But even as I ripped free of one claw, the others embedded themselves even further in my body. Too many—I couldn’t escape—
We crashed into the window. The beast’s body took the brunt of the impact, but my head cracked into the hard, unbroken surface a split second after. The collision ricocheted the monster backward with an ear-shattering howl. Its claws suddenly retracted and I slammed into the ground with a dull crunch.
Everything went black.
* * *
Sound returned first.
A low thud—faint but fierce—that I belatedly realized was my heart.
A distant crash, followed by a crackle like the sound frost spreading across a window pane would make if it actually made a noise.
Heavy, unnaturally loud breathing that was half growl, half trembling roar came close—too close—before quickly moving further away.
And then a flood of agony broke over me, so intense I wanted nothing more than for it to end—for me to end if necessary—accompanied by swells of heat racing through my broken body; heat that was usually only present with the roar in my head. But, amid all the other noise assaulting me, that roar was still absent.
A susurration of air washed over me, and then there was another thud, but this time it was much closer—and louder—followed immediately by a rippling crunch like a thousand glasses cracking at once.
Realizing at last what it all meant, my eyes flew open just in time to see the monster fling its body against the spider-webbed window one last time.
It blasted apart.
Instinctively, I curled into a ball as the broken glass rained down. The creature loosed a roar that echoed across the entire mountain range, a triumphant threat as it stretched its bloodied wings wide and soared away.
I could do nothing but stare, silent tears leaking out of my eyes, my body too broken to even tremble as the monster banked sharply and winged its way out of view. Pain and fire raced over my skin, under my skin, through my bones and veins, and I wanted to scream and I needed to get up and I just lay there.
Zuhra. She would know what the monster was—why it was here. She would know what to do. Whenever I emerged from the roar she was there, she always had the answers. She kept the fear of not knowing where I was or who I was or why I was from swallowing me whole.
But …
Gone.
Zuhra was gone.
Her body hitting the ground … getting yanked through the door that wasn’t a door … the glowing, sucking thing that had held me trapped, draining everything out of me until she took my other hand, until the monster exploded out of it, until—
Zuhra was gone.
I’d done something and she was gone and the monster was here and I was burning, and Halvor was—
Somehow, through the scorching fire that consumed me—I was fire … was I fire?—I forced my head to turn. There. His crumpled, bloody, lifeless body, within crawling distance. If only I could crawl. If only I could do anything.
But the flames licked my skin, they consumed my muscles, and melted my bones, and they were in me. They were me.
I was fire and it was burning me away until there was nothing left. Nothing, nothing, nothing …
I inhaled sharply. Exhaled slowly. Again. And again. And suddenly, finally, there truly was nothing.
The flames ebbed out of me, the heat leeched into the stones beneath me, taking my pain with it. All of it.
I was left lying on my back on the cold, damp ground; chilled, spent, terrified—but completely, utterly healed.
I knew it, somehow, even before I lifted my hands, to stare at my gore-covered but unmarred arms, to pat my blood-drenched belly and find no more than a wet, shredded nightgown. Not even a scratch remained.
I’d become fire, and then it had left me, and I was healed … and the roar … the roar that had been my constant companion, was still gone.
A low moan, so soft I barely heard it, jerked me back to my surroundings. Newly invigorated heart in my throat, I rolled onto my knees and crawled to Halvor, who had, unbelievably, made the noise.
“H-halvor,” I croaked, my throat still raw from my screams. I thought you were dead. The words didn’t leave my mouth, partially from fear that I had imagined his moan and he really was gone, and partially because speaking was too much effort. The sheer amount of blood surrounding him seemed more than it should have taken to fill his thin body. The skirt of my nightgown dredged through the puddle, sopping it up like one of Sami’s sponges. It would have taken a dozen skirts to absorb it all. His skin was clammy and cold when I brushed my fingers across his forehead, leaving a streak of crimson. He didn’t move, his eyes not even fluttering beneath his dusky eyelashes.
He’d been kind to me, this strange boy who had never been there when I’d awoken in the past and then suddenly was. I pressed my hand to his chest, hoping for the telltale throb of a heartbeat. I remembered that the hedge had let him through—the hedge that I could sense, like the brush of butterfly wings against my mind, always there, always there.
“Halvor,” I whispered, trying out his name, letting it slide around my mouth and slip off my tongue. It felt forbidden, though I’d spoken to him for hours that one miraculous night. More time together than I’d had with Zuhra in many of my awake times combined. He’d told me it was because I’d healed myself and it had used enough of my power to clear my mind for longer than normal. Or what we’d thought was normal. When the roar had begun to build within me once more, I’d considered hurting myself again—on purpose this time—if only to make my body heal itself and keep the roar from claiming me again.
But I’d been too afraid.
And now he was dying—dead?—and I had healed myself again and the roar was gone and Zuhra was gone and the monster was out there somewhere and everything was wrong.
“Inara!”
My name was a distant sound, a concern-laden echo from somewhere deep within the citadel.
