I’m desperate to breathe. My remaining breath claws inside my lungs. My hand burns with fierce fire from the weapon. But no matter what, I can’t let go of Gray’s Steel. Suddenly Sage releases me. I rise to the surface, gasping in the freezing air. My eyes widen as he topples back.
Albrecht has attacked him from behind, slashing his wing. Tanji and Kellan join the fight. But I can tell their threads are weakening as darkness overtakes the light. Sage spins around, sending a blast at Albrecht, which she barely avoids.
The acrid smell of burning hair swirls around Sage as his wing regenerates. His charred, flaky skin fills with a million tiny yellow eyes. Martin didn’t even come close to capturing this beast on the canvas.
Despite the horror in front of me, I move to the thickest part of the trunk. Through the fire, I see Maddox. His eyes find mine. The venom has reached him. He’s wincing, bearing the pain. I hope he’ll make it—I pray he will. But I’ll never see his face again. There’s no shield to protect me from the blast.
This is it.
I raise the knife.
Maddox shouts the battle cry. His voice carries through the field. At once, silver shields twinkle across the meadow and up the hill as if the starry sky had descended to earth.
With Guardian power beyond my own, I grip the Steel. My palm sears as I thrust the knife deep into the black bark.
The ground trembles—earth felt the wound—shaking with a violent force.
Sage bellows with a deafening roar as terror flashes across his million yellow eyes. I collapse, submerging under the water.
Everything explodes with a clear blinding light.
Then total darkness.
I lie on soft sheets smelling of clean linen. A plush blanket strokes my cheek. Something thick binds my eyes, holding them closed. My arms feel weighted, heavy. But I reach up. My fingers touch rough bandages. Not only on my eyes, but around my head. And my hands. I peel my cracked lips apart, tasting blood. I try to ask, “Where am I?” but no sound escapes.
“She’s awake.”
I can’t make out the voice over a constant ringing in my ears, although I’m sure it’s Harper. Her rose scent hovers near me. “Drink,” she says. A straw cuts my bottom lip, but I manage to suck in a sip. The cool water soothes my dry throat.
I remember a bright light . . . Sage . . . and . . . “Maddox?” His name comes out a hoarse whisper.
Warm hands that smell of baked bread tug at the bandage on my eyes. Lina. She’s alive. Harper’s alive . . .
“Puedes ver?” Lina asks me. My sticky eyes burn. Are they open? All I see is a purplish red.
A door opens. Someone enters the room, but they stay near the door. “Maddox?” I clutch the sheet.
“Cera.” Harper’s soft hand takes hold of mine. “You’ve been out for days. Calm down. You need more time to heal.”
Why won’t she answer me about Maddox? I squeeze her hand because I lack the strength to argue. Then a concerned voice says, “Sedate her once more.” It’s Foster. No sooner does the door close than a needle pricks my arm.
Three times they sedate me. Each time Lina asks if I can see. Each time I ask for Maddox. I wake up for the fourth time in who knows how many days. I have no idea where I am. Somewhere at the Estate, possibly. Not a hospital. The constant humming in my ears is quieter now, but I startle at the sound of wings. Not Cormorants but birds singing a soft melody. I smell flowers from a garden but not the scent from the arbor.
They don’t tell me about Maddox. They don’t tell me anything.
My heart rips with endless grief every moment I’m awake. Mom. Cole. I don’t know how many were lost. Or who survived. I lie still, pretending to sleep, hoping to overhear any bits of conversation that might soothe the wrenching ache consuming me. Lina and Harper move through the room in silence. It must be a small room, because they don’t move very far.
“Otra vez.” Lina might be talking to Harper, but then her fingers touch the bandages on my face. Cold air brushes across my eyes. “Abre.”
“Open your eyes,” Harper says.
Aren’t they open? They must be because the light is way too bright. A migraine splits my skull. I wince, squeezing my eyes shut, but that doesn’t do anything to dim the blinding light. It’s as if I’ve stared at the sun and burned the image inside my eyes. My already aching heart shatters a little more.
“Bien?”
