by H M Angues
I hurl a ball of flames at her, but she catches it with her bare hand, tossing the fire into the lake. “Pathetic,” she mutters.
“You expect me to just hand myself over to you?” I cry.
A cruel, bone-chilling laugh erupts out of her throat. “No, little emperor. That’s not how things work in my world. I’m a bargainer, you see.”
“What the hell kind of bargain is worth me? Because I’ve done the whole self-sacrifice shit before, and it wasn’t exactly fun.”
“Oh please, Calla, can you honestly tell me you want to live after all that you’ve been through? Your mate's ashes are at the bottom of the lake, and your friends may be dead soon as well. Can you really bear to continue living any longer? You wanted to die in that Arena; I can’t imagine it has gotten any easier for you to keep on living since then. You have lost everything.”
“I still have something to fight for,” I state, resisting the urge to glance at the lake house. At the people that make my entire existence bearable waiting inside. And I’m not about to give my life away when Kainan died to preserve it.
“You see?” Morr exclaims, sensing where my thoughts had wandered. “You only want to keep fighting because you don’t want to waste poor Kainan’s sacrifice. It’s precious, really. Though, love does disgust me.”
“I won’t bargain my life. Not again,” I say, putting as much finality into my tone as possible.
She rolls her eyes. “You’re ridiculously stubborn. Has anyone said arguing with you is like arguing with a brick wall? You won’t be dead, you’ll just... work for me!” She throws her arms up and smiles, as if she just announced that I had won some sort of award.
I take a deep breath. “You’re going to let me live?” I ask. “How?”
Morr lets her arms fall as she sighs with frustration, then crosses them over her chest. “Was the whole part about me wanting you alive not clear enough? Gods, you're a bit dumb. I’m taking you, not your life. You’ll essentially be a servant to me, because, well, I’ll own you. But you will be alive, I promise you that.”
I can’t believe I’m actually considering it.
“No,” I finally snap. “I won’t let you.”
Morr’s face contorts with frustration and rage. “Idiot girl,” she spits. “How about another bargain, then?”
“And if I refuse again?”
“You will face the consequence of inevitable death by whatever torturous means I find most fitting.” A gust of wind blows across the lake, her inky black hair billowing in the breeze.
I fight the urge to roll my eyes. “What makes you think I’d hand myself over to you now if I wasn’t willing to sacrifice myself just a minute ago?”
“Because I can take you to Kainan, your father, your mother. Everyone you've lost will return to you, if you just come with me.”
Chapter 46
Blade
I glance around the room for a second, an odd feeling encroaching in on me. Like something important is missing from all of the commotion in the living room of that cozy lake house.
Not something. Someone.
“Has anyone seen Calla?” I shout over the chatter. Everyone falls silent. Talon’s face goes pale with horror as he darts into the next room. I can hear his heavy steps tromp through the house as he searches for her, calling her name.
Jax comes down the stairs, having heard the shouting, and he looks like he’s about to vomit. “I know where she is,” he forces out in a strained voice. “At least, I know who she’s with.”
My glare is enough to prompt Jax to elaborate. “Ramsey is here. Everything that happened today was to push Calla over the edge, to make her more... willing to negotiate.”
“Negotiate what, exactly?” Talon barks, unsuccessful in his search for his sister, as he steps back into the living room.
“I don’t know,” Jax mutters. “All I know is that Calla is necessary for... something. I have no idea what, though.”
I clear the space between us in two strides, clenching the boy’s collar in my fists. “Where the hell are they?”
“By the lake shore.”
We all hurry outside, beginning our desperate search around the calm waters. After several minutes, I give up, kicking the sand in defeat.
“There’s no one here,” Ryse calls, his frustration apparent as he clenches his hands into fists.
Talon’s boots crunch in the sand as he moves closer to the water’s edge. “Not anymore. The sand isn’t smooth over here—and there are two sets of footprints. Judging by how small these ones are, they’re Calla’s. Which means the others are—”
“Ramsey’s,” I finish. “She’s with Calla, then. But where did they go?”
“I don’t know,” Talon whispers solemnly with a shake of his head. “The prints don’t go anywhere; they stay right in this area.”
I crouch beside Talon, analyzing the evidence left behind in the sand. His observations are correct—the footprints don’t move beyond where we’re looking, which doesn’t do anything to help us find our emperor. In fact, it just makes this even more puzzling.
I turn to Talon, unable to conceal the pain and fear in my voice. “What the fuck happened to her?”
Chapter 47
Calla
It happened in the blink of an eye. Literally. I blinked, and when I opened my eyes again, I was here.
I don’t know what here is exactly, but it gives me the chills.
The structure we’re standing in is identical to Stonefire’s throne room, only… dark. Void of all color and light. The walls and floors and furnishings are a bleak gray, and no flame lights the pedestal at the center. It’s cold as well, so cold that even I can’t keep out the chill with my flames.
But I don’t care about any of that. What I care about is slumped in front of the replicated throne, chained to the floor and bloodied from all the horrors he must have endured here during his entrapment.
