I beamed.
“Well?” Gaius said, smiling the same as I did. All the princes wore bright grins, sharing similar conclusions to the ones I had. “Can you find the spell to lead us to Gaia?”
“This is a sickeningly thick tome,” Micah said, skimming through the pages. “And I’m not good with ancient witch tongue, as I mentioned earlier. We should leave for Raynea. I’ll take this back and—”
The moment Micah picked the book up, removing it from the pedestal, the entire room quaked. Hissing sounded from the giant orb above. I held onto Micah’s arm, wondering what caused the terrible noise. It sounded like women shrieking, the voices wrapping around each other, straining tighter and tighter until it became unbearable for my ears.
“W-w-what’s happening?” I asked.
“I think we shouldn’t have picked up that tome.”
“This place,” Rylan said. “It doesn’t want us to leave.” And then I recalled the plaque right at the entrance. It had stated that dragon-kind wouldn’t be allowed to leave should they enter.
I felt my insides turning cold. “Run.”
A smoke, green, terrible, and forming the image of a wraith, emerged, coming from the giant orb hanging at the top of the room. The temperature of the place dropped, the chill sinking into my bones. The smoke sucked out the soul magic from the orb, casting the place into darkness. Micah clutched the grimoire to his chest. Kael swept me up into his arms. And while running, the princes spread their wings and ran toward the exit. I didn’t know what the smoke was, but it reminded me of the magic of the Dragon Mother, told in folktales they had repeated to children.
As a child, I’d heard the smoke couldn’t be fought against, not by humans, not by hidraes. No one stood a chance against it. It would cut up anybody it touched into pieces, leaving them bloodied and mangled.
Don’t misbehave, or the surgitia furmia will come for you, Mother used to say.
But the smoke, the surgitia, was proclaimed to be black. This was green. Was this a variation, perhaps?
Its color didn’t matter.
We had to get out of here soon . . . or face death.
“We’ll have to leave the temple entirely,” Kael said, hugging me to his chest. “The smoke requires magic to fuel itself. Without the orbs and the souls that come from them, it can’t continue.”
I looked over his shoulder, gripping my satchel to my stomach so it didn’t fling about. The corridors got dimmer as we ran down the large building. The surgitia sucked the orbs dry as we ran through the temple orbs.
“It’s not just renewing itself,” I squeaked. The smoke even looked pretty, in a ghostly way, but we weren’t going to stay around to find out what it’d do if it reached us. “It’s growing.” The souls, wispy and effervescent, swirled and combined with the massive smoke. It had started as the size of a human, but it was beginning to expand into the size of a full hidrae. The sounds it emitted became louder, too.
And it picked up speed.
Rylan was ahead, leading the way with his black wings spread wide behind his back. Gaius and Micah were right behind us. Soon, even their wings wouldn’t be fast enough to carry us out. “Any chance that this fog would just feel nice and cooling instead? It is a different color,” I said.
“Sure,” Kael said dryly. “Why don’t head back there, give it a shot?”
“No, thank you. Besides, would you let me?”
“Over my dead body.”
The entrance of the large building was guarded by a narrow corridor. It was too small for the princes to leave their wings open. Kael had to tuck them closer to his back to run through it in his human form.
There were more snake-woman statues hanging at the side of this corridor. Their eyes glowed, as if condemning us for our sins. I knew we should have listened to the warning at the front of the temple. We’d gotten overconfident.
“We can’t go fast enough! Not on foot!” I shouted. I panicked, my heart going into a full gallop, so it made it difficult to think. I had to come up with something. The smoke was about to eat us alive. I saw another glowing sphere, smaller than the others to fit into this narrow passage.
The surgitia used magic. I could, too, and there was power all around me. “Prasei Diodori!” I yelled, using the spell I had to save Bianca from my ingoria’s earlier. I pushed my hand backward and focused, willing the magic to spill from my fingertips.
I held my breath as I waited. Nothing happened.
