by Everly Frost
She is about to shove him away when he demands, “Tell me what the feather hides.”
She sucks in a sharp breath. “N-no… I won’t…”
He grinds out, “Why is it so important?”
Mom struggles against him, trying to press her lips together. “It… hides…”
She can’t lie to him.
My heart wrenches. This is the moment she chose to die.
Her jaw clenches. Regret passes across her face. There’s a sickening tearing sound. Her eyes fill with pain and her blade clatters to the street.
Her eyes close for a moment, before opening again, her face draining pale.
Gareth stares at her, confused. He grabs her bloody hand. “What did you do?”
Mom slides down the wall, her legs crumpling beneath her. He follows her down, clutching her shoulders, running his hands down her side to her thigh. Blood pools across her upper leg.
His eyes widen. “Anna… no… what did you do?” He shakes her “What did you do?”
She whispers, “I don’t have to answer you anymore.”
He leans back on his heels, running his hands through his hair, real emotion passing across his face. He drops his head to her chest, holding her tight.
“Heal yourself,” he commands. “Dammit, stop this and heal yourself.”
“No.”
His hands squeeze her shoulders; his cheek presses into her neck. “Do you really hate me that much?”
A small smile touches her lips as she turns her face away from him. “I don’t… have to… answer you…”
Her eyes are becoming glassy, the life fading from her body. He shakes her again, but her body is increasingly lifeless, jolting in his arms, no resistance.
He shouts, “Anna! Dammit… Anna… please…”
She doesn’t answer him.
He wrenches back from her, anger and anguish flooding his face.
Hatred boils in my heart to see his regret. He isn’t allowed to feel sadness. He isn’t allowed to cry. Not Gareth. Not the man who caused my mother’s death.
I scream into the memory and leap toward him, but my fist slides right through the tears falling down his cheeks. I try again and again, but I have no impact. I can’t smash them off his face.
“You’re not allowed to care!” I thump my fist against my own chest because it’s the only solid thing I can find, and the pain is making me crazy. All I can do is scream out my rage, my chest heaving as Gareth stares at the feather Mom holds in her lap. It is covered in her blood, more and more of her life flowing from the artery she severed in her groin.
He hovers over the feather—Archer’s birth feather—his hand shaking before he descends, snatching it in one swift movement.
The moment he touches it, her blood solidifies around it, his human touch turning her final life-blood into transparent stone.
He curses as he draws backward, rising to his feet, holding it so tight his knuckles turn white. “Why would you die for this?”
A clatter at the end of the alley causes his head to snap up. He whispers, “Hunter.”
He immediately vanishes from sight, but I can see his blur this time. He hurries away into the night, carrying the feather with him as my younger self races toward Mom, screaming her name.
I squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t watch anymore, can’t watch her use her last strength to grab my hands to stop me plucking out a feather to heal her. I can’t listen to her final words…
She wants me to let her go, but I can never let go of this moment, can never forget it.
I whirl from the scene in the alley, my focus on the living once more.
My focus is on Amalia.
Chapter Thirty
I reach for my katana as I creep up on Amalia. She remains curled forward on her knees at the edge of the glittering pool, her hands covering her face.
Mom told Gareth I was more ruthless than she ever was.
She was right.
I might not be able to kill Amalia right now, but I can hurt her.
I won’t do it without facing her.
My hand stretches for her, my sword ready as I grab her shoulder, spinning her toward me. At least… that is my intention.
The moment my hand connects with her shoulder, a scream fills my mind, my surroundings blur and rush around me, and the distant image of a room zooms toward me.
I try to get my bearings as the scene halts abruptly. Sunlight streams into the opulent room, high stone walls reach upward, and a plush chair rests beneath the far window.
I don’t know this place. This isn’t my memory… but I know I haven’t actually been transported here because the edges are fuzzy just like they were when I saw Mom before.
It must be Amalia’s memory…
I wobble, finding myself in the corner of the room, crouching to regain my balance.
A girl leans to one side of the chair, alone, her face very pale. She looks barely twelve years old. She is wearing a long emerald gown that hangs off her thin frame. Her hands shake as she plants them on the arms of the chair, attempting to stand. Her legs crumple and she sinks back. Tears of frustration fill her eyes, but she grits her teeth and tries again, managing to stand upright, making it two steps before she stumbles and drops to the floor, her dark hair falling over her face.
She thumps the floor with her fist, a cry on her lips. “Where is my strength?”
The door flies open. I’m startled to see Amalia in the doorway, where she pauses before she races into the room, the urgency on her face unmistakable.
She reaches the girl’s side and pulls her into her arms. “Elaina! Sweetheart! What happened?”
“Mother…” The girl’s voice is weak. “I tried to get up.”
“You know you can’t do that on your own anymore.” Amalia is gentler than I’ve ever seen her. She leverages her arm around the girl’s torso and returns her to the seat, pressing a kiss to Elaina’s forehead before she draws back.
Elaina looks up at Amalia in confusion. “You’re stronger now. This morning you couldn’t lift me at all. How?”