Good? I think I’m blind—how on earth can that be good?
My head throbs as Lina helps me sit up. A glass vial touches my bottom lip. I smell Harper’s sweet healing serum. It burns going down my throat. I want to ask about Maddox, but I’m afraid they’ll knock me out again. So instead I ask, “Where am I?” hoping this is a less volatile question.
There’s silence for a moment. I’m surprised when Foster answers. “We are on the east edge of the Garden.”
Harper takes my hand. “It’s the only part of the Estate that wasn’t destroyed.”
“But what happened? Did Sage . . .” I stop. Deep down, I don’t know if my heart can bear the truth.
“Your actions caused an explosion, splintering Sage in the blast,” Foster says. “We believe he was fragmented to the point of not being a threat for a very long time.”
But one day, in who knows how many hundreds of years, he will come back. “And the Well?”
“We are not entirely certain.”
“Everything is quiet,” Harper says. “We think all the Legions and Cormorants are gone for now.” Her voice drops. “But the Garden was ruined.”
“The incident was perceived by the remainder of the world as an earthquake. Seven-point magnitude,” Foster adds.
A knot strangles my throat as vivid memories come crashing back. “Cole . . .”
The room turns silent.
“He was an extraordinary young man.” Foster’s voice is somber.
“Cole was brave. No one could have pulled off what he did,” Harper says, sounding as if she’s consoling Foster more than me.
“I demanded more of him than necessary. But it was simply because he displayed all the markings of becoming an exceptional leader. I regret never telling him so.” The lieutenant’s slow footsteps walk away, and then he closes the door.
Harper squeezes my hand. “Devon said we lost a lot of Awakened.”
Devon is alive. I exhale slightly. “What about . . . Maddox?”
“He’s with Council.”
“He’s alive?” My heart nearly explodes. I wrap my bandaged fist around the soft blanket, wanting to rip it back and charge out to find him.
“Yes.” A grave seriousness taints Harper’s tone. “But before you get any ideas, with the exception of Foster checking in every now and then, Council isn’t letting anyone but Lina and I near you.”
“Why?”
She guides my shoulders to the wooden headboard, settling me back down. “They’re still deciding what to do with you.”
Council takes days to deliberate. I’m given freedom to walk around part of the Garden, but only because I’m blind and need a full-time escort, which usually ends up being Harper.
Every day she walks me to the field where bodies that weren’t burned by the blast are buried. Mom doesn’t have a grave, but someone has placed a plaque in her honor, along with the other fallen. Harper tells me a memorial was placed for Pop in the family plot. But that part of the Garden is off-limits for me.
I memorize the path as she hooks her arm through mine and leads me down a pebbled road, its rocks crunching under my feet. As we walk over a field of soft grass, I follow the growing scent of flowers to the evergreen tree where Cole’s body lies. Every day the Awakened bring more tokens to his memorial. If only they knew how much Cole hated flowers. I wrap my arms around my middle with a bittersweet smile, and fight the tears stinging my eyes.
The ground is cold as I kneel. I dig my hand in my pocket. Earlier, I asked Harper to find me a certain chess piece. I rub the smooth marble between my fingers, feeling the gro
oves. “You were never an expendable pawn,” I whisper and then kiss the white knight. My fingers outline the smooth plaque, and I trace the etching of his name. “Hendrick Colton Tripton III.”
I lie on the ground as my fingers rest on his nameplate. I think about what I could have done differently to save him. He was more heroic than anyone knew. His family would have been proud. The lieutenant had him recorded as a level one Blade, the highest rank for an Alliance member.
The ringing in my ears has lessened but not gone away. I can see light and dark, a few flashes of light every now and then, but nothing else. As the days go by, hope seems hard to find.
Lina keeps putting drops in my eyes that are supposed to help, but they only make my eyes feel on fire. After I recover enough for a full cleanup, it’s a huge ordeal. Harper cuts off most of my hair because it’s singed and tangled. I don’t even want to know what I look like now. And sleep is difficult. Every time I lie down, all I can hear are the bloody cries as my mind replays images of Sage and the explosion.
