When one soul mirrors another…what would it do if it had nothing to reflect?
Silence followed her cry. It was the last sound that would be heard from her. She crumpled to the ground, nothing but living flesh held together only by Griffin’s arms. My eyes, running with tears, found Lincoln’s, and they shared the very same sorrow and deep grief.
I knelt and put my hands on Lincoln’s shoulder.
Focus on what you can do, Vi.
I healed his wounds, knowing my power well enough now that I no longer needed to harness it through a kiss. Lincoln recovered quickly and ran to kneel beside Azeem, while I scrambled on my hands and knees, weak from so much blood loss, to where Zoe and Salvatore were kneeling over who I now knew had to be Spence.
Blood almost covered my entire body. By the time I reached Spence, the desert dust coated my arms and legs, while my wrist throbbed badly where the gash, although no longer bleeding, was still fresh.
“Jesus,” said Zoe as she made room for me. “How the hell are you still alive?”
It was a damn fine question. I ignored it.
Spence was unconscious and bleeding from the head.
“What happened?” My hands shook as they hovered over him, afraid to touch and make things worse.
“Too many, too vicious,” Salvatore said. “He was gladiator, but Rudyard fell to the Gressil and so Nyla fell. This made too many.”
Zoe was shaking her head in disbelief and shock. “We couldn’t get to him. I saw him being thrown against the wall. They were crowding to finish him off. Azeem took out one, and then Phoenix called them off. Guess he had what he wanted.”
Spence was barely breathing. Magda came over and crouched beside him. She silently moved her hands through his hair, but Salvatore grabbed her arm.
She spun to look at him, but he held her stare and her arm. “I need to check the wound,” Magda said.
Salvatore glanced at me. I didn’t know what he was asking.
“Let her look, Sal,” Zoe said calmly. It was the first time I’d heard her call him Sal. He nodded and removed his arm.
Magda felt behind Spence’s head and then checked his pulse.
She looked up at me and then beyond. Lincoln had joined us. “How is he?” he said to me. I shrugged.
“He’s dying,” Magda said quietly. “He has a punctured lung and the head wounds are severe. I’d guess he’s bleeding internally. If we move him, it won’t work and…we can’t get anyone in here to him.”
This was my fault. I’d let him come along, hidden him in my room, let him get dragged into all my dramas. He wouldn’t have even been there in the first place if I hadn’t refused to go to the Academy.
Zoe was crying. Actually, she was snotting up a storm.
I inched closer to Spence, then instinctively put a hand on either side of his face. There had to be some good in all this power. I had to be able to do more than just kill.
“Not you. Not today,” I told us both.
I closed my eyes and ignored whoever it was who tried to pull me back. I was super strong. If I wanted to stay here, I would stay. I found my center and focused on Spence. On my friend who had teased me, gotten me drunk, and had no ulterior motive. I dug into my power and then beyond and forced my will upon him.
“Live, Spence,” I whispered. My left wrist tingled with power and my right one burned with pain but I kept going, pushing my influence into him. Commanding it.
Little by little, it seeped through my hands and into his wounds. The healing began.
It wasn’t like healing Lincoln; it wasn’t as simple or pleasant. I pushed through my own faded strength and demanded more of myself. Spence groaned.
Someone said, “It’s working.”
I pushed harder. It almost felt as if my hands were inside his head pushing it back together. Spence’s eyes shot open, bloodshot and looking like they were bursting under pressure. He screamed and screamed…and screamed. I opened my eyes and held his stare.
“Hold on,” I told us both. But the pain was immense and he grabbed for my hands, pulling them, crushing them. I felt my fingers, maybe three or four, snap and break. Lincoln was on top of Spence in an instant, holding him down as he screamed, restraining his hands while I kept going with my healing.
Eventually, the screaming stopped. He was wounded still, a gash on the side of his head, but it was closed. Internally, he’d been righted. I began to sink down and Lincoln leapt off Spence in time to catch me. He held me from behind. His arms wrapped around me, his hands closing over mine, healing the breaks. I felt his mouth on the top of my head, buried in my hair. It hurt more than anything had ever hurt before.
It’s over. It’s all over.
“Thanks, Eden,” said Spence, as Zoe helped him sit up against the wall. “I owe you one.”
I gave a small smile, happy he was alive but all too aware that on the other side of the room was a problem I couldn’t fix.
“Lincoln,” Magda said, coming up beside us as we stood. “Are you…okay?”
“What were you thinking, Magda?” he snapped. “Everyone knew Phoenix was off-limits. If you killed him, you would’ve killed Violet!”
“I…He was already killing her. She was almost dead, Linc. You were fighting; everything was happening so fast. I knew you’d want me to try and save her. I…I thought it was the only way. I thought if I took him down, they’d all leave and we could try and save her.” Tears fell from her eyes.
Before Lincoln could respond, Azeem stood and a hollow silence fell over all of us. Carrying Rudyard in his large arms, he walked back through the caves. Griffin followed, cradling Nyla, who was alive yet, at the same time, just as dead. I swallowed hard.
We all walked behind, Zoe and Salvatore helping Spence, who was still a little shaky.