You healed yourself, Inara. The power inside you—the roar, as you call it—has the power to heal. Another echo, but this time the memory of what he’d told me, his eyes warm and bright, like sun-baked soil in my garden, his face lit with excitement. I didn’t know him but I’d known that’s what it was, the way his mouth had stretched a smile around his words and his hands had gestured, as if conjuring magic from the very air we breathed—that’s what he’d called it, what I could do. It’s magic—this power inside you. You have Paladin magic.
But Zuhra hadn’t been there, and instead of joy I’d felt heavy with the fear of what it meant, and I’d wanted her to come to me and explain it, to tell me this boy wasn’t lying to me.
Paladin magic. The power to heal. Fire, beneath my skin, in my veins.
I’d healed myself from wounds that should have killed me—I knew so little but I knew that to be true, somehow. That monster’s claws had ripped through my body, shredding me apart. But here I was. It had torn into Halvor first and his once smiling lips were bloodless and I didn’t know what to do, but I had to try.
“Inara!”
Closer now, and I should have answered, but he was almost out of time and I had to focus.
I exhaled slowly. Beneath my hands, his chest was still. So very, very still. But then—there. His ribs shifted. It was a shallow wisp of a breath, but he wasn’t gone yet. Not entirely.
What do I do?
There was no one to tell me. The roar was still gone … What if my power was gone too? What if healing myself had used it all up?
He’d tried to explain what he knew of Paladin magic to me—that day when Zuhra had been locked away and Mother had refused to get her. To distract me, he’d told me how the Paladin were all born with power, but different Paladin had different gifts, and healing was apparently mine. He’d said it was something in the core of me. He’d said I had so much that healing my plants didn’t use enough to clear my mind for long.
The intensity of the heat I’d felt while it healed me today had been almost worse than the pain
it eventually erased.
Was there any left for Halvor?
I closed my eyes and tried to find it—to feel for a core of power inside me somewhere. My heartbeat sounded in my ears, too loud, too useless. A rain-scented wind rushed through the shattered window, whipping my hair across my face. I shivered, chilled, devoid of any flicker of heat—any hope of saving him.
My fingers curled around his ruined tunic and I let my head drop so that my forehead rested against his sternum, heedless of the gore and torn flesh and exposed bone. Zuhra was gone and it was my fault. I didn’t understand how, only that it was because of me—that my power had given that door the ability to let that thing in and take Zuhra out. I couldn’t bear to let this boy die because of me too.
Please. Please heal him! I dug my fingers into his flesh, which grew icier by the moment. There had to be more. There just had to be.
Heal him NOW!
And then—finally—a flicker of warmth prickled beneath my ribs, just below my heart. Relief washed over me, heady and exultant. I exhaled and the warmth fanned itself into a fire once more, building in intensity in my chest until it shot up my spine to my head and then exploded out from there, racing across my skin, rushing through my muscles and nerves, painful and exquisite at the same time. And finally down my arms, to my hands and out of my fingers, into his ruined body.
As my power flowed out of me and into Halvor, I sensed him—felt him—in a way I’d never thought to feel another person: the way his flesh had become more clay than living entity; how dangerously close what should have been the brilliant light of his living soul was to being snuffed out entirely. It barely even trembled, a ghost of a shadow left tethering him to this world. That was where I sent my fire first, to banish the darkness that held him in its grasp, nearly dragging him under. My light shot through the sucking black, a sun bursting through the grasping fingers of eternal night, and coaxed his to flicker in response. With it came a barrage of images and emotions—flashes of his life: on a boat under a brilliant sun with his parents, emerald green water spreading out as far as the eye could see around them; lying on his back stargazing with his father; the day he found out his father had died; holding his mother’s hand in a small, dark room, her face gaunt and her eyes shut; the all-consuming grief that had nearly induced him to do something to join them after she was gone; the peace of being tucked into a corner of a massive library, surrounded by piles of books, his uncle sitting at his desk nearby; his first view of the citadel and the joy he’d felt to have finally reached his goal … All within the space of one heartbeat, pieces of who he was became imprinted on me.
Once he was no longer on the precipice of slipping away, I sent the flames of my power surging through his veins—out to his flayed muscles, to his serrated bones and shredded flesh. His pain became mine, and only through sheer willpower did I manage to keep my fingers clenched onto his chest, even as my head flung back, my mouth opening in a silent scream as his agony crashed over me, attempting to pull me into the waiting abyss.
I battled back, pushing my fire forward, sensing his body mending itself—skin knitting together, muscles and bones shifting and solidifying; until little by little what had been broken became whole again … as slowly, slowly, the pain ebbed and Halvor’s light burned brighter and then brighter still.
Reassured that I had done it, that I had brought him back, I began to withdraw.
I forced my eyes open to see the veins in my arms and hands glowing bright blue, except where my knuckles were bright white, my fingers still digging into his now healed skin. As the last of my power uncoiled from his body and receded back to me, I had to forcibly release him. My hands were still curled into claws that I couldn’t straighten after working so hard to maintain my grip on him despite the sheer agony that had threatened to rip us apart.
Halvor suddenly gasped, a loud, wet inhalation—his body’s first triumphant return to full life. His eyes flashed open, going immediately to mine, but the fire had sputtered and gone out. I was the one in darkness, I was the one slipping away. I saw his lips form my name, saw his hand lifting toward me, but the ever-greedy eternal night reached me first and I succumbed to its velvet embrace.
