Warriors of Wing and Flame
Page 27
Mother dashed back the way we’d come, toward the hedge.
Naiki hovered above the Chimera, talons bloody; the beast’s back was ripped into shreds. But it spun toward her, its mouth glowing orange once more. Sharmaine sent a blast of Paladin fire from Keko’s back, but it barely even made the monster flinch. She was too weak. They were both too weak.
I didn’t run away.
I ran to Raidyn and clamped my hands onto his raised arm once more.
Just as it had at the river, fire exploded through my veins, scalding its way through my body before draining out of me into Raidyn. But unlike at the river, I felt him trembling beneath my touch, his lack of strength struck a frigid bolt into the core of my power, almost extinguishing it. Instead, I pushed my strength forward, willing my energy to fill his body with the ability to stop the Chimera before it killed Naiki, Sharmaine, Keko—and us.
With a bellow that scraped at the dredges of his very soul, Raidyn gathered my power into his and sent one final blast at the Chimera the same instant it released its own fire at Naiki.
The gryphon dodged the attack as our stream of fire exploded into the rakasa. The monster loosed an unearthly howl, but it cut off as our combined power tore through its body, obliterating the beast in seconds, turning it to harmless smoke and ash.
The instant the threat was gone, Raidyn yanked his arm away from me, breaking our contact. My power reeled back, slamming into me with such force, I was knocked to the ground, stars spotting my vision.
I lay on my back for a long moment, forcing myself to breathe, pushing away the whirling abyss that darkened the edges of my sight. But I didn’t black out. Dirt and rocks cut into my skin as I rose to my elbows. Raidyn staggered toward Naiki, who landed and bounded for her Rider, her normally bright eyes wild. She cawed at him when he collided with her breast, his arms rising up to encircle her torso. The gryphon dropped her head, tucking him under her neck.
Though the air was still sticky with heat, a shiver scraped down my spine as I watched their reunion—one they’d come far too close to losing. If I’d listened to him—if I’d run away … My mind darted away from the horrors that would have occurred.
My entire body ached with exhaustion. It felt as though I had been yanked apart, every drop of energy rung out of me.
Keko landed beside them, but Sharmaine didn’t dismount; she bent forward and buried her face in her gryphon’s neck, her entire body shaking with sobs the feathers couldn’t quite muffle.
Raidyn pulled back from Naiki and immediately turned to me. I wanted to go to him, but when I tried to stand, my legs buckled, forcing me to my knees. He half ran, half stumbled to where I waited, dropping so he knelt in front of me and gathered me into his arms.
“You stubborn, frustrating, amazing girl,” he mumbled into my hair, one hand cupping the back of my head and the other wrapped around my body, clutching me to him.
I clung to him with any last bit of strength I possessed, but there was so little, he had to hold me up. I sagged into his embrace, hot tears streaking down my cheeks. Tears of relief, of lingering terror, of grief … and guilt.
I hadn’t dared look to where I’d last seen Halvor. I didn’t know if I could bear to face whatever awaited us there. I’d thought his sacrifice worthless—that it had only delayed the inevitable. But he’d ended up saving our lives by giving his. And now, if my sister miraculously still lived and if we somehow got her back … she would return to find out he was gone.
But if she, too, was gone, perhaps they were reunited now, in the Light.
I didn’t know it was possible to feel sorrow in such an acute, horrific way—as though the very fibers of my body were compressed by my grief, my tears wrung out from muscle and bone and my feeble heart.
“It’s all right, Zuhra. We’re safe, for now.” Raidyn stroked my hair with one hand.
I tried to catch my breath long enough to explain, but the sobs ravaged through me. Tears for Halvor and for Inara, who I hadn’t let myself grieve for yet.
Then a half-choked cry came from behind us. I twisted in Raidyn’s arms, scanning the courtyard. Mother hovered halfway between the hedge and where we knelt together, eyes wide and hands on her mouth, staring at a spot just over our heads.
We both turned as one and gasped when Taavi laboriously flew over the hedge, struggling beneath the weight of two full-grown adults—one of whom was lying across Father’s lap, her mutilated arms swinging limply beside her blood-streaked braid.
Sachiel.
Father shouted, “She’s still alive—but just barely! We need to heal her right away!”
But, as Taavi landed and he took in the scene in the courtyard—including my mother running toward him—his urgency transmuted into fear.
“What happened here?” His eyes widened at the charred earth where ashes still fluttered up into the air, lifted by the breeze, and then his gaze flickered over all of us. “Where’s Halvor?”
Raidyn stiffened and pulled back, glancing around sharply as if just realizing the other young man was missing. And then he looked to me, a terrible understanding darkening his face.
I couldn’t speak.
Mother was the one who finally said, “He’s gone.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
INARA
Inara.
Inara.
Inara.
I was pain. I was lost. I was darkness.
That’s what I was.
What I was.
What was I?
Inara.
