Sisters of Shadow and Light

by Sara B. Larson

  He winced, and too late, I wished I could recall my words. The memories I’d seen—the pieces of his life the sanaulus had given to me, flashed through my mind. I flushed and turned away, unable to run but hurrying as fast as I could after the others, not wanting him to read my emotions on my face—or sense them from my proximity. How much stronger would the connection be between us now that … that had happened? I’d seen so much, felt so much of who he’d been—who he was. His parents … that’s who the man and woman had been. They’d loved him so much—and each other—it had been so evident in every memory. His heartbreak when he’d been told about them being trapped here … And Raidyn catching Sharmaine and Loukas kissing … Loukas had left that little detail out of the story he’d told me.

  When I heard him following after me, I clamped down on the memories—his memories. Did he know what I’d seen? How did it work if he was the healer whose power mine had latched onto and enhanced?

  My power. I still couldn’t believe it.

  I hurried through the hallways, managing a strange half-jog, half-speed-walking pace with my legs that still felt like they’d been physically beaten, Raidyn on my heels. He, too, had pushed himself to the brink, nearly losing himself trying to save my sister. We had so much to talk about—but we both remained silent as we rushed through the citadel. I sensed his awe—his curiosity—but also his fear, his panic. A riotous mixture of emotions that collided with my own.

  What would we find when we finally reached the courtyard? Surely the hedge wouldn’t have let Barloc through, but then again … how had he gotten inside the citadel to begin with? And now with the power he possessed—and the Paladin’s fear of attacking him … What had happened? My dread grew stronger with every not-fast-enough step. Especially when I could hear no sound of battle … or any sound at all, for that matter, other than the slap of our boots on the stone floors.

  “This is where you lived your whole life?” Raidyn finally spoke as we reached the top of the staircase, where my grandfather had taken the strange metal ball weapon from me. The double doors were missing—I vaguely remembered Barloc exploding them open—but there wasn’t anyone in the small sliver of courtyard visible from where we stood. The only thing we could see through the windows was the hedge, as massive as I remembered. “Just you, your sister, and your mother?”

  “And Sami.” Where was Sami? There was no time to wonder, as I grabbed the banister for support to hop-run down the stairs, my legs nearly giving out more than once. Curse this blasted weakness! I needed my strength back. It was a small price to pay for saving Inara, but I’d never felt so helpless.

  When I reached the bottom and got a better view of the courtyard, I slammed to a halt, my hand going to my mouth.

  My father, mother, sister, and Loukas all knelt around a body on the ground near a huge, gaping hole ripped through the hedge—or blasted through it. Tendrils of smoke still wafted up from the blackened, wounded leaves that had been impermeable my entire life.

  “Alkimos,” Raidyn breathed beside me, and then rushed forward, somehow finding the strength to run.

  That’s when it hit me—the body on the ground. There was a large spiked metal ball next to it. And blood. Lots of blood.

  “Grandfather!”

  I took off after Raidyn. Loukas heard us coming and when his eyes met mine, the bleakness in his turned my body to ice.

  No, no, no.

  When I reached my family, I realized my father was holding Grandfather’s hand in both of his, tears streaking down his cheeks. A large gash had been torn through his chest and abdomen. He lay on the ground, the light stolen from his eyes, staring unseeing up at the stormy sky.

  He’d tried to avenge Ederra, and instead Barloc had killed him.

  He’d killed my grandfather—one of the most powerful Paladin in Visimperum.

  “H-he … he said Ederra was hurt…” I could barely force the words out, my gaze moving to Loukas once more.

  “She’s alive,” Loukas said, but the bleakness hadn’t left his face. “But … she is gravely injured. They’ll need your help healing her, I’m sure,” he said to Raidyn.

  “It’s closed,” was all Raidyn said back, and Loukas’s eyes widened, the blood draining from his face.

  “How hurt is she?” My father still clutched Grandfather’s hand when he turned to Loukas. “How hurt is she?” he yelled when Loukas didn’t immediately reply.