NINETEEN
ZUHRA
I landed on my stomach on a patch of grass.
When I lifted my head, a blast of pain shot through both my jaw and the back of my skull. I saw only a massive archway among a few crumbling ruins.
The citadel, the Hall of Miracles, Halvor, the monster—my sister—they were all gone.
Then whatever had pulled me through the doorway—the gateway to Visimperum—yanked again, dragging me across the grass, away from the archway. Away from my only way back home.
I grabbed at the grass, digging my nails into the soil beneath, and bucked my body, trying to free myself. An angry hiss preceded claws slicing into the tender skin of my ankle, threatening to hobble me permanently if they cut much deeper. With a sudden jerk, the thing flipped me over, so that I was face-to-face with a rakasa, smaller than the one in the citadel, but no less terrifying. It had a long, flat body with six legs, each ending in four claws, one of which was clamped around my leg. Its short neck supported a head that reminded me of a boar’s, with jagged fangs hanging outside its black lips. Drool a very concerning shade of greenish gray gathered on the tips of the fangs.
I’d only ever been able to sneak the one book on rakasa into my room, but I’d read it enough that dozens of competing facts about the different kinds of monsters rushed through my mind at once, flooding my body with hot panic. Predators, all of them, some pack hunters, some solitary. Some poisonous, some devouring their prey … others taking their time, inflicting maximum pain upon their victims … I racked my memory for an image matching the beast that continued to drag me toward the copse of trees at the other end of the clearing from where the gateway stood. Nothing came—my mind couldn’t seem to process that I was seeing a creature I’d only read about until now.
A shriek from above us sent a tremor through the monster. Its short legs redoubled in speed, rushing for the cover of the trees, but not before a massive creature that I instantly recognized as a gryphon—with the head and wings of an eagle and the body and tail of a lion—dove out of the sky to land directly in front of it, forcing the monster to skid to a halt with a yowl of frustration. I caught a glimpse of a man with glowing blue eyes vaulting from the gryphon’s back, one hand gripping a sword and the other lifted, a ball of blue fire hovering above his open palm.
The monster hissed, recoiling away from the man—the Paladin—trying to drag me back the way it had come. But more shrieks sounded above; I had to blink multiple times to convince myself that I was seeing truly. An entire battalion of gryphons soared toward us, the first three also tucking their wings and diving for the earth, landing in a circle around the monster, trapping it. It would have been completely overwhelming if it weren’t such a relief.
“Help! Help me!”
The beast scuttled backward, its jaws clacking. A horrible growl whined from its throat, as its claws tightened yet again around my leg, yanking me below its belly. For the first time, I noticed the smell of the thing—a mix between putrid meat and decaying flesh.
One of the Paladin shouted something in their language. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed.
Another shout and then a cacophony of shrieks blasted through the air. The monster bellowed; its claws spasmed against my leg, then abruptly released me. It began to drop, its belly pressing me into the ground, threatening to crush me. A loud crack sent a shudder through me and dimly I realized it was my arm bone snapping—
And then suddenly the creature was gone, lifted straight up off the earth. I scrambled away as quickly as possible, using my one good arm and dragging my destroyed foot behind me toward the first pair of legs closest to me.
Once I was sure I was no longer underneath the monster, I flipped over to see three gryphons dragging it through the sky, away from us, the monster’s head
hanging limply, a tendril of brackish smoke rising from a hole in its chest.
I let my eyes close and my head dropped back on the earth, all of my adrenaline draining away with the removal of the threat, leaving me trembling and overcome with pain. My jaw and arm were definitely both broken, and I didn’t even dare look at my leg. I’d never experienced anything like the agony that swelled up from where the monster had most likely severed muscle, tendon—even bone.
The group of Paladin—a group of Paladin, standing right there, more people surrounding me than I’d met in my entire life—murmured quietly above me in the unfamiliar but melodic language of theirs, until a male voice cut over the rest.
“Zuhra,” he said in my language, his voice hesitant and thick. “Is it truly you?”
My eyes flew open to see a man I would have recognized anywhere, even after fifteen years apart, on his knees next to me, glowing blue eyes glistening with the sheen of withheld tears.
It was Adelric—it was my father.
INARA
I’d never felt more at peace than in those moments of pure darkness, in the minutes when I nearly lost myself. But something inside, something stronger than peace, or rest, or release, whispered to me, urged me to turn back, to fight back. It was a voice I knew, a voice that had called me from the darkness of my own mind so many, many times.
Come back to me, Nara. Come back …
Over and over she’d asked and I’d tried, oh, how I’d tried. And no matter how many times I’d failed, she’d stayed, she’d whispered, she’d urged.
Come back to me, Nara. Come back to me …
And so I turned from the velvet night and fought toward the small, distant light and all that accompanied it: pain, exhaustion, fear … guilt. I couldn’t remember why, only that it was—that all those things awaited me if I forced my way back out of the dark. And still, I climbed, I grasped, I reached.
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