I think it’s been a week since the Well was destroyed. I’ve yet to see or hear from Maddox. The longer the days, the more I wonder if I’ll ever get to speak to him again. According to Council, there’s no need for him to see me. He was my interceptor, and I haven’t had any visions since the battle. With Sage no longer a threat, my visions are probably gone. The irony. Ridding myself of visions was the one thing I wanted from the start, but I had no idea what it would cost.
And the Empyrean Well—I can only hope it isn’t destroyed for good. It’s a wonder Council hasn’t killed me.
After a short walk through the Garden on the seventh day, Harper guides me back to the cabin. I’ve come to know the feel of the doorframe. There’s a slight notch in the wood by the handle. Today, I don’t feel like being here. Today the ache of losing my mom, losing Cole—the weight of it all feels too raw. And as soon as I step back into the room, I know Harper and Lina will be all over me, checking my eyes, asking if I can see.
This day is warmer than the others. The trees rustle with a gentle melody.
“I need to be alone,” I tell Harper.
She hesitates. “I’m not supposed to leave you by yourself.”
“Then can you sit me somewhere without letting me know you’re around?” I know that sounds bad, but she seems to understand what I mean.
We go back down the pebbled path, but this time she leads me toward a different part of the field and sets me under a tree. My fingers press against the knotted trunk guiding me as I sit. Her quiet footsteps walk away.
I tilt my head back to stare at the sky. A sky I can’t see. Only shades of dark and light and a few flashes of that creamy swirl. I imagine the blue sky playing hide-and-seek with me through thick pine-scented leaves.
Now that the bandages are gone, I run my hands through the soft grass. The coolness seeps into my empty palm where rough scars from holding Gray’s Steel burned my skin.
Where is the Current now? I believed spring could rise, but the Well and the protective Walls are gone, and winter is starting to take over.
I sit still, playing scenarios over and over in my mind, but I try not to think about where I’ll go without family. Without money. Or sight.
I lean my head against the bark and look up. “I hate this blindness, Milton.” Not that he hears me anymore. In fact, any connection to him seems erased.
Someone walks through the grass. I can’t smell Harper’s rose scent yet, but she’s probably still a good distance away. I look in her direction. “I need at least five more minutes.” She doesn’t respond but continues to come closer, then sits next to me. I bite back frustration. “I said I need to be alone.”
A light breeze twirls around me, and I smell rain. When he places a warm hand over mine, I know it’s him.
Maddox.
I sit up. My fingers feel their way over his T-shirt, collarbone, and along his neck and up to his face. I run my hands through his hair. It’s shorter on the sides and combed back.
“Cera,” he says, as my trembling fingers brush over his lips. My search pauses, but then I trail two fingers down his scar along his jaw—then across a new one, a smaller one on his chin.
“You’re alive.”
“And so are you.” His breath brushes my cheek.
I trace the outline of his soft lips with my finger. He draws me close, his lips suddenly pressing to mine. Warmth soothes every aching part of me.
He rests his forehead against mine and holds me like he’ll never let go. “They wouldn’t let me see you. I tried. Harper snuck me in a few times, but you were out cold.”
“They wouldn’t tell me anything. I was terrified that . . .” I don’t know why, but suddenly the need to justify myself is strong. “I did the only thing I knew to do, Maddox. I couldn’t let Sage win. Everything seemed to keep changing. Gray threw me his knife. If it weren’t for him . . .” I search for the right words. “I think all he ever wanted was to protect you.” I run my hands along his chin, finding a rough scab. Tears sting as they well up, but I try not to cry. I want so much to see his face—his eyes.
“He came to see you once when he didn’t think you’d pull through.”
For a moment, I swear I can see two blurry cerulean spots until I blink away the burning tears. “He’s alive?”
“And not happy with the changes Council is making.”
Through the shadow, a golden flash flickers. I close my eyes. The flash is gone. When I open them again, the creamy light returns. My heart races. “Did you set your weapon down?” Another flash. This time in the grass. “Bright streaks keep appearing. I don’t know if it’s my sight or they’re from something else.”