“Kainan!” I cry, trying to run toward him, but I’m stopped by some invisible force yanking me back.
Morr.
I slam onto my back, the impact rattling my bones. I groan as I try to stand, but Amorré painfully yanks me back to my feet instead.
“You may look, but you can’t touch. Cruel, isn’t it? To put your mate only a meter from your grasp, yet you’re unable to reach him. Your devotion to those that you love makes for the best torture.”
I fight the hot tears that threaten me as I force myself to stare at the painful sight of Kainan before me. Logic tries to remind me that this is little more than an illusion, a trick, but my heart's screams are much louder than my mind's reasonings.
“Kainan,” I say again, only this time it’s barely a whisper. Not even Morr hears me.
But he does.
His shoulder twitches.
I don’t even try to reach him through the bond we used to share. I know it’s long gone.
“This is hell, isn’t it?” I ask in a meek voice.
“In a sense, yes,” Morr answers from behind me. “This is Kronis, my home planet, depleted of all its natural resources centuries ago, leaving us to plunder other worlds for what they have. What you're looking at is the spirit Kainan left behind. But I can bring him back.”
My eyes don’t leave Kainan as I ask in a quiet voice, “What do you want me to do?”
“Give up. Stop your fighting and let the destruction take its course. Let Namari and the rest of your world fall without resistance. Give up. Can you do that?”
“No.”
“Then every move you make against me—against the coming of us, the Kronisians—will result in the death of one of your friends. And I will kill them all until there is no one left but the two of us. I will give you one more chance to give up, to hand yourself over to me. Will you?”
I hesitate, but just for a breath. “No,” I finally say.
The goddess suddenly appears in front of me, blocking my view of a broken Kainan. She grabs my chin with her cold, clammy fingers, forcing my gaze
to meet hers.
“I want you to fully comprehend what you’re doing here, Calla Renald. You are sacrificing your mate for this.”
“What’s the point in saving him if there is no world left for everyone else?”
Morr’s hand traces its way up to the center of my forehead. “You are a foolish girl, and you made the wrong choice.”
I suppose this means she is going to kill me, or force me to give up anyway, as her thumb presses into the spot between my brows. I expect pain. Or at least some elaborate form of flashing lights. But nothing happens for several seconds, until finally…
Morr screeches, snatching her fingers away as if she had been burned.
Kainan finally lifts his head, and his eyes find mine. I almost vomit at the sight. They are pure white. No pupil or iris, none of the blue I'm so familiar with.
The goddess curses beneath her breath. Whatever Morr was trying to do, whatever sort of trick she had tried to force me to submit, it didn’t work.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper softly to him. “I wish I could save you.”
His empty gaze falls to the ground.
Chapter 48
Blade
Calla has been missing for three weeks.
Three. Weeks.
I have been driving myself mad with anxiety and grief, unsure what to think or do as each day passes more slowly than the last. I lost her once, but she came back to us. This time…
Well, this time, I have no idea what will happen. I was so sure then that she was dead, so I learned to function without her. But now, I don’t know if she’s dead or gone or what, and the uncertainty alone is enough to drive me mad.
Rysen gave up. Rinnow had arrived to take him the morning after our emperor disappeared, and he left with the Lectric without putting up a fight. According to the Overseer, Anakin was compromised and Rysen's assignment changed. I have no idea where they're going now, just that it isn't the capital of Haercayn.
“I can’t stick around just to find out we’ve lost her. Again,” were his final words to me before he left.
Bellamy hasn’t left her room since that night, and Mira has to bring her meals up to her each day. Jed and Valek stay locked away as well, refusing to interact with anyone except each other on occasion in the study. I think they care much more for Calla than they ever let show.
Mira and Syn busy themselves in the house. Jeriko leaves often to go hunting. For what, I don’t know, seeing as very little wildlife lives in the woods surrounding us. The Mordan forest is notorious for containing few inhabitants, since the climate is too humid for most furry critters to be comfortable here.
Talon wakes up each morning at the crack of dawn to search for her. He’s scoured the entire Gaithwald, as well as all of Jurynn and the surrounding suburban towns. I can’t bring myself to go with him. I would never be able to live with myself if I spent each day looking for the girl I know I would never find.
Jax’s reaction is the strangest to me. He seems more content, sure of himself, as if he knows exactly what’s going on.
As the beginning of Calla’s fourth week missing dawns on us, I corner the younger boy in the kitchen while he’s busy making his breakfast for the morning.
“What the hell, Blade? You scared the shit out of me,” he exclaims, nearly dropping his plate of eggs and sausages.
“Why are you the only one who seems to know what’s going on around here? Is there something you’re choosing to hide from us, Jax?” I accuse.
“Look,” he stammers, “there’s a lot going on that I don’t understand. But all I do know is that Calla will come back. She always comes back.”
He bows his head and starts to walk away. “She always comes back. She has to.”
∞∞∞
A few days after my awkward confrontation with Jax, I wake up to an alert on my datapad. It has officially been one month that Calla has been missing. And we’re no closer to having a single idea as to what may have happened to her.
No one else in the lake house is awake yet, so I decide to enjoy the solitude. Although, I usually spend every moment alone that I have wishing Calla were with me.
I step into the kitchen to discover that it’s just as muggy as the outside air, and bugs are flying about freely. Someone had left the back-porch door open. I walk to the other side of the center island to close the door and seal the house from Morda's horrid autumn weather, only to see two figures standing by the lake’s edge.
I sprint out of the kitchen, so ecstatic that I face-plant over the edge of the porch.
I guess, in my excitement, I forgot that there were stairs there.
Chapter 49
Talon
I stand at the edge of the lake, Calla seated in the sand by my feet.
She looks frozen, still as a statue. She doesn’t move as I hear Blade approach, and her gaze remains fixated on the tree-lined horizon. I glance at the newcomer for a second, but I don’t say a word.
“Calla?” he says softly, crouching down beside her. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she snaps.
I lean closer to her. “You should come inside.”
The three of us stand from the ground, two sets of eyes set on the emperor. Waiting for her to say something. Anything.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she grumbles. “I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe you. I’m not fine. You’ve been gone for an entire month, Calla,” I grunt, trying to get a real response out of her.
“Ramsey isn’t our concern anymore,” she says eventually, ignoring my words entirely. “We have bigger things to worry about,” she expresses, brushing the sand off the back of her leggings as Bellamy comes running out of the house.
“Bigger things?” Blade asks.
“Much bigger.”
“Like aliens? Gods? Fairies and wizards? Whatever it is, we’re with you.” Blade folds his arms across his chest. “So, what do we do now, then?”
“We take back Namari. Even if we have to do it one citizen at a time.”
I wrap my arms around her, pulling my sister close to my heart. Bellamy slams into us both, arms slung around Calla, as I say, “We take back Namari, then. Even if it means we die trying.”
Chapter 50
Rysen
It takes about two weeks to drive from Jynna in Morda to Montré in Gaitha. Plans were changed, and our destination did as well. We have to be careful to avoid main roads as much as possible, so Rinnow has me get to know the maps of the Underground’s discreet roads and tunnels.
When one of us gets tired, we switch off and let the other sleep in the passenger seat. If the truck’s battery dies, we sleep in the back while its solar panels charge it. Our food is what we were able to scramble from the lake house, and when I run out of clean clothes, I’m forced to wear the least dirty ones.
Driving through so many Provinces and across so many hundreds of miles means there’s a constant change in terrain and scenery, which at least means things aren’t too boring.
Rinnow and I only speak to each other when it’s absolutely necessary. Finally, on one of the days we have to stop to charge the ground transport in the middle of a large, empty expanse of farmlands in western Tiladen, he starts a real conversation. Though, it’s one I’d rather not have.
“I hear you put Calla through some fucked up shit,” he mutters. No one can hear or see us in the middle of nowhere, as the nearest people are dozens of miles away.
“Where did you hear that?” I groan, staring up at the roof of the truck from where I lounge in the driver’s seat. The windows are all the way down and a cool breeze blows in. Winter should be here in a few days, I realize.
“From everyone, basically. They all say you yelled at her a lot, said some nasty things to make her do what you want. That’s rough, man, and kinda shitty. No wonder she wanted Kainan. And now she might be dead, so you won’t get the chance to make things right.”
I want to yell at him, to tell
him he’s wrong and that I would never do anything to hurt Calla. But there’s a lump in my throat, and my mouth goes dry. I remind myself that I did nothing wrong, that my emotions were valid. Because they were, right?
When we were in Louvelle, she called Kainan’s name, and Kainan was the one who got to hold her, to comfort her. Even after all the time we had spent together, she went to him. And then she rejected me again, in Jurynn. She owed me for making me believe she was in love with me; my actions were justified. Or so I continue to tell myself.
“So, it is true. I won’t say that nobody can change, but if you haven’t realized by now that you need to change, then you never will,” Rinnow says, interrupting my painful thoughts. “You should sleep, you’re driving when we’re done charging.”
Chapter 51
Gunner
The Arena District, Helkyn
I twirl the blade around my finger, lounging lazily in the training center beneath the Arena.
“Dude, at least get off your ass and do something.” Cordran tosses a dagger toward my head, which halts in midair before falling softly into my free hand.
“Why? The fights are on hold so we’re not doing anything. Most everyone we know isn’t even here anymore, so I’ll sit here and fiddle with my swords as long as I want,” I snark in reply.
The Shade rolls his black eyes. “You’re obnoxious without your sister around to beat you up.”
“Did you really get to train her?” I ask, veering off-topic.
Cordran plops onto the mat-covered training floor, running a hand through his long hair, which is just as black as his eyes and his shadows.
“This again? I swear, man, you’re obsessed. Let her go. I doubt she’s coming back—I know I wouldn’t, if I were her.”
“You really think she won’t come back? After everything she did for our people already?” The thought of the emperor not returning feels almost like a betrayal. We are her people, after all.