Kael picked up his pace. “Maybe we should stop trying to offend Aereala. This is her cruel joke, right?”
“There’s something blocking me,” I said. “It’s not letting me use the magic from the orbs.”
“The witches might have put up safeguards,” Rylan replied, not turning around.
“Shit!” Micah shouted. I jolted and snapped my eyes to him. The smoke had caught up and grazed Micah’s arm. A bloody wound patterned across his skin, like it’d just been worked over by a school of vicious piranhas.
“Micah!” I yelled back.
Micah sprinted forward. “I’m fine,” he said.
The smoke was too close; we weren’t going to make it.
Gaius, mimicking my actions, used his soul beads to shout his spell backward. A shield formed around the smoke, and for a moment, relief swelled in my chest. The smoke couldn’t break through the shield. We all slowed down, not feeling the need to sprint for our—
A crrack pierced my eardrums, and the shield broke apart. We’d gotten a small head start, but the smoke surged forward with increased vigor.
“Sera, if we don’t make it,” Kael said, “know that I love you.”
“I know, Kael.” I hissed out frustration. “Don’t say things like that. We’ll be fine.” I watched Gaius throw out another barrier.
Gaius growled. “I don’t have enough souls to keep this up.”
“How many more?” Rylan called back.
“Maybe two.”
“We should have brought some,” Kael groaned. The princes could use soul magic, but only Gaius made a habit of it. The rest preferred brute force.
The damp air of the musty caverns stuck on my skin when we exited the building and into the city. The princes were able to fan their wings out again and they took to the air. They shot forward as quickly as they could, trying to give us as much distance from the surgitia as we could take.
We’re going to be fine.
I kept chanting that mantra in my head. But Gaius’s shields weren’t working anymore. When he casted the next one, the open air allowed the surgitia to spread in all directions and dodge the barrier.
We needed a powerful one to stop it entirely.
I couldn’t use the souls in the magical spheres, but I still had my own. Would that be enough? I dug into my satchel to search for the bracelet Bianca had given me earlier—the pretty-colored one with an ingoria carving decorating it.
We flew over the bridge now. We were almost out of the temple and to safety. But the smoke had grown to a giant wall, about to swallow us.
“Prasei diodori sores!” The spell was a gamble. My heart nearly stopped as I swung my gaze backward. I’d mix two spells, and I didn’t know if it’d work. I’d seen Micah do that so many times I thought it’d be worth a shot. I hadn’t realized how expensive it was, because half the souls in my bracelet disappeared.
The surgitia stopped, bound by my spell. But this reprieve wasn’t going to last long. I already felt the fog fighting against my magic, struggling to break through.
“Okay,” I breathed, resting my chin against Kael’s shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I don’t think you’ve been paying attention,” Kael said. The rate of his pulse had picked up and his breathing was heavy. “That’s what we’ve been trying to do.” He was still moving his wings as quickly as he could.
We were so close to the exit. The place where Kael had fallen from was right ahead. We just had to climb out, and then get as far away from this place as quickly as possible.
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But before we got close enough, another surgitia formed behind Micah. It misted into the air so quickly and viciously, we had no time to react. The magic swelled toward Micah. It latched onto his foot and pulled him backward.
Pain gripped my chest.
My ears rang.
In less than a second, it swallowed Micah whole.
“Micah!” I screamed. “Micah, no!”
I continued to call for him, shouting with everything I had, straining my throat until it went hoarse.
This wasn’t real.
I asked Kael to go back but he merely tensed and held me tighter to him. I couldn’t take the sight. Micah was being torn to shreds. He was going to be completely destroyed, and we wouldn’t even have his body to mourn.
“Turn back!” I shouted, kicking my feet. “Turn back, Kael!”
Gaius urged his brother forward. I knew he projected his warrior persona now. Act first, grieve later. “We have to get Sera to safety.” But I couldn’t steel myself as well as he did.