Daughter.
Inara.
Sister.
Inara.
Monster.
Inara.
Healer.
Inara.
Ray of Light.
Inara.
The night I was born, the stars died and were reborn in my eyes.
Inara.
The night I was born, a power entered the world strong enough to steal my father, to steal my mother, to open a gateway.
Inara.
I was no longer light.
I was darkness and darkness was me.
Empty, void, barren, and bereft.
The stars giveth and the stars taketh away.
You are not darkness.
In the abyss, a quiet but beautiful voice, sound made entirely of light.
You are light, Inara. You are brave and true, Daughter.
The light was so pure, so powerful, it banished the darkness entirely; it completely filled the void, until I couldn’t even remember what emptiness had felt like.
From this place I came into the world—the first, the Mother of all Paladin. And from this place you shall be reborn, Daughter. Darkness threatens the world of man and Paladin alike. Use the light well. Fulfill the purpose of this gift given to you, pure of heart and soul.
The light expanded and expanded, not only filling the void, but filling me. Every bone, every muscle, every fiber and cell. An endless, eternal light that was only partially power and fire and healing and minds. This light was far greater than anything I had ever imagined; it connected every life form, no matter how big or small, in this world and every other—extending even beyond this existence into the afterlife.
I saw the brightness and shape of the souls closest to me first: my grandmother, so full of pain and grief, but also an aching hope and wish for another chance; Loukas, who had hardened himself against all those who had hurt him repeatedly, who loved fiercely but with fear, whose heart was shattered beneath the veneer of indifference he presented to the world; and others, so many, my awareness traveling out, out, out, flying over land and sea and barriers between worlds, thinner than I’d ever dreamed possible, the light carrying me on its wings. Taking me to my sister, to my parents, and Halvor—even to Barloc, who burned with the power of too many, whose mind had been shaped into anger and hatred and vengeance—and loneliness—by others who’d carried those things with them from one world into the next. I felt acutely his desire to belong somewhere; to use the power he had a
massed to find those he believed to be his real family, here in Visimperum, and then, with them, bring suffering to the humans who had scorned and eventually murdered his grandfather. Who had shunned him.
Instead of disgust or hatred, I felt only pity and sorrow for him.
I saw as she did, I felt as she felt, as her light went far beyond filling me—it encompassed and enlightened and connected. I realized for the first time the finite fragility of our lives, how easily they could be severed—but also the joy of reunion in the life to come, the peace of release and rest. Such peace that I longed to be taken there, to my true home, rather than sent back to the broken one I inhabited, so full of pain and sorrow. The feeling that came in response was no longer words, but I understood it the same as if it had been.
Not yet.
And then the light began to recede, reeling me back into my body, unspooling from my soul. But it left a kernel behind, a bright, pulsing thing that more than healed the hole inside me.
Who am I?
I am Inara.
I will be a Ray of Light.
* * *
I woke in a bed, softer than anything I’d ever slept on. I let my eyes remain shut, relishing sensation. Silken sheets on my skin. A cool, fresh breeze drifting across my face. A warm hand holding mine. And inside my breast, beneath the stunning joy of a beating heart, that pulsing, beautiful light. The gift from the Mother of all Paladin. Warmth and wholeness and rightness—again and at last.
I inhaled soft and slow, noticing a hint of lemon and mint, and opened my eyes.
A head was bent over the hand that clasped mine, his dark hair damp; when I turned toward him, the scent of lemons and mint grew stronger.
Though a part of me was surprised Loukas sat at my bedside, another part wasn’t. When I was in the light and felt his pain, I’d been given the sacred chance to see his heart—his true heart. In that moment, I’d felt something—unlike anything I’d ever felt before, except for my sister. Something so encompassing and deep, it frightened me now in the stark light of day.
I didn’t know what the tenderness that flooded me for Loukas meant for me and Halvor. How could my heart contain such hope and such confusion and pain all at once?
“Louk,” I said, quiet, hesitant.
He startled and looked up, his hand flexing on mine, his green-fire eyes flaring bright, despite the shadows that bruised the tender skin beneath them. When our gazes met and held, his eyes widened.
“Inara … your eyes … they’re…”
I didn’t have to look in a mirror to see that they glowed with Paladin fire again. I already knew my power had been returned to me. I couldn’t keep from smiling. “It’s back. I can feel it. All of it.”
I hoped he’d smile back, but instead, his jaw clenched, his eyes flashing. Oh, how I longed for the ability to sense him in that moment, to understand why he looked like he was in pain when I’d expected happiness, or at the very least relief.
“It was a desperate attempt to save your life … we hoped it would heal you … but this…” He jumped to his feet, pulling his hand from mine, and stalked across the room, his long legs eating up the floor, until he reached the empty hearth, pushing one hand against it as though he wished to crumble the stones, shoving the other through his damp hair repeatedly.
“I don’t understand.” I sat up in the bed, still in the same clothes as last night. “You seem … upset.”