Amalia kneels in front of her, taking her hands. “I found a solution.”
Hope lights Elaina’s eyes. “A cure?”
Amalia chews her lip. “There is no cure for our lost feathers. We are dying. But I have a remedy.”
She carefully spreads her wings, perfect silver feathers shining in the sunlight streaming through the window. A single copper feather rests among them.
Elaina struggles to lean toward it. “Is that a Keres feather?”
“From the Keres Queen herself.”
Elaina’s forehead puckers. “But she’s dying too. Why would she give you a feather? She will only perish faster…”
Amalia closes her wings with a snap.
Elaina’s frown deepens. “Mother?”
When Amalia doesn’t answer, Elaina searches her eyes. The girl’s face falls. “You took it.”
“She can’t save herself—not even with her own feathers. Not with anything.”
Elaina gasps. “But—”
Amalia says, “I have one for you, too.”
Elaina freezes.
Amalia produces a brilliant copper feather from her pocket and pushes it toward her daughter. Elaina doesn’t take it, staring at the golden feather with wide hazel eyes the same color as her mother’s.
Amalia leans closer. “Take it, Elaina. Take it and live.”
Elaina’s jaw clenches. Her eyes jolt up to her mother’s. “As what, Mother? As a monster?”
Amalia gasps, but she leans closer, her face setting in hard lines. “You will release your wings and take this feather.”
“No!”
Amalia’s eyes fly wide. “You would rather die? I won’t let that happen. I’m your mother and I will protect you.” She grabs her daughter by the shoulders. “Release your wings. Do it now!”
Elaina doesn’t resist. She responds by leaning into her mother instead, pressing her cheek to Amalia’s neck, her
voice quiet. “No, Mother.”
Her eyes glisten with tears as she buries her face against her mother before turning her gaze upward again. “I won’t.”
Amalia’s grip tightens, frustration and despair filling her features. “Please…”
Elaina wraps her arms around her mother, shaking her head. “I’m dying. I will do it with my conscience intact. You have to let me go.”
Amalia becomes as still as stone, rigid within her daughter’s arms. With a sudden cry, she pries herself free, wrenching away from Elaina so fast that her daughter falls forward, slipping to the floor.
Amalia pulls her upright, crying, “I will never let you go! I will never forget what was done to us.”
Amalia’s face darkens, a snarl appearing on her lips—the Amalia that I know. She is as cold as ice as she says, “I will hunt down Josiah Baines, the ringmakers, the assassins. I will destroy them all. I will take their loved ones from them. I will rip their lives apart like they have broken mine. I will repay my pain a thousand times on the humans that walk this Earth.”
Elaina’s eyes are wide. She is pale. “When will you rest?”
“Never,” Amalia answers.
Elaina whispers, “It won’t bring me back.”
I jolt as a low scream tears through the memory in front of me. The sound curls around me like a noose, yanking me back into the present.
My eyes are wet. I swipe at them. The waterfall is gentle and lulling while Amalia stands upright, her deadly gaze very much alert now, her piercing scream of rage heavy with accusation. “That was not yours to see!”
She isn’t wrong. I had no right to see the memory that made her what she is today.
I mean it when I say, “I’m sorry about your daughter.”
Pain floods her face, but she pushes it away quickly. “I’m not sorry about your mother.”
Damn. I nearly felt sorry for her.
My jaw clenches. My sword is still raised, ready to strike. I lift my free hand—the one I used to wipe my eyes—to grip the weapon with both hands. My tears have well and truly dried up now that reality has returned. Amalia may have been broken when she lost her daughter, but the woman confronting me now has spent years perfecting her rage and cruelty.
She doesn’t wait for me to strike, hitting out with the flat of her hand across my chest to shove me backward. I swing the sword and narrowly miss chopping off her arm.
I readjust my grip and plant my feet when she backs up. “Draw your weapon.”
Her eyes narrow at me. “You are so eager to fight and endanger those closest to you.”
“You want to destroy everyone, Amalia,” I say. “I will do anything to stop you.”
“Anything?” Her lip curls. “I could kill you with my Keres power right now.”
I challenge her: “Then try.”
She folds her arms across her chest, appraising me. “I will give you one last chance to back out of the maze, Hunter. Let me have the feather and I won’t kill you…”
A sly smile crosses her face. “I won’t kill your child.”
I frown at her. “I won’t live long enough to have children.”
She raises her eyebrows at me. “You will live long enough to give birth to the baby you carry.”
Shock strikes through me. “I’m not pregnant. I can’t be.”
Amalia scoffs. “Why? Because you went to a human doctor for female contraception? That doesn’t work on us, Hunter. Why do you think your mother found herself in a predicament twenty-one years ago? Our daughters are born of the man we love. Often, he is the man we can’t have.”
She paces up to me and I’m so shocked by what she said that I let her approach. She has to be lying. She is trying to manipulate me, to make me doubt my path. To make me worry about my own safety because my safety… is also my child’s safety…
I cast my memory back to the times I was with Slade—the times we didn’t take extra precautions.
