Up there, on Naiki’s back, it felt as though we were the only two living souls in the whole world. Everything else faded away, until it was just me and Raidyn and Naiki and the endless expanse of sky above and the mountains below. The clouds from earlier had broken apart, letting the peaks soar through once more, dark and hulking but not terrifying as they’d once been. I’d never felt safer than I did in that moment, with Raidyn’s arms wrapped around me, his strength holding me tight.
But instead of cresting the mountains, or slipping through the small crack we’d originally come through, Naiki banked and began winging her way back toward the city glittering on the hill in the distance, across the valley from us. A ping of disappointment punctured the euphoria of the ride … I wasn’t ready to go back yet, to have my feet on solid ground where Raidyn kept his distance more often than not, and where Loukas would no doubt be waiting to ask how his attempt to use jealousy as a tool had gone.
Was that why Raidyn held me so close—why his fingers pressed into my hip and he kept his face turned toward mine? Because Loukas had succeeded in making him jealous?
I was confused, and hot, and aching in a nameless way I couldn’t quite describe, and I needed Raidyn to want me the way I wanted him, and I was afraid that once we landed, he would walk away from me and I would never again experience the feeling of having his arms around me like this.
We were silent most of the way back, but occasionally his fingers moved on my skin, or he turned his face slightly more into mine, so that his nose brushed my temple again. Once, it even felt like his lips pressed against my cheekbone. I closed my eyes and just let myself feel … trying to absorb and memorize this moment, to hold it inside me forever, to take out and cherish after whatever reality awaited us back on solid ground.
And I couldn’t help but wonder if he was silent because he was doing the same.
All too soon, the gryphon banked more sharply, tilting downward toward the field and stables below, forcing Raidyn to straighten fully, separating from me.
“Remember, the landing can be a bit rough,” he reminded me, his face a respectable distance from mine now. And when his arm tightened around me, his hand was no longer on my skin. His fingers had curled into a partial fist as though he were trying not to touch me. The heady exhilaration of our ride evaporated as quickly as the rush of wind against our faces when Naiki extended her back paws for the earth that had come up to meet us all too soon.
She landed with a thud, throwing me forward just enough to unseat me. Raidyn grabbed my arm with his other hand, only for a moment to make sure I was steady, then he pushed backward, so that there was space for him to swing his leg over and jump to the ground.
“Can I help?” he asked, lifting his hands to assist me, his voice cool, nothing more than solicitously polite, but his eyes flamed as bright a blue as I’d ever seen them when they met mine, scorching through me as I nodded and let his strong hands close over my waist. I grabbed onto his biceps as he helped pull me to the ground, setting me down gently in front of him.
I fully expected him to immediately let go and step back, but he stood still, his fingers curling more tightly into my body again, his eyes never leaving mine—an unspoken question that I wasn’t sure how to answer. I stared up at him, my hands still on his arms, the sunlight turning his hair golden and his eyes to pure fire—the same fire that his touch ignited in my veins. When I swallowed, his burning gaze dropped to my mouth and I almost stopped breathing entirely.
“Zuhra … I … I want so much to…” His voice was a rasping whisper, and out of some instinct born deep within me, my lips parted slightly and he bent toward me—
“Raidyn!”
The shout was like surfacing for air after being submerged under water. Sound and light and awareness of something other than Raidyn slammed into me all at once as we sprang apart and turned to see Sharmaine sprinting toward us from the direction of the castle. I was afraid to look at her—afraid of what she’d seen and what she would think.
But she wasn’t looking at me at all. Her eyes were only on Raidyn when she skidded to a halt, panting as though she’d been running for far longer than just the stretch between the door and where we stood beside Naiki.
“The council—there’s an emergency meeting—the gateway—” she panted, hands on knees.
“What meeting? What happened with the gateway?” And just like that, Raidyn was all business, all traces of the moment before erased in the blink of an eye as if it had never happened, leaving me chilled for more than one reason.