“What happened to the Scriptures?” Spence asked, as if any of us really cared just then.
“Jude took off with one early in the piece,” Lincoln said. “That was the last I saw.”
“Phoenix snatched the other one on his way out,” Zoe said.
“Great. So it was all for nothing,” I said, feeling sour as we followed the others out like a bloody funeral procession. We left the box in the middle of the room. Somehow, we either weren’t willing to take it—given the price that had been paid—or we figured it wasn’t meant for us. I just didn’t care.
“Not for Phoenix. He got what he came for,” Spence said.
“Not everything he came for,” Lincoln said, looking at me.
“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
Khalil Gibran
I sat in one of the military vehicles inside the plane we had arrived on. Spence was beside me in the driver’s seat; Zoe and Salvatore were in the back. Zoe had cried herself to sleep.
This time when we had boarded the plane, the army guys were different. There were a number of them onboard but they left us alone, not interested in getting us to take our designated seats, buckle up. We had casualties. I guess camaraderie comes from death.
Lincoln and Magda were pacing around the front of the plane. None of us was willing to go down to the back end—where Rudyard’s body was closed up in a military transport coffin. And going upstairs wasn’t an option.
Long stretches of silence made it worse. Even the noise of the engine didn’t cut through it. I think we were all hoping to hear her scream or something, but there was never a sound. Griffin had been up there with her for hours, but Nyla was catatonic. Completely and utterly broken.
Lincoln couldn’t even look at me. Not that I knew for sure—I couldn’t look at him either.
It’s all such a foggy haze now. After getting down from the mountain, Azeem had called in reinforcements. Four of his Grigori had been badly injured but, surprisingly, all were still alive. A cleanup crew arrived and set
about covering everything up so come morning, the tourists wouldn’t know.
My eyes stung with tears again. I blinked them back and concentrated on chipping away at the already cracked plastic paneling with my bloodied and dirty fingernails. My fingers still hurt where Spence had crushed them. I pressed harder and focused on the relief of physical pain.
Spence was staring out the front windshield, deep in thought. Almost dying tends to humble a person.
We saw feet coming down the stairs and all sat up a little, the sounds of fabric shifting and the car creaking seemingly amplified. Lincoln went over to meet Griffin. I noticed Magda didn’t join him. She was lost in thought. Perhaps it was grief—she’d known Nyla and Rudyard for as long as Griffin had.
The windows were wound down so we could hear. When we saw Griffin’s face, we all slumped. He looked…how someone does when they know there is no hope. He glanced at us, sitting in the stupid truck. Useless.
Spence and Salvatore got out, needing to do something. I stayed where I was. I couldn’t…It was selfish. Awfully selfish, but I couldn’t stand beside Lincoln and be told what I knew Griffin was going to say. Hell, I’d felt it back in the cave.
“Her soul is shattered. She’s alive.” He shook his head and coughed out a small cry. “Trapped inside her own…I can’t reach her. No one ever will.”
I looked out the window in the opposite direction. I couldn’t watch and I wished I couldn’t hear.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Breathe. Concentrate. Breathe. One, two, three. Remember how this goes, remember you can do this. When everything falls apart, when everything is strangled and taken from you and nothing is left, not even the tiniest glimmer—
I ran my hands over my face, pulled back my hair, and swallowed through the lump in my throat that I knew was there to stay.
Remember the rules. Don’t back down. Don’t run. Don’t quit. And now, remember the new rule: Don’t dream silly dreams.
At some point, Spence and Salvatore got back in the truck. Lincoln went upstairs to try and help Griffin. I think in the end, he may have found it less torturous to be up in Nyla’s hell than down with me.
Magda stayed away from us, which was at least a small blessing. Silence dragged on and on. Someone passed me a bottle of water. I hugged it until fatigue finally overtook the numbness and I fell asleep.
• • •
My paintbrush glided over the canvas, the color flowing and changing without me even trying—an effortless spiral of illuminating color.
I forced my hand to stop. The painting before me started to bleed tears of gray.
I dropped the brush and looked over to the window, where I knew he would be looking out. He was the same—tall, handsome, overly strong jaw, and distant. Inhuman. More interested in the outside world than being confined to my art studio. But it was my dream, so I guess that meant the territory belonged to me.
“Are you my Angel parent?” I asked.
He nodded once.
“Who are you?” I pressed, going through the motions. He had told me to call him Lochmet—warrior—but I knew that wasn’t his real name.
“That is not important.”
“Are you one of the Sole?”
“Yes.”
His answer threw me. I hadn’t expected anything so direct.
“Can you tell me who you are?”
“First, you must know who you are, and you must see what is right in front of you.”
He watched something through the window and it was surreal to see that what he was gazing upon was not the true view from my city apartment. Though it was raining like it usually did in my dreams, he was looking over an open field with a tall forest in the distance. Perhaps this wasn’t only my dream.
“Is this about Jude? Did you know him?”
“He was my dearest friend for a time.”
“Why did he exile?”
“For balance. Sometimes, the things that are required of us are beyond our comprehension, and even when we have fulfilled our destiny…it can be hard to recognize if we have done so with a clear conscience.”