He spun to face me, his hair in disarray, his eyes flashing wildly. “You were dying, Inara. I failed you. I helped you go after him, but you didn’t get your power back and you were dying right there in my arms … and it was my fault. And now you’re not only alive, you’re…” He gestured at me. “You’re Paladin again somehow. I’m not upset, I’m … I’m…” His teeth snapped shut, and he turned away once more. “We need to get you back home as soon as possible. To your sister and your parents … and Halvor.”
The name dropped like a boulder catapulted into the room. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. If we somehow made it back to Vamala, and I saw Halvor again, what would I feel?
Especially after what I’d experienced in the light—what I’d perceived in Loukas. The hurt he held so close, a constant companion, so familiar, I wasn’t sure he knew how to survive without the pain imbedded in every beat of his heart. I’d felt the most overpowering desire to help heal Loukas’s broken heart … Was it because it had hurt me so much to feel his pain, to know intimately the suffering he hid so masterfully? Or was it something more?
Fissures of doubt crackled through the certainty I’d felt upon waking.
When Loukas turned back again, he was completely composed, no hint of distress in his demeanor, not even a flicker of emotion in his eyes beyond indifference. “Now that you’re apparently healed—better than new, even—you might be interested in knowing there was news last night, before your … episode.”
“News,” I repeated, chilled by the swiftness with which he shut off one of the only true reactions I’d ever witnessed—though he still hadn’t been honest with me.
“Not the good kind either, unfortunately.”
Before he could expound, the door opened and my grandmother strode into the room, wearing a fresh white blouse, a leather vest, fitted breeches, and leather boots up to her knees. Her hair was scraped back in its familiar bun, her mouth pursed, creating deep grooves around her lips. But when she saw me sitting up, her face lit up.
Then her eyes met mine.
Her eyebrows shot up, her mouth dropping open into a small O of shock.
“Y-your eyes…” she stammered. I had a feeling she never stammered.
“Have you ever heard of the luxem magnam doing that?” Loukas sauntered over to my grandmother, his head cocked to the side as though he found the return of my power amusing—not life-altering.
I wanted to shout at him, to stand and beat my fists against his chest, to elicit any sort of genuine response from him, not this terrible mask he wore with such ease.
Instead, I pulled the sheets back and slid off the bed, facing them both, the stone floor cool on the bottoms of my feet.
“No,” Grandmother breathed. “I didn’t know such a thing was possible. I knew it could heal if someone was chosen to receive that gift by the light … but this? To return her power?” She stared and stared. Before what happened in the light, it would have made me uncomfortable, nervous even.
Now, I straightened my shoulders and said, “She spoke to me,” keeping my eyes on my grandmother, but I could see Loukas in the periphery of my vision.
Grandmother hesitated before asking. “Who spoke to you?”
“The Mother of all Paladin. In the light.”
Grandmother reeled back, going white as the wall behind her.
Louk froze, the carefully curated insouciance on his face slipping into incredulity before he could smother it.
“She is the one who healed me and gave me my power back.”
“That … that’s not…” Louk’s mouth opened and shut several times, the fire in his eyes flaring as bright as I’d ever seen it.
“The Mother of all Paladin?” Grandmother repeated when words failed him. “As in the First Paladin, who was born from the luxem magnam a thousand generations ago?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “She said she was the First, the Mother of all Paladin. I heard her voice in my head. And I felt her light. It … it was indescribable.”
Grandmother pressed her hands to her mouth, eyes gleaming. Then she rushed forward, opening her arms to me and taking me in them, squeezing so tight, the air was forced from my lungs. I held on to her just as tightly, having experienced the sorrow she also held so close, the cracks in her heart that had never healed. When she released me, it was only to draw back enough to lift one hand to press against my cheek.
“Inara … my beautiful Ray of Light.” When she smiled it was a soft, wistful thing; an expression of awe, but also regret and sorrow. “You must truly have a pure heart to hav
e been given such a gift. I can see now why Zuhra fought so hard to get back to you.”
Zuhra. Who probably thought she’d lost me—yet again. Her life force had been very far away, but I’d sensed turmoil, grief, even agony in the brief glimpse I’d been given of her in the light.
“She is the one with a pure heart,” I said, thinking of how I’d lied to her, how I’d deceived my whole family to try to steal my power back. I wasn’t sure why the light had chosen to give me this gift when I certainly didn’t deserve it. “I know you must do what needs to be done for the good of all. But I do hope to get back to her … someday.”
“Speaking of that,” Loukas said. “Has there been any further word on the murders?”
Grandmother winced. I pulled back from her touch, turning to Loukas.
“What murders?”
He leaned against the wall, his expression shuttered once more, his arms folded across his chest. “Five Paladin, all found with their throats ripped out—like wild animals had attacked them.”
Ice slicked my veins, turning my blood cold. “Barloc.”
Five