Is it really possible?
My body is failing me. I’ve nearly died multiple times. There is no way that any sort of life could have survived inside me throughout all that.
Amalia says, “Leave the maze right now and I will allow you to live in peace for the next eight months. You will live long enough to give Slade a daughter. Birthing her will kill you, but I will let her and Slade live. It’s a generous offer, Hunter. You should consider it.”
I already know my answer. “A world with you in it is not the one I will leave for my daughter.”
My daughter.
I don’t believe Amalia that I’m pregnant, not for a second, but with or without a child, my decision is the same.
Her expression darkens, the same cold determination on her face that she cloaked herself with when she pushed her own daughter away. “No more chances, Hunter.”
To my shock, she turns and runs, her body a lithe blur because she’s moving so fast. I sheathe my sword and race after her, nearly catching her at the corner but she bursts ahead, twisting and turning through the diamond corridors.
I stay on her heels, my arms pumping, catching sight of the exit, a bright light at the end of the next passageway.
Amalia throws me a final smile as she speeds through it.
We burst from the cavern into a world on fire.
Chapter Thirty-One
Amalia releases her wings, turning to face me as she rises into the air and screams, “Welcome to the end, Hunter!”
We stand in the middle of a burning plain. The ground is made of ash, scattered with lumps of coal. Fiery cracks in the ground extend in every direction. Thin threads of molten lava flow around us in fine golden lines.
Hundreds of feet away, the floating island is closer than it’s ever been and yet still so far. The rock giant said there would be three gates and three challenges. I’m guessing the meaning of “gate” is metaphorical and this plain is the final one. But it’s not the final challenge, that is still ahead of us.
My boots crunch on the dead Earth as I kick up dust. “What is this place?”
“This is the End Land. The resting place of our ancestors—”
“Hunter!” Slade’s shout has me spinning. Behind me, three more diamond tunnels let out, along with the one Amalia and I came from.
Slade runs from the nearest one, followed a moment later by Archer who exits the furthest. They are both pale, tears streaking down their cheeks. They both have pasts that they grapple with, tragedies and death. Judging by their tense expressions, it wasn’t easy making it through the emotional hazards of the diamond maze.
Slade races across the burning ground with Archer on his heels, both of them deftly navigating the fiery threads of flame that crisscross the Earth beneath their feet.
But… where is Cain?
I don’t know much about his past. I wish I knew more. Something compelled him to become an assassin. I pray that whatever it is, he is strong enough to let it go…
Mom asked me to let her go. I understand now why she wants me to. Amalia refused to let go of her rage about her daughter’s death and it has led her down a path of destruction and cruelty. She has become something a Valkyrie Queen should never be: heartless.
Before Slade reaches me, my gaze passes across the tunnel from which Amalia and I ran. Everyone else was faced with their own path, but she and I shared the same one. We are a mirror of each other.
She is a mother who lost her daughter.
I am a daughter who lost my mother.
Before Slade reaches me and lifts me off my feet to hold me in his arms, my eyes meet Amalia’s, taking in the cruel snarl on her lips, the darkness in her expression, the smile that lights her eyes because…
She knows.
I have walked the same path that she has, driven by the events of my past.
Well, no more. I’m letting it go. No matter what Mom went through, she fought her battles with her eye on the future. It’s time for me to take my eyes off the past and focus on what could be ahead of me. I asked Slade wh
at we would do when this was all over and he told me we would find a way to live together, we could get married and raise a family.
I want that, and it scares me a lot more than fighting Amalia or facing my own death. But I’m going to fight for it with everything I’ve got.
“Hunter.” Slade’s arms tighten around me as if he hasn’t held me for years, decades even. “You were gone.”
I focus on his pale blue eyes, the shadows under them, and the set of his jaw. I shudder at the pain in his eyes.
I whisper, “What did you see in there?”
For now, Amalia seems content to leave us alone and Slade doesn’t pay any attention to her.
He searches my eyes as he says, “I saw the future. I saw a whole life without you. There was a baby and then you died. She grew up without her mother—”
I grip his shoulders. “That won’t happen.”
His gaze bores into me. “Which part, Hunter?”
I give him a determined smile. “We’re going to make it through this.”
Archer interrupts us then, skidding to a halt beside us, her dagger already in her hand, keeping it trained on Amalia. She swipes tears from her face with one determined swoop. Whatever she faced in the cavern, she has got a hold of her emotions, but she can’t disguise her fear as she takes anxious glances at the last tunnel. “Where is Cain?”
I shake my head but before I can speak, Amalia floats closer.
She coos at us: “Reunion time is over. It’s a shame the other one didn’t make it.”
“Go to hell, Amalia,” Archer shouts, but the tension around her eyes tells me she is seriously worried about Cain. He should have been here by now.
Slade immediately switches into warrior mode, letting me out of his arms and slipping out his Keres gun at the same time, taking aim squarely at Amalia’s heart.
She laughs, the delighted sound rippling across the air. “Bullets don’t hurt me, Slade.”