  I flinched—I’d never heard him yell before.

  “It’s bad, sir.” Loukas’s eyes dropped to the ground. “Shar threw up a shield, but it was too much power—Ederra took the brunt of the jakla’s blast when he realized he was surrounded by hundreds of Paladin.”

  My father curled in on himself, lifting his father’s hand and pressing it to his forehead. He began to rock back and forth, a low, keening noise coming from his throat. My mother hesitantly reached out and put a trembling hand on his shoulder. I’d never seen her attempt to comfort anyone before—and the sight of her and my father together, with my grandfather lying dead on the ground beside them, was almost more than I could bear.

  Nearly blinded by the tears in my own eyes, I turned away from them—away from the hole in the hedge—and stared at the citadel, rising toward the blackening clouds above. I crossed my arms over my body, trying to hold myself together.

  I felt him step toward me, felt his uncertainty, his pain, his longing. “Zuhra … I’m so sorry.” The low murmur of Raidyn’s voice thrummed through my body.

  I needed him—I needed his strength, I needed him to want me for me, not as a means to an end. I needed to be able to trust him. Who did I believe—what did I believe?

  When I didn’t respond, he stepped even closer and gently eased an arm around me, pulling me into the strength of his embrace. I let him hold me, folding my body into the planes of his. He gently reached up to stroke my hair, and my eyes squeezed shut as I listened to the beat of his heart against my ear where it was pressed against his chest. His warmth leeched into me, pushing away the chill that had seized me, sinking past my skin, deep into my bones.

  I wasn’t sure how much time passed before my father spoke again.

  “Where did he go? Where are the others?”

  As loathe as I was to do it, I pulled back slightly, enough to turn and look at the small group still gathered around my grandfather’s body. Halvor had shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over my grandfather’s torso, hiding the damage, and his eyes had been pressed shut. Loukas pointed at the hole in the hedge.

  “The jakla escaped through that, and the others followed him. I stayed back to try and help him … but it was too late.”

  “What does that mean—jakla?” Halvor asked hesitantly, as though he were afraid to speak at all and remind us of his presence.

  “It means ‘cursed’ in our language. It is the name for someone who performs the ritual to steal another Paladin’s power, as he has done,” my father answered. “Something that is normally fatal if not stopped before all of the Paladin’s power is ripped out of them.” His gaze flickered to where Raidyn and I stood, his eyes going to where Raidyn’s arms were still encircling me, and then back up to our faces. “At least we aren’t facing two deaths here today,” he said at last, his voice hoarse as he turned to Inara, who stared down at Grandfather, her expression unreadable.

  With everything else that had happened, I hadn’t even had a chance for it to sink in.

  My sister was alive. And she was standing right there.

  As if he could sense the turn in my thoughts, Raidyn quickly dropped his arms, and I ran—on my still trembling legs—to grab her into the tightest, longest hug we’d ever shared.

  “You’re alive. You’re alive.” I couldn’t stop repeating myself, sudden sobs surging up and consuming me, making my whole body shake.

  But she was crying too when she said, “I was so afraid … that you … I thought…”

  “We’re both alive,” I amended with a tiny laugh, a sound that held no
amusement, only soul-deep relief—and gratitude.

  When we finally broke apart, it was to find our parents standing there, arms around each other, their faces streaked with tears.

  “Inara,” my mother’s voice trembled, “I want you to officially meet your father.”

  Inara wiped at her face and exhaled slowly. I took her hand and squeezed it encouragingly. “He didn’t leave us on purpose,” I told her. “When you were born, a power surge went through the entire citadel, and the gateway sucked him through to Visimperum—and though he fought to be allowed to return, the council never agreed to open it for him.”

  She still just stared at him, and thanks to the sanaulus, I could sense her trepidation—the war between the anger our mother had instilled in us toward him and the longing she’d always felt to meet him—the man who had given her the power that made her so different.