This was all my fault. I never would have come here if I’d known this would happen, and they entered the temple because of me. I couldn’t lose Micah. I shrieked, cried, and thrashed but Kael kept me fastened in his hold and wouldn’t let me save Micah.
It was Rylan who spun around and went back for his brother. And then my heart tightened even more, thinking I’d lose Rylan, too.
“Let me down!” I cried. “Let me save them. Prasei diodori sores!” The second fog stopped, but it already lingered over Micah. The previous surgitia came back to life, swarming toward the two brothers.
“Let me save them,” I whispered.
But Kael knew I talked from emotion, and there was little I could do. I didn’t have enough magic with me to fight a whole city on my own, and my soul beads ran empty.
I watched Rylan disappear into the distance as Kael flew upward, through the tunnel we had first entered. We should have heeded the warnings. Kael brought me out of the temple, together with Gaius, and my heart shattered, its broken pieces torn and left behind in the rubble.
They flew as far away from the temple as their wings could take them. Away from the surgitia. Away from Rylan and Micah. Giddy from the adrenaline, heartache, and grief pounding through me. My vision blurred with tears, and I held onto Kael tightly. I couldn’t stand the ache inside of me, even if my mind raced to catch up to what had just happened.
They were gone.
They were trying to save me and I couldn’t save them.
No.
“Sera,” Gaius said. “It’s all right.” He strode up to me and hugged me once we were certain the surgitia couldn’t come for us anymore. Kael set me down onto the forest floor. “It’s all right.”
“It’s not. It’s not, Gaius. Oh, what have I done?”
Turmoil showed on his face, but I also saw a flicker of hope. He believed Rylan could save Micah.
“You did nothing,” Gaius said. “Don’t blame yourself.”
“But that’s exactly it, right? I did nothing.” I kicked at the ground. “Shit. Fucking Aereala.” I swung my hands to my face and broke down into an ugly cry. I was so useless, I couldn’t save the ones I loved. Pathetic.
Gaius and Kael took turns cradling me, treating me like I was glass about to shatter. Maybe I needed it. I was falling apart inside and only with them around could I hold myself together.
We waited for an hour. When they didn’t show and after my tears dried, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Bring me back to the temple, Kael,” I said, hugging him tightly and wiping away his tear.
He took me in his strong arms. “It’s not safe.”
“Please.”
He sighed, nodded, then lifted me into the winds of the mountain range.
“We can’t just leave them behind like that,” I said.
“They might already be gone.”
“Don’t say that!” I refused to let my mind accept that notion.
Kael stiffened his jaw. He took off and pulled me up in the air to fly over the jungle. Both anger and denial swirled in me like a restless storm. I didn’t know what to think. Maybe I didn’t want to think. This all had to be a terrible nightmare.
“I’m going back in,” I said.
Gaius swooped in to join us and growled. “No.”
“I have to know.”
“After what just happened?”
“I’ll be fine. I’m not dragon-kind. The plaque did say that only dragon-kind couldn’t enter.”
“And you’ll leave us at the entrance?”
“If their bodies are in there . . .”
Their bodies.
Corpses.
I was just crying against Micah mere hours ago. How could one go from being alive, strong, warm . . . to dead in such a short time span?
I spotted two forms lying on the ground. I tensed. “Slow down,” I said to Kael.
“Sera?”
The two, red figures stood out from the foliage, surrounded by damp trees and bushes. The bodies were bloodied and in terrible shape.
They’d left the temple, but they were still—
“Over there,” I said to Kael, voice quivering like a feather in strong winds. Kael didn’t wear his usual smile.
Please be okay.
I ran toward the bodies, almost stumbling over my feet, when one of them sat up. It took me a second to recognize Rylan. His braid was unraveled and his tattoos and face were hidden by the blood and dirt covering his features. His arms were wounded, worse than the rest of his body. Hidraes like him were supposed to have fast healing ability, which meant that despite how terrible his arms looked now, they’d been worse before.
But he was alive.
