me in. As I rolled to my hands and knees, I saw Ilina and Zara moving toward the front of the portico, where Paorah held Mother at knifepoint. My wingsister and my blood sister had their hands clasped, their god gifts working together.
A gag filled Mother’s mouth, and her hands had been tied with a length of ribbon, but she didn’t look afraid. No, she lifted her gaze to meet mine, and there I found a mirror: determination, resignation, and—though I’d never really expected it—love. Then she lifted her chin in clear instruction: go.
In one motion, I finished shedding the ropes around my wrists and ran for the nearest break between Paorah’s soldiers; most of them had left their positions when they went to quell the resistance.
Frantically, I looked around for a horse—the first dragon wasn’t nearby—but they were all tethered and yanking wildly at the restraints.
So it would be my own two feet the whole way.
The moment I was clear of the fighting, I turned south, toward the pull of the first dragon, running as fast as I could. A stitch grabbed at my side, but I pushed through the pain. And when Aaru’s silence began to lift, I seized power from the noorestones and yanked it into me.
Fire wrapped around me like armor, and now that I had wings giving me lift, I half flew across the desert—toward my destiny.
I moved faster than I’d ever moved in my life. For my friends, I ignored the pain of my body. For the people I’d promised to help, I counted every footfall. And for all those I hadn’t been able to save, I prayed: Give them peace, give them grace, give them enough love in their hearts.
Sweat streaked down my face, evaporating as the sun lifted higher. Salt crusted on my skin, and a deep, desperate thirst rolled through me. Still, I didn’t stop. And when a noise sounded behind me—like hoofbeats—I didn’t dare risk looking over my shoulder. I couldn’t lose my momentum, and if someone was chasing me, I needed every piece of my body focused on getting to the first dragon before they did.
Noorestone fire stretched after me, soaking into my blood and bones as deeply as possible—and then the connection snapped. The distance was too much.
But by then, I could see the first dragon. I pushed
myself harder, gasping for breath as I took in the facts: the platform had been hobbled, its wheels smashed and lying on the desert floor, but the first dragon was still upright, waiting for me.
Almost there. A few hundred more strides, at most.
Then, above, a dragon screamed.
The sound sent a shiver of terror into me, and I stumbled, caught myself, and pushed onward again, but that scream could mean only one thing.
An island was about to rise.
I felt it, too. The way my heart twisted in knots, the way the earth shivered under my steps, the way my dragon soul wrenched in horror: Anahera was next.
Within an hour—faster than the others had risen once the dragons took notice—but the moons were already making their trek toward the sun. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel the weight of them on the horizon, chasing after the sun, closing in, almost there. Anahera was already preparing to rise; it wouldn’t be long before Darina pulled herself up out of the sea, too.
And then our whole world would be finished.
Unless I reached the first dragon in time. Unless I begged the gods to wait. Unless I gave up everything that made me human.
It would be worth it, if the Fallen Isles could be right again.
Another draconic scream ripped through the sky. LaLa. I’d recognize her voice anywhere, and it made my heart twist to hear her like this, aching with anxious terror and grief. Months ago, it would have destroyed me. Today, I made it strengthen me, because I knew how to help her. I could do it.
Four hundred strides away from the bones of the first dragon.
Three hundred.
Ahead, the bones flickered. Glowed. Shone like noorestones. But when I blinked, the effect was gone.
I was hot. Sweating. It must have been a mirage.
Or a greeting.
The hoofbeats behind me were gaining, heavy on the packed road. Then a horse groaned and something—its body—thumped to the ground, and all I could hear were the hard footfalls and panting of my pursuer.
I jerked faster, but it wasn’t enough. Hot, blinding pain ripped down my back.
Shock made me scream, and I tried to scramble forward, but my pursuer kicked me. I dropped to the ground on all fours, rock and sand digging against my palms.
“I can’t let you do this.” The voice was soft, empty of emotion, but short with exertion.
Paorah.
I dug my fingertips into the ground, counting breaths—three, four, five—and then hauled myself up, even as the wound in my back tore wider, making red and white shimmer in the corners of my vision. I gasped for the breath that wouldn’t fill my lungs. Fire flared over my back, centering on the spot where a blade had pushed through skin, through muscle, through something vital. That was bad. Maybe really bad. But if I could get back to the ruin noorestones, this would heal. I just had to hang on until then.
I had to.
My head swam as I pulled myself straight, turning to face him.
His chest was heaving with want of breath, and sweat trickled down his face in thin streams. But when he looked at me, his gaze was steady. Beyond him, a horse lay dead on the rocky ground, an arrow sticking from its leg. “I can’t let you do this, Mira Minkoba,” he said again.
“I don’t see how you can stop me.” Somehow, my voice didn’t shake. Maybe because I could feel the first dragon at my back, only one hundred strides away. So close.
But she wasn’t like the noorestones; I couldn’t tap into her power from here. No, we had to touch, and one hundred strides might as well have been one hundred leagues.
Paorah lifted his knife, the blade still dripping with my blood. “You know I’m not afraid to use this.”
I knew. And we both knew that I was injured, barely standing. He could kill me faster than I could make a run for the first dragon.
“You must be afraid of something”—I clenched my jaw—“or you wouldn’t have come all this way. You wouldn’t have felt the need to stab me.” My legs trembled with the effort of staying up, but I clenched my jaw and locked my knees. No matter what, I would make it back to the ruins and finish what I’d come to do.