  My father’s face was haggard with grief and pain, but his burning eyes were full of love when he lifted one hand to her—an invitation, allowing her to choose.

  And after a moment, Inara stumbled forward a step, then two, and then she rushed into his open arms. I followed after her, wrapping my arms around both of them. And my mother’s arms came around me—something I couldn’t remember ever experiencing before.

  We stood there, the four of us finally a family, and held each other, and cried.

  Until there was a low thud behind us and Raidyn cried out, “Loukas!”

  We broke apart and I whirled around to see Loukas lying on the ground, unconscious, his stomach covered in blood.

  FORTY-FIVE

  INARA

  The stranger—Loukas—lay on the bed, unmoving. Sami sat beside him, mopping his brow with a cool compress, one of her poultices on the wound he’d concealed from us. Not life-threatening, they claimed, unless it grew infected before Raidyn—the other stranger, the one it seemed my sister had feelings for—regained the strength to be able to heal him.

  Not me. Never again would it be me.

  I stood near the doorway, silent, listening. Halvor had left an hour ago, going through the hole Barloc had blasted through both the hedge and the iron fence it had hidden. He said he was going to slip down to the village below, listening for any word on the whereabouts of Barloc and the other Paladin who had followed him. There was also the fear that the garrison was still nearby—especially now that there was a hole in the hedge. One it didn’t seem to be able to repair itself.

  I’d never hated anyone before—had never wished violence upon anyone before.

  Until now.

  Now, I had to forcibly lock away any thoughts of Barloc. But despite my efforts, they kept slipping free—memories and feelings made of panic that turned my palms slick with cold sweat and sent my heart racing at such a speed that I grew light-headed. Terror seized my throat—right at the spot where he’d sliced it open to drink my blood, and white-hot rage curled my fingers into claws that ached to rip him apart.

  Zuhra sat on the other side of Loukas’s bed, Raidyn beside her. Both of them were stiff, tension swirling between them so thick it radiated past them to the rest of the room. I didn’t understand it—I couldn’t figure out the reason why Zuhra’s hands were clenched together in her lap, and his arms were folded over his chest, his fingers curled in tightly to his palms. Why, when they even leaned slightly toward one another—as though the draw between them was so strong they couldn’t even sit up straight—did they fight it?

  My father—my father—walked into the room, pausing to hug me briefly, something that still took me off guard. Both the having a father who wasn’t the villain, here, in the citadel, and the hugging. Mother was right behind him, still seeming dazed by his reappearance. She was never more than a step or two behind him, as though terrified that if she left his side he would disappear for another fifteen years.

  Apparently, she’d forgiven him. And based on what Zuhra had told us, he’d deserved the forgiveness after all.

  Zuhra looked up at them, her eyes bloodshot and her face ashy. “Nothing?” she asked, and they both shook their heads.

  They’d been in the Hall of Miracles, hoping for it to live up to its name.

  “I just need a few hours. Then I can heal him,” Raidyn said, his voice that was so melodic, yet deep and somewhat smoky, breaking across the room like thunder from a summer storm. I noticed Zuhra’s fingers tighten—if that was possible—at the sound of it. It was a remarkable voice. One that was somehow both gentle and commanding.

  “I can do it, Raid,” my father offered, as he had twice already.

  “No,” Raidyn refused yet again. “It’s not life-threatening. You save your strength, so we aren’t both depleted, in case…”

  He didn’t have to elaborate. We all knew the danger we were in. Especially if the garrison was still close by and realized there was a hole in the hedge.

  “This is all my fault.” The words burst out of Zuhra’s mouth, as though they had been building and building inside her and could no longer be held back. “If I hadn’t pushed so hard—if the council hadn’t said yes—no one would be hurt, no one would have died—”

  And then she crumpled, folding in on herself.

  I lurched forward, unused to being the one able to offer comfort to her, rather than the other way around, but before I could reach her, Raidyn hesitantly unfolded his arms and I paused, waiting—

  He gently wrapped one around her shaking body, while the rest of us watched.