Which meant the body next to him was Micah. He was completely covered in red, too.
I made Kael put me down and stumbled toward Rylan. “Micah . . . is he—?”
“He’s alive,” Rylan said, throat raspy. Despite the terrible state he was in, he grinned at me. “He just needs some time to recover, but I managed to get him out before too much damage was done. The surgitia wasn’t as aggressive as they exaggerated it to be in the stories. We’re both fine.”
I didn’t know if anybody should be calling their wounded forms “fine,” but relief surged through me, and I bent down to swing my arms around Rylan. I tried not to graze his wounds, not wanting to cause him pain. I didn’t care that I got my clothes bloody or that the metallic scent of his grime hit my nostrils. I was just so, so happy they were okay.
I cried again, not from grief but from overwhelming, blissful relief.
Chapter Ten
Micah took a whole day to heal. Rylan had carried his brother back to Raynea with his dragon form. The palace was in chaos by the time we returned, with officials forming political factions and squabbling over who should go where, get what, and do other unimportant things related mainly to their own vested interests instead of the good of the nation.
Frederick couldn’t hold the palace together, and Queen Dowager Miriel, even though she had the authority, didn’t seem to care about Constanria since she still grieved the loss of her husband. This proved how amazing Rylan was for keeping all this together for so long. His years of training as crown prince were paying off.
But there were whispers in the hallways. Some, I’d heard from the servants. They were calling Rylan a dictator. Not a vicious one, but one who had no respect for his common people’s wishes.
Rylan’s hands had healed by the time we got back, and we’d even caught some wyngoats along the way for lunch. I’d cooked the meat just the way I liked it—medium rare and slightly crispy around the sides, but the princes, as usual, burned their food and ate so quickly, I doubted they chewed before swallowing.
Today, I was back in the Council of Intelligence. Its interior had a welcome familiarity compared to the Wakabel mountains. Nothing was better than home, especially if home had stained-glass windows, marble pillars, and was bathed in opulence.
People gossiped. The
news about us possibly re-opening the portal to Gaia had traveled fast.
I strode up to Micah and wrapped my hands around his shoulders, healed and sturdy. He was completely unrecognizable a day ago and even the healers were uncertain whether they could ensure he wouldn’t have any scars. But apparently the princes were incredibly gifted hidraes, and Micah healed lightning quick. The aftershocks of thinking I’d lost them were still pulsing through my heart.
I kissed him hard on the cheek to feel his warmth. Frederick hummed an awkward sound, as if to remind me he was sitting right next to us, I pulled Micah’s lips onto mine and soaked in his sweetness. When Frederick burst into a hacking cough, I scowled at him.
“What?” Frederick said. “I think I ate something bad today.”
I rolled my eyes and slipped into Micah’s lap. I didn’t care if the servants gawked. Micah was alive. Funny how almost losing someone made you treasure him more. I hooked an arm around his shoulder and placed my hand on his forehead. “Are you feeling okay?”
“You don’t have to treat me like I’m a baby, you know?” Micah said. “I’m fine and can take care of myself.”
“Oh, so now you know how it feels like to be at the other end.” The princes always babied me. It did get grating at times since I had been a grown woman doing fine before they’d waltzed into my life. Mostly, I appreciated it and allowed myself to bask in their affections.
Even now, in the council headquarters, Micah was doing the best he could to protect me. He was deciphering the tome we’d gotten from the Temple of Ashes. Back at the forest floor, when he lay broken and bloodied, he had it clasped against his chest, protected in his arms, despite going through all the pain of the witches’ spell.
“How’s it coming along?” I asked him. I was having second thoughts about the whole “let’s go to Gaia” plan. I didn’t want the princes to get into any more trouble saving my ass. But I knew they were going to, even if I tried to stop them. That was what love was, right? And they made it so clear to me, every day, that they loved me, and I them.
“Risky,” Micah said.
“Risky?”
Frederick took a break from his ledgers and spun toward us. “How so?”
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