“Those are probably streaks of the Current.”
“What?” I press my hand into his chest to steady myself, feeling the muscles I know well, except this time I also feel a thick bandage.
“When you struck the tree, you didn’t destroy the Well, you ushered a transfer,” he says almost reverently.
Under my fingertips, his heart races as fast as my own. I know what he’s saying is good news for the Alliance but not for me. I’m still a Blight—the enemy. I wish I could see those stormy eyes looking at me, and then I’d know how to read him. I can feel him staring at me, probably at my freakish eyes. Harper said the side effect of whatever drops Lina uses causes the iris to lose color, making them look like glass. But she’s hopeful I’ll see again. Someday.
“What?” I pull away at his silence. “I can’t see. I can’t read what you’re thinking.”
“Global Council asked me to help find the new location of the Wells.” His voice is soft, as if saying words he knows might wound.
I run my scarred palm over a rough tree root. It takes a split second before his last word hits me. “Wells? As in more than one?”
Maddox’s words now tumble out. “There’s been a crazy amount of creative activity in different parts of the world since our battle. It’s hard to tell for sure, but based on the three lanterns from your visions, Foster believes the Well didn’t transfer into one location, but split into several. Possibly three portals. He thinks your visions showed how the Well was guiding you to attack it, so it could reform. The power isn’t concentrated in one area anymore but spread around the world.”
I take in the news. “Overtaking three portals isn’t as easy as one,” I say slowly. “And it will take Sage centuries to reform, if not longer.” Hope rises in me. “After everything was over, I expected the Garden to change back to spring. No wonder it didn’t. Because the portal and protective Wall transferred somewhere else.”
Maddox’s denim jacket rubs against the tree bark as he shifts. “Council is training teams to find and protect the portals. They probably won’t be discovered for a long time, but they asked me to join.” He can’t hide the excitement in his voice. “I’m now the youngest level one in active duty.”
Somehow his words are a knife wound to the chest. He’s chosen the Alliance. This is pro
bably his way of saying goodbye, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting.
He takes my hand, his fingers rubbing the scars. “I told them no.”
“You’re joking, right?” I laugh as an unwanted tear runs down my cheek.
He cups my face in his warm hands. His thumb wipes away the tear. “I’d rather find newly Awakened and use both art and training to strengthen our Bents. I want what we’ve learned to be passed down to others so they’ll be ready when Sage returns.” He is quiet for a moment. “I want to build a new Hesperian. With you.”
“But I’m a Blight. There’s no way—” His bold kiss dissolves my doubt, shooting like a livewire through my blood.
He pulls back, leaving me breathless. “We’ve changed things.” His confidence grows stronger as he wraps both arms around me. “Sage isn’t a threat now. Laws are changing. Gray’s not thrilled with the thought of you being a part of us. He still can’t trust the idea, so he’s going his own way with his Steel. He’ll probably join the admiral and search for the Wells.” Nestled against him, I rise and fall with his breath. “Stay with me. Together we can find others like you.”
He brushes back my hair, tucking something near my ear to hold the strands in place. I feel a smooth metal prong. It warms my fingers, humming under my touch as I trace the small outline of the arbor flower. Gladys’s hairpin. He found it, again.
“Okay, time’s up.” Harper’s voice floats down from somewhere in front of us. But I only see two tree-like shadows.
“Miss Bossy Pants is back.” I manage a smile. “And who else?” I catch a whiff of an earthy undertone complimenting her rose scent.
Devon laughs. “How you holding up?”
“Convince her to join us.” Maddox rests his chin on top of my head. His arms stay locked around me. “She won’t listen to me.”
“She’s a handful, that’s why.” Harper laughs, her voice light.
“Don’t worry, Gladys will convince her,” Devon says. “Now let’s head out.”
Maddox takes my hand, helping me to my feet. His lips brush against the curve of my ear as he whispers, “The world was all before them, where to choose / Their place of rest, and providence their guide.”
Realms of Light (The Colliding Line Book 2) Page 29