“Sachiel’s patrol came back early—something happened at the gateway. A flare of power. Raidyn—someone’s trying to open it.”
He turned to me just as my legs gave out and I collapsed to my knees on the field.
“Zuhra—are you all right?” Sharmaine’s question echoed dimly through the rush of blood in my ears.
“Inara,” I breathed, staring up at Raidyn. A sob tore through my chest and my eyes filled with tears. “She’s alive. She’s alive.”
THIRTY-SIX
INARA
Silence.
I blinked and exhaled. It was gone. It was gone.
But something was still wrong.
I was lying on my back, staring up at a ceiling far, far above me, a cool wind blowing the damp hair off my cheeks.
“Inara! Are you all right?”
“How did it not work? I don’t understand!”
Voices, footsteps, someone dropping to their knees beside me.
Slowly, I realized where I was—who I was. We were in the Hall of Miracles. Halvor knelt at my side, Sami right behind him, her face pale and drawn, and Barloc stood at the base of the stairs that led up to the door where I lay … where I’d grabbed the handle, where I’d tried to open the gateway … and failed.
It didn’t work?
It didn’t work.
The realization knocked the breath from my lungs. I’d lost myself to the roar again, after the humiliating afternoon when Halvor had tried to come up with a plausible excuse for the burns on his lips. They still weren’t entirely healed; the edges of his mouth were cracked and scabbed. I hadn’t used my power once, not one tiny bit. Toward the end, I’d had to go lie on my bed, squeezing my eyes shut, drowning in the pain and agony of holding it all in, until finally, finally the roar consumed me once more and took me away on a wave of blissful oblivion. I only had vague recollections of what happened after that, the last of which was grabbing the handle to the doorway, feeling my power ignite and surge out of me and into the door just like last time, my back arcing, the excruciating agony of having it ripped from me so quickly, so completely, being unable to let go—
Except that unlike last time, the gateway hadn’t opened and Zuhra hadn’t pulled me free. I’d eventually passed out, collapsing, only then breaking the connection.
“Inara, can you hear me? Are you all right?”
I turned toward Halvor, who had lifted one hand to my face, gently wiping the tears I didn’t even realize had leaked out onto my cheeks. Sami knelt beside him now and took one of my hands into hers.
“It didn’t work” was all I said, my throat raw, as if I’d been screaming.
Halvor’s eyes closed and his head dropped. Sami squeezed my hand tighter.
“We must not have waited quite long enough,” Barloc said gravely. “You were so close, my dear girl. Another day or two, that would have done it.”
“How dare you. How dare you!” Sami dropped my hand to stand and whirl on the older scholar. “Did you not see what that just did to her? She can’t do this again. It might kill her!”
“No,” I protested, weakly pushing myself up to sit. “He’s right. I must not have waited long enough. Next time give it another two days to be certain.”
“There will be no next time,” Sami bit out, two bright spots of red flaring in her pale cheeks.
“Sami.” I climbed to my feet on shaking legs and reached one hand toward her arm. “I have to. I have to a
t least try to get to Zuhra. What if she’s alive somewhere through there? What if she’s lost … what if she’s sitting there waiting for me?” I blinked back more tears as Sami’s eyes welled up.
“You know I love Zuhra,” she said slowly, her voice thick, “but from what Master Roskery has said, she was seriously hurt already, and if she was pulled through by another one of those monsters … chances are she didn’t—”
“Don’t,” I snapped. “Don’t you dare even say that. She has to be alive. And I am going to open this gateway and find her.” Strength had quickly returned to my body, my power flaring, sparking within me to heal the minor damages from my fall and whatever the gateway had done to me. The roar was far away; it would take days before it returned. But it didn’t matter. I would wait. “We do it again.”
Barloc nodded at me, his expression inscrutable, as I stormed down the stairs and out of the Hall of Miracles.