“You’ll spoil the sacrifice.” His gaze was steady. Even. The knife lowered to his side, and my blood oozed down the point, into the sand. “It may already be spoiled, but I’ll do what I must for the chance at saving it.”
“You’re going to kill a bunch of people for nothing,” I said. “Their deaths will mean nothing to the Fallen Gods, beyond that we are unworthy of their presence.”
He took a step forward.
I took a shaking step back.
“The gods are slaughtering more people than I ever could.” His knuckles paled around the knife handle—I couldn’t stop looking at the blade, waiting for him to use it against me again—but he didn’t come closer. “At least this way, their deaths accomplish something. We aren’t meant to stay with the Fallen Gods, Mira. They’re supposed to leave us.”
“What makes you such an expert?” I tried to block out the pain in my back, but it was so loud, so demanding. It was a warning, I knew; pain insisted on being felt because something was wrong, but I. Was. Aware. “Do you think that because you saw the Great Abandonment coming decades ago that you are the sole voice of what it means? You hastened this day.”
He shook his head. “The Book of Destruction has always been clear that the Great Abandonment would happen during an eclipse, and the moons don’t move differently because of our actions. Today was always the day, Hopebearer. If I did anything, it was all in accordance with Anahera’s plans. She is the trickster, after all, and we are but puppets.”
“You’re wrong,” I hissed. My thoughts listed to one side of my mind, drifting out as the pain in my back tried again to take over, but above, LaLa screeched and blew fire, despairing over the impending tremor—the abandonment. It took everything in me not to reach out to her, to offer comfort, if I could. The last time I’d been connected with a dragon during the period before an island got up, I’d nearly lost myself to the despair, too.
Of course, the pain might get me first. I couldn’t stand here and talk to him all day; we’d never agree how to set the world right, and the eclipse was close, and—I heaved my thoughts over the mountain of agony in my back—he was trying to distract me. Delay me.
“Anahera may be the trickster,” I said, “but we are not puppets. We make our own choices, and you chose to serve yourself.”
He looked at me like I was crazy, like he couldn’t believe there was any other choice. “And what do you serve?”
“I serve hope.” I pivoted and threw myself toward the first dragon.
It wasn’t enough. My movements were clumsy with pain, my range of motion limited, so when Paorah surged forward, his knife plunged easily into my shoulder.
I stumbled, screaming, and when I reached around, the only thing I could feel was a sticky, hot mess of blood flowing. Everything hurt, and all my muscles trembled from the strain of running so far in the desert heat, and now this, too. Now, this man coming after me, threatening me, attacking me.
Three more steps. I staggered that far, reaching for the first dragon with my good arm; my bleeding shoulder hurt almost as much as my back, rendering my right arm useless.
Four steps. Five.
But that was as far as I got before Paorah grabbed me and spun me around, like he wanted me to die looking at him, the man who’d arranged for the Mira Treaty to be written and signed, only so that he could tear it apart. The man who’d steal dragons to force them to entreat our gods, only to let them wither to the brink of death. The man who’d made a deal with the Algotti Empire, only so that he could attack them, conquer them.
He promised wonders but delivered destruction.
And then—
An earsplitting shriek rent the air as LaLa stooped, flame spilling from her jaws. Then her wings flared, and she shifted so that her talons reached forward—and my sweet little dragon gouged Paorah’s eyes, blowing fire all across his fa
ce.
He ducked and tried to shield himself, but he was too late.
The knife dropped.
I didn’t waste time. Gasping for breath, I hurled myself toward the first dragon. Closer, closer. A wispy part of my mind marveled at my LaLa. How incredible that she’d come to my rescue, even in the throes of her own grief. Any other time an earthquake had been nearing, she’d been inconsolable, unreachable. But when she felt my peril, she’d come straight for me. I didn’t deserve such devotion, but I loved her more than ever.
Fifty strides.
Blackness curled at the corners of my vision. I pushed onward, struggling to keep my focus on the wooden platform, the bones, and the place I’d need to climb up.
Twenty strides.
My vision went gray, and my feet started to trip over each other. I fell, landing heavily on my good hand, but still the agony in my back and shoulder spiked. I cried out, vomited from the pain, and struggled to crawl forward. But now I was lost. I couldn’t see, and I didn’t know which direction to go. And with all the blood seeping out of my body, I didn’t have time to go the wrong way.
Surely I hadn’t come so far only to fail.
Then, a pinprick of light found my eyes—fire—and gusts of air fanned against my face.
LaLa.
I made a strangled noise of relief, gulping at the marginally cooler wind made from her wings, and followed the dim light of her fire. Crawling, groping over the rocks and broken wheels in front of me, but moving.
My knees banged against the debris, my blood-sticky hands stung with grit, and I could feel the consciousness draining out of me, but I had to be close.
Another spark of light urged me onward, but a faint roar of blood filled my ears, drowning all my thoughts. I couldn’t move my hurt shoulder anymore, and my back—and whatever he’d punctured there—was a knot of agony, spreading outward. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t—
I pushed my failing body forward once more, and that was it. I dropped. The rush in my head was so loud I couldn’t even hear the clatter of wood and dirt, but something sharp dug into my sternum. I couldn’t roll off it.