“I don’t understand.”
He sighed, for the first time showing emotion. It was sadness or even…a type of acceptance. “Humanity requires simplicity. A villain in every story appeals to the most basic human feeling: mistrust. There was a time when direction was necessary, a certain form of proof for comfort. To achieve this, we had to provide defeat in some, in others, triumph against all odds.”
“Why?” I asked, still struggling to see where this was going.
“Because the only human emotion more inherent than mistrust is the need for victory.”
“You sent me those other dreams, didn’t you? They were about Jude, weren’t they?” I asked, remembering flashbacks from dreams I had not been able to hold onto.
“In a way.”
“He’s stuck here, isn’t he?” I pressed, starting to feel a kind of sickness in my gut.
“He is waiting. Beware, Violet; trouble follows.”
I didn’t even have a sarcastic retort. Mostly because I knew he was telling the truth. I looked back to my canvas; it was completely gray now, all the color covered over. I glanced to the window again.
He was gone. Despite my unanswered questions, I was relieved.
I walked to the corner of my art studio, relishing the solitude. I crumpled to the floor and allowed myself the private freedom to cry. And cry. And cry.
• • •
I woke with a jolt when the plane touched the ground. My eyes shot open and locked instantly with Lincoln’s. He was sitting on one of the landing seats along the side, watching me.
I quickly wiped my eyes to break the contact. They were wet. I cursed myself.
By the time I looked back, Lincoln had moved away.
Spence and Salvatore made stretching noises as they unfolded themselves from the truck. A group of army guys came from the cockpit area and bowed their heads as they passed us. They headed straight for the coffin and stood in front of it respectfully.
“We have to get off,” I said to Zoe, not bothering to ask how she was. There was only one answer to that question.
She grabbed her backpack and kicked open her door. “You sense anything?”
I concentrated. “No.”
She shrugged, trying to hide the relief. “Pity.”
I mustered a small smile, which she returned.
When we walked down the ramp from the back of the plane, two Grigori were waiting for us. Zoe, Salvatore, and Spence went over and started speaking with them. I hung back until Spence called me to join them. They were from the Academy in New York. They were here to take Rudyard back.
And Nyla.
I felt sick as I watched the army guys wheel Rudyard’s pale wooden coffin down the ramp. They had him on a goddamned trolley. I felt even worse when I watched Griffin carrying Nyla.
Rudyard got the better deal.
The Grigori—I forget their names, although they introduced themselves and I think I even shook their hands—had a private jet waiting. Griffin wouldn’t hand over Nyla. He insisted on carrying her onto the plane and getting her settled.
The Grigori told Zoe, Salvatore, and Spence that they would be returning to collect them and all of Nyla and Rudyard’s belongings in two days. Everyone just nodded.
Lincoln stayed with Griffin, who was a mess after handing over Nyla, walking him to a waiting taxi. Magda went with them. The rest of us piled into another taxi. Phoenix wasn’t at the airport. None of them were.
“I think we should have a memorial. You know, something here, to say good-bye,” Zoe said.
I nodded. It was a good idea. Rudyard should be remembered.
“He had no regrets. Rudyard, I mean,” Zoe said. “I remember once in one of his classes, he said if he were to die in battle,
he would die fulfilled.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if he would agree now, given the state in which he’d left Nyla.
“He also used to say, ‘We fight the fights that need fighting. Sometimes we win, but when we lose and should we die, others will fight in our name, because only one thing is certain for Grigori: we must fight,’” Spence said, impersonating Rudyard endearingly.
“He was right,” I said.
Zoe jingled a set of keys I recognized in the air. “Lincoln gave me his keys. They’re taking Griffin via his place first. He needs a shower and has to check on the local Grigori. Lincoln said we could let ourselves in.”
Spence called out the address to the driver, who nodded and drove on. I ignored the fact that Lincoln had left without a word and that he hadn’t passed this information through me, like he once would have. That was before.
I fished out my cell phone, but it was long dead. “Hey, Salvatore, have you talked to Steph lately?”
Salvatore nodded. “I telephone her before boarded airplane. She was worried for you. Frantic. Said I was not to take my eyes from you. She is waiting at Mr. Lincoln’s houses.”
“Thanks,” I said, suddenly grateful Lincoln and Griffin weren’t going to get there first. I had a feeling Steph would have used the spare key to let herself in.
• • •
I was right. As soon as we put the key in the lock, Steph was pulling the door open from the inside.
She pushed past everyone, including Salvatore, and grabbed me. Her slender frame hugged me so tight, I was scared I would actually allow myself to feel it. But the numbness stayed with me. Protected me.
“Thank God you’re okay,” Steph said.
How could I explain to her I wasn’t?
“Sal told me what happened. About Rudyard.” She looked down. “And Nyla,” she added quietly.
“I think I should have a shower,” I said, subtly moving out of Steph’s hold. If anyone could break me right now, it was her. I dug my cell out of my pocket and put it on Lincoln’s charger in the kitchen as I walked by. It even gutted me that we had the same phone.
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