  “That’s not true, love,” Sami said quietly from across the bed. Poor, sweet Sami who had been knocked unconscious by Barloc in the morning room and left there, until she woke up to find her world in upheaval yet again. “Inara would have opened the gateway eventually; she was just waiting for her power to build up, and that … that monster,” she spat, “would have come through and taken the Paladin unaware. And Inara would have died.”

  “No,” my father said slowly. “She wouldn’t have.”

  My gaze snapped to his, at the same time Zuhra straightened, her face splotchy and tear-streaked, and said, “What?”

  “Inara wouldn’t have opened the gateway—not by herself.” He turned to her. “You told me that she was in so much pain … that even though Halvor was blasted backward from trying to pull her free of the door, you still grabbed her hand to do the same—except you weren’t blasted backward, were you?”

  Her eyes grew wide and then a look of utter horror overcame her—why?—and she shook her head.

  “It took both of you to open that gateway. Inara alone would never have been able to do it.”

  Now it was my turn to stare at him. “It wasn’t just me that did it?”

  “No,” he confirmed gently. “It took your sister’s power joining with yours, and enhancing it, to open the gateway, and even then, only for a brief moment.”

  I didn’t know why that mattered, especially now, but for some reason … it did. I’d held the blame of what had happened that day—and everything following it—squarely on my shoulders, knowing that it had been my fault, my power, that had opened the gateway, brought destruction to us, and stolen Zuhra.

  But it had never been just my fault after all. And for some reason … it was just too much. Without a word, I turned and left the room.

  I vaguely heard someone ask if they should go after me, but Mother murmured, “Let her go. I think she needs a minute alone.”

  As I walked through the citadel blindly, hazy memories of Barloc dragging me toward the Hall of Miracles resurfaced. I had been lost in the roar, so it was only brief flashes, but it was still enough to summon waves of panic that broke over me, alternatingly between ice-cold terror and fire-hot rage. Until Halvor had quietly filled me in, I’d thought Barloc had dragged me there to open the gateway. It was only later that I found out it had already been opened, and they’d all felt the shock wave of power, even across the citadel. He’d reacted quickest, snatching my wrist and yanking me out of the drawing room, knocking Sami out because she was in the way, and
blocking the door behind us before any of the other two even realized what he was doing, trapping them in there, unable to reach us or stop him, until they’d managed to break down the door using a fire poker.

  I tried to clamp down on the memories, but the horror of what he’d done to me rose unchecked, and suddenly it felt as though the very walls of the citadel were closing in on me, crushing me, trapping me. I ran, stumbled, tripped my way to the front entrance.

  I had to get out—I had to breathe—I had to—

  I burst through the ruined doors, out into the cool embrace of the rain that had begun to drip from the weeping sky, and had to bend over and grasp my knees to keep from passing out. My blood was hot and cold all at once, rushing through my veins. But as I stood there breathing in and out, in and out, slowly, slowly, sense returned to me and I was able to lock away the terror once more.

  For now.

  When I finally straightened, I was facing the singed hole in the hedge.

  Silence.

  There was nothing but silence.

  I swallowed and forced my feet to carry forward, toward the massive, wounded beast of a plant. A Paladin plant that I, and I alone, had learned how to control.

  The hole ripped through it had jagged, burned edges that matched the unseen wound within me. The gaping, torn cavern left where my power had once pulsed.

  I lifted my hand slowly. It trembled in the small space between me and the hedge, the droplets of rain that fell onto my skin shivering and rolling off it. With a tiny exhale, I pushed it forward so that my fingers brushed the large, uninjured leaf closest to me.

  Nothing.

  There was nothing to feel.

  Nothing to sense.

  Nothing to be.

  Who was I?

  I was nothing.

  I had been many things: daughter, sister, monster, savior …

  But now I was … empty.

  I knelt down on the ground, dug my fingers into the soil, and tilted my face up to the sky so the rain could wash away my tears.