* * *
I went straight to my mother’s room, rapping sharply once and then pushing it open without waiting for her permission. She sat at her desk, staring out the window at the gray, stormy day, a cup of untouched tea gone cold in front of her and a plate of vegetables beside it.
She startled at my intrusion and turned; when she saw it was me, not Sami, she blanched.
“Inara? You’re … here?”
I wasn’t sure if she meant physically or mentally, but since both applied, I merely raised one eyebrow. “Why didn’t you come?” I demanded. I’d never had much experience with anger. I’d been so focused on survival, on trying to stretch the brief interludes of lucidity as long as possible, that I refused to acknowledge the burning heat of it inside me—every time I asked Where is mother? and Zuhra would make up some excuse and try to turn my attention elsewhere. But I had plenty of time now, and once I opened that gateway I would never be lost in the roar again. And if Sami was right about Zuhra—if my deepest fear that haunted all my dreams, turning them to terrors, was true—I needed my mother to be a mother. “Why do you never come?”
She flinched as though I’d physically struck her. It hurt, to see how diminished she was, how slight her frame, how thin her wrists were beneath the faded fabric of her dress. Her knuckles were white on the cup she gripped and she didn’t look up when she said, “I wasn’t feeling well and—”
“No,” I said. “That is not a good enough reason to hide in here when you knew what I was attempting to do today. When we were trying to go find Zuhra—your daughter.”
“I couldn’t, Inara. I … I can’t go in that room. In any of those rooms.”
I stared at her, shocked past words when she reached up to swipe away a tear.
My mother was … crying.
“I tried to be strong for you girls. I know I failed, trust me, I know. But I tried. I didn’t know how else to … to be strong … when I left … everything … for him—and then he … he left me.” Her voice kept breaking, she could barely force the words out. And then my mother, who I’d never seen even get choked up, curled in on herself with a shudder and … shattered. All that sorrow and grief and guilt had finally broken loose and it ravaged her in great gasping, gulping, body-wrenching sobs. I stood frozen, staring.
“He left me,” she repeated again and again in between gasps and shudders that convulsed her entire frame. “He left me.”
And I just stood there, helpless and pathetic and … ashamed.
I’d vaguely known my father had left us; it was a story, a hushed secret. But this … this was real pain, this was a heart torn apart by the agony of his leaving. And I had no idea what to do.
Hesitantly, I took one step toward her, then another, until I finally reached her side. I haltingly reached toward her shaking back, gently brushing it with my hand. She flinched but didn’t pull away. I was strangely nervous, my heart pounding in my chest, as I inched closer and slowly wrapped my arm all the way around her narrow shoulders. My mother stiffened, her sobs halted momentarily. She lifted her head and glanced at me, her bloodshot eyes and tear-streaked face so familiar and so foreign all at once.
“I’m … sorry.” My voice trembled, uncertain and afraid that she would push me away—again.
But instead, for the first time in my life, my mother wrapped her thin arms around me, pulling me close. “No, Inara. I am the one who is sorry,” she whispered.
Everything was still broken and wrong; my father had still left and my mother had pushed me away for fifteen years and Zuhra was still missing … but right now, my mother was hugging me.
My mother had said she was sorry.
I only wished Zuhra, who had borne the brunt of her pain and anger, had been there to hear it.
* * *
“I have two brothers,” Mother said haltingly, as if it was still difficult to make the words leave the hidden recesses of her heart.
We sat in her room, eating dinner together. Well, I was eating. She was moving her food around her plate and taking a small nibble here and there. I wanted to push her to eat more, but was afraid if I pressed her to do anything else she would snap back into her old self and shut me out again.
And that was unbearable to consider—not when she was actually talking.
“They were younger than me,” she continued, “and it broke their hearts when I left. Brycent cried and cried … but I didn’t have a choice. My father disowned me for choosing Adelric, for refusing to turn him in to the garrisons.”
