Beyond the Between

by Anna Webb

  As the first few days slipped by, she noticed, despite her exhaustion, that Jason was starting to walk deeper and deeper into the night, setting his wards farther and farther from the tent. And finally, on their seventh night in the tent, as he settled into the sleeping bag beside her and pulled her closer to him, she muttered sleepily, “What’s wrong? Why the paranoia?”

  Jason was silent for so long that his fear filled the tent, piercing her consciousness and forcing her into crystal-sharp awareness.

  “What is it?” she pressed.

  “We’ve made pretty good progress,” Jason said, his breath warm on the back of her neck, sending shivers climbing up her spine.

  “That’s no reason for paranoia,” she said.

  “We’ve made pretty good progress because we have you. And your Atmospheric Gift. Xolani and François are Infernos. They must know that if it comes down to pure survival and speed, we’re going to win.”

  “What are you saying?” Allyra asked, her mind sluggish but slowly starting to grasp the concept behind Jason’s fear.

  “They must realize, as I do, that the only way they’re going to have the advantage is in combat. So…”

  “At some point, we’re going to have to fight them,” she finished for him, her mind finally catching up to Jason’s.

  Allyra felt Jason nod behind her. “If it was up to me, I’d set up an ambush—the sooner, the better. The longer they leave it, the more likely we outpace them altogether.”

  He sighed. “We need to be ready, Allyra.”

  After a restless night, they rose earlier than usual, taking the extra time to ensure their baldrics were tightly strapped and their weapons at the ready. Allyra spent the day reaching as far as she could with her Gift, searching for Xolani and François. But somehow, she missed them.

  Xolani and François had planned their ambush with care and precision. They waited until the end of the day, once darkness had fallen and Jason and Allyra were weary. They also chose a crevasse-laden minefield, where every footstep was filled with danger.

  They seemed to materialize out of thin air, exploding out of the darkness like wraiths in the night. Allyra’s mind froze for a second, but her body reacted on instinct, ducking under François’s blade as it sliced through the air, a hair’s breadth above her. Jason moved even faster, his swords instantly in his hands, slicing through the straps attaching him to their sled of supplies.

  François seemed to disappear in a cloud of shadow and darkness, only to appear a heartbeat later, his sword aimed at her neck. Allyra leapt across a deep crevasse, her boots slipping on the slick ice as she brought up her sword to block François’s. The sound of their swords clashing together sliced through the deep silence, echoing endlessly amongst the ice crevasses. In a moment as frozen as the landscape around her, Allyra caught sight of the sword in François’s hand. It was black but shone in the darkness, like a shard of black glass. It had an edge filled with jagged teeth, made for tearing through flesh. It was a type of sword she recognized all too well though she’d only seen it in the Between—and never in the hands of a human.

  She didn’t have time to consider the implications as François thrust the Revenant blade at her once more, forcing her to parry wildly, the strength of his blow sending her stumbling backward. His strength was inhuman, fueled by something not of this world.

  Her boot caught on a shard of ice hidden by a layer of snow, and her momentum sent her sprawling headfirst into a deep crevasse, and she managed to save herself only through the strength of her Gift, the Air forming a wall more solid than the ground to catch her. She scrambled to her feet once more, calling upon every inch of her Elemental strength to push away François’s continued onslaught.

  François disappeared once more only to appear behind her, the Revenant blade cutting through her bulky jacket and sending downy feathers floating into the icy air. Allyra managed to block his next blow, and as their swords came together, hers shattered into three separate pieces. François kicked at her left knee, and it collapsed under her. Her head hit the icy ground and black spots exploded in her vision. François strode toward her, and she tried to scramble away, but the ground was slick beneath her boots. As he moved closer, she saw that his eyes were no longer green but rather a deep bloody red—the eyes of an Ancient. Frantic, feverish fear consumed her.

  Under the onslaught of irrational panic, Allyra froze. She froze as she’d promised herself never to do again. The Ancient wearing François’s skin moved closer, and time slowed even more, like honey dripping on a cold winter morning. The Revenant blade’s jagged edges dripped with poison. The Ancient was all her nightmares come to life—the very embodiment of death itself.

  The Revenant blade sliced down toward her throat, but in the millisecond before it cut through her flesh, it was knocked aside.

  “Allyra!”

  Jason’s voice roused her from her nightmare, forcing her back into action. She tried once more to get to her feet, and this time, she managed to find traction in the ice. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jason facing off against François, the Fire in his hands reflecting in the Ancient’s red eyes but having no effect against François and his Inferno Gift. Xolani was stalking up unseen behind Jason, another Revenant blade clutched in his hands.

  Allyra was suddenly back in the Between, in that moment of utter helplessness as the Revenant pursued Mandla. She had been too far to save Mandla, and she was too far to save Jason. This time there would be no Alex to save the day. This time she was alone.

  Allyra glanced at her one remaining whole sword. She could throw it and guide it with her Gift, like an arrow, into Xolani. But she’d seen Jason stop a bullet and she knew well enough that her blade would never find its target, not when the target was Gifted. Allyra realized that there was only one way her blade would make it to Xolani—if he never saw it coming. She reached deep for her Gift, and its power burned like a river of lava through her veins. The sword in her hands started to fade, Evanescing into Air molecules until it disappeared altogether. She knew the sword well, knew the weight of it in her hand, the balance of it as it moved through the air, the sharpness of its blade. Allyra took all her knowledge of the sword and put it into reforming it. Despite her familiarity with the sword, it fought against her; it was forged metal—man-made—and further from its natural state, making it difficult to Evanesce, especially for someone as inexperienced as her. But she managed to reform some semblance of it an inch from Xolani’s back before she thrust it deep into his flesh. She felt it cut through muscle, tendon, and bone as surely as if her fingers had been wrapped around the sword’s hilt. She nearly collapsed with the effort, but no, the fight wasn’t over yet.

  Xolani tumbled into Jason, knocking him off balance, distracting him long enough for François’s hellish Revenant blade to cut deep into Jason’s thigh. Jason collapsed with a sharp shout of pain, and François hefted up the blade for the death blow.

  Desperation surged through her, and her Gift burned even hotter, threatening to turn her to ashes. But she embraced it. For the first time, she let it consume her as she called on the Air, pulling the power of the raging wind through her. The power of it filled her, and suddenly, she was more. Part of the Air Element itself.

  It allowed her to cast her net wide, reaching hundreds of kilometers, perhaps even thousands, calling every breath of wind to her. It answered her call joyfully, singing as it raced through her. Soon her body was no more than a conduit for the furious power, and she formed it like a weapon, sweeping up shards of ice, and directed it at François. The force of it blew him from his feet as if he was no more than a paper doll, sending him tumbling into a deep crevasse.

  She rushed over to Jason, pulling him to his feet. He let out a sharp grunt of pain as he put weight on his injured leg, and even in the darkness and swirling snow, she could see the white of his trousers stained red with blood.

  “Can you walk?” she shouted over the wail of the wind. “We need to get out of here.�
��

  Jason’s face was pale with pain, but he tightened his jaw and nodded. Allyra shouldered most of his weight and then pulled him into a stumbling run.

  Chapter 31 – Allyra

  The wind screamed and Allyra blinked, desperately trying to see through the swirling snow. The wind she’d called upon had developed into a storm so furious it was now beyond her control. Yet it had achieved everything she’d intended—it had saved their lives and hidden them effectively from their opponents, but it also had the inadvertent side effect of blinding her and slowing their progress to no more than a crawl.

  The wind threatened to freeze her eyelids closed, and she blinked in a fruitless effort to clear her vision. Her body felt empty and hollow, as if the explosion of power had burned through every shred of her Gift, leaving her with nothing—not enough to even maintain a bubble of Air to protect them against the storm’s wrath. She stumbled over an unseen snowdrift and nearly lost her hold on Jason as he tipped forward, barely conscious now.

  He leaned heavily against her, and even with her Gifted strength, she was struggling to keep them both upright and moving forward. Worse still, she could feel the feverish heat radiating from him despite the freezing wind wailing around them.

  It was no use. She had to stop and rest.

  She tried to set Jason down gently but failed miserably as he finally succeeded in slipping her grip and collapsed in an unconscious heap.

  Allyra peered into the darkness. She sighed. It was useless. She could barely see her own hand, never mind any deeper into the storm. Nonetheless, it appeared that Jason had stayed true to his difficult and unhelpful nature and had chosen the worst possible place to collapse. There was nothing even vaguely resembling shelter, and she was using up what little was left of her energy just trying to stay warm.

  She dropped down beside Jason, doing her best to shield him from the wind. Shuddering, Allyra removed the gloves from her left hand and plunged it into the snowdrift. The ice bit into her fingers like a thousand sharp needles. Her Gift had faded to a mere trickle, but she gathered what was left and searched clumsily for the blue Water threads and pulled on them, shaping them into a wall of snow. It took everything she had to reform the snow into a solid barrier of ice, the wall turning slowly and painfully from opaque to a pure, translucent blue.

  The wail of the wind dulled, and she was finally able to see again. Beside her, Jason muttered incoherently, drawing her attention to his dire state of health. She placed the back of her hand on his forehead and winced as she felt the fever heat raging through him.

  He was deathly pale, and a sheen of feverish sweat covered his skin. His eyelids fluttered restlessly as the poison from the Revenant blade raged through his body. The cut on his leg was still weeping blood despite having already painted an entire trouser leg red and probably leaving a trail of blood for their opponents to follow. She gently tried to part the cloth around the wound to get a better look but was thwarted by dry caked blood binding the material to Jason’s flesh.

  If she was going to help him, she had to get a better view. She undid the button and zipper on Jason’s pants and groaned as she imagined his reaction. If he survived this, he was definitely going to accuse her of taking advantage of him while unconscious.

  Allyra peeled Jason’s trousers away and finally got a better look at his wound. Her first instinct was to recoil away in horror. Black tendrils of poison were climbing up his leg, dark vines of misery stark against his pale skin. They were quickly making their way up toward his heart, and the smell of rotting flesh was unmistakable.

  The scar in her side throbbed at the memory of her own encounter with a Revenant blade. Had her own wound looked the same when the Ancient had sliced its sword through her? She couldn’t help but remember the unimaginable pain that had flooded through every crack and crevice of her mind—it was surely what Jason was suffering through now. All because he had tried to save her. And now, there was no doubt that Jason was dying.

  As strong as Jason was, he wouldn’t survive the poison of a Revenant blade, at least not without help. Unfortunately for him, they were in the middle of a snowstorm in Antarctica. It was literally the middle of nowhere—it meant that she was all he had by way of help.

  She had survived the poison of a Revenant blade once before. According to Alex, the Tigers had saved her then, and they might be able to again. She ignored the tiny voice whispering incessantly at the back of her mind, reminding her that the Tigers had caused her nothing but pain recently.

  Allyra didn’t allow her mind to dwell on the consequences—she set to work at once. She sat cross-legged next to Jason and closed her eyes, trying to still her mind.

  Hydrogen. Helium. Lithium. Beryllium. Boron. Carbon. Nitrogen. Oxygen…

  Jason had better be grateful that she was going through this effort to save his sorry ass, she thought darkly.

  Allyra retreated deep into herself, sinking into the source of her Gift. It was pale and hollow, nothing but an empty husk, but she reached deeper still until infinitely bright light exploded through her mind, leaving it throbbing with power. She reached blindly for Jason.

  Her fingers touched the wound on his leg, and the unnatural heat of his skin burned into her. In her mind, she saw his body broken down into a tapestry of colored threads, all woven tightly together. Green, yellow, red, and blue—every Element represented and present, pulled together by a silvery thread of life that only her Elemental Gift allowed her to see.

  Jason flinched under her touch, but Allyra only tightened her grasp. She started to draw the poison into herself.

  A gasp of pain escaped her lips unbidden as the poison flooded through her body. The Tigers roared in protest, fighting against her—fighting against the poison. Bile rose in her throat as more poison rushed through her veins. Every nerve ending lit up as a wildfire raged through her, leaving nothing but ash and bone behind.

  Her vision tunneled, and she heard Jason moan softly.

  She lost her grasp on consciousness.

  * * *

  Allyra woke up slowly. Her nose felt cold, but behind her was a solid bulk of warmth. Half-asleep, she turned and tried to burrow deeper into the warmth.

  “Hey.”

  She tried to ignore the voice, tried to tuck her head in and fall back asleep. Her body was bone-achingly tired.

  Even as she chased the warmth, it drew away from her.

  “Hey,” the voice said again.

  Allyra felt a hand draw gently across her forehead, brushing away a few errant tendrils of hair. Her eyelids fluttered open.

  Jason’s dark indigo eyes stared down at her, awash with concern. His face was drawn and his skin was devoid of color, but he was alive and awake. And most importantly, he was with her still.

  “You’re alive,” she murmured, her voice hoarse and catching in her throat.

  A wry smile broke across his painfully handsome features. “So are you.”

  She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “It would appear to be so though the jury is still out.”

  “Don’t ever do that again. You scared me half to death.”

  She huffed out a small laugh. “You were more than halfway there already.”

  “Don’t,” Jason said sharply.

  Allyra opened her eyes at the seriousness in his voice.

  “Don’t,” Jason repeated, his eyes boring into her. “I’m not worth it.”

  She tried to sit up, a frown creasing her forehead. She winced in pain as the scar in her side throbbed, the Revenant poison seeming to have reawakened the wound. A cough wracked through her, and the bitter taste of blood coated her tongue.

  Jason held her tightly until she was able to breathe again, and then he tried to lift her shirt. She made a halfhearted attempt to swat him away. “What are you doing?”

  “Please, it’s not anything I haven’t seen already.”

  Well, that was true enough.

  Jason lifted her shirt, and Allyra shivered as the ice-cold air
hit her skin. Her old wound came into view. Another shiver worked its way down her spine, this time at the memory of the Ancient’s blood red eyes boring into her as it thrust the jagged black blade into her.

  The scar from the Ancient’s blade would never truly be invisible, but in the past six months, it had started to fade, slowly waning from an angry red color to a pale white. But now, with Revenant poison surging through her, it had turned back to crimson, weeping a few drops of blood as if the blade had cut into her days rather than months ago.

  Jason’s eyes widened. “Your old scar, from the Revenant in the Between…”

  Allyra nodded. “It must’ve reacted to the poison from the Revenant blade.” She pulled her shirt back down. “And now you’ll have one too.”

  “It’s only because you’re such a sorry sight right now that I’m not going to bring up why I woke up in the freezing cold without my pants on…”

  A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “Right, only because I’m such a sorry sight and not because I just saved your ass.”

  His mood instantly turned serious. “Don’t, Allyra,” he repeated, “don’t ever do that again. I’m not worth it.”

  She turned to him, her eyes searching his. “Why would you say that? You saved me. It’s only right that I save you.”

  “Is that why you did it? Because you thought you owed me something?”

  She’d leaped into saving his life without giving herself time to consider her reasons for doing it. She still wasn’t ready to think about it.

  Allyra shrugged. “I don’t like owing anyone anything.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not—”

  She cut him off deliberately. “Can we stop debating whether you’re worth the effort or not? As much as I’m enjoying your sudden discovery of humility, the last time I checked, we were still in a race.”

  “You’re hurt too badly. We should just wait out the storm.”

  “Did you hit your head when you fell?” she asked sarcastically. “Humility and a willingness to accept defeat?”