I didn’t understand everything she told me, but I didn’t dare ask for clarification, in case it made her stop. Instead, I just listened and tried to make sense of what I could.
“Your eyes … they’re just like his,” she admitted, glancing up at me. I flushed, embarrassed for some reason, knowing that when she looked at me, she saw him. Which was probably part of the reason she’d always pushed me away and not Zuhra. That, and the power he’d also gifted to me. “Adelric…” The name stuck in her throat after more than a decade of trying to erase it from her memory. “He was … my everything. It was like I had lived my life in the darkness of night but he brought me out to stand in the sun. He made everything brighter, more beautiful. He’d sacrificed so much to help our people, and had only been handed back suffering and violence … yet he remained so … positive. I’d never known anyone like him. Even the pain of leaving my family and home on such terrible terms was bearable because of how happy he made me.”
I was transfixed, my food forgotten.
“We fled the garrisons and the death decree, traveling under the cover of night and hiding during the day, only to find the gateway shut when we finally arrived. He convinced me we’d be safe here, that the citadel and the hedge they’d planted would protect us. He was one of the last, you see. And the villagers … they didn’t turn us in, but only after he begged and bribed them not to report us to the garrisons that came every few weeks to check on the citadel—to make sure it was still abandoned. It was dangerous and lonely living here, but there was nowhere else for us to go. He was all I had, Inara.”
For some reason, I felt as though she were trying to explain herself, trying to justify what had happened since then. But I was not the only one she owed this story to … or her apologies. And as much as I wanted her to keep talking—to keep telling me about what had brought her here, had turned her into what she was … I’d originally come to her room with a purpose.
“And then he left me … after everything I gave up for him. And we were trapped, and I couldn’t even take my daughters and return home. Even if we weren’t trapped behind the hedge, I don’t know if I could have, because of…” She trailed off, her gaze flickering up to mine then lowered again as silent tears trailed down her cheeks, the violence of her earlier breakdown passed, leaving this quieter but no less painful regret in its place.
“Mother,” I began, soft but firm, “I need you to tell us what you know—and I need you to be with me when I try to open the gateway again. I know it’s hard for you,” I rushed on when she started to protest, “but Zuh
ra is out there somewhere. Only you have known a real Paladin before—only you know what he told you about his home and his people. And,” I added, “she’s your daughter. If she survived, she deserves to hear this story—to hear your apology.”
Mother was quiet a long time. I made myself wait, though my instinct was to fill the silence with more reasons to try and convince her.
Finally she closed her eyes and nodded. “Tomorrow,” she whispered. “Tomorrow … I’ll try to tell you what I can remember. But I can’t promise anything else.”
* * *
Halvor squeezed my hand, the pressure of his grip reassuring but doing little to assuage the strange flutter of nervousness in my belly. “I still can’t believe she told you all of that,” he said quietly, too low for Sami or Barloc, who sat across the room at a small table playing a card game, to hear. The day had dawned gray and wet yet again, the sky leaking, dripping, slow and constant and forcing us to stay inside.
“I still can’t believe it either,” I whispered back. I hadn’t told him that she’d agreed to come out of her room today and share what she knew of Visimperum, the home of the Paladin, with us—for fear she would lose courage and go back on her word. But that didn’t stop me from eagerly turning toward the door every time there was a creak. So far, it had been nothing but the citadel’s normal noisiness.
Halvor’s thumb moved back and forth across the top of my hand, the methodical touch distracting and comforting all at once. It was strange how my stomach could be twisted into knots with worry about my mother and Zuhra while my chest was tight with the memory of our kiss and the longing to repeat it—without the disastrous results of the first attempt.
After this is over, I told myself. If Halvor is still around, if he still wants to … maybe then.
I glanced over to find him watching me, his eyes darkened to umber in the somber light from the storm. Or, perhaps it was something else. His gaze dropped to my lips momentarily, forcing all other thoughts to flee my mind and making me wonder if he wished as much as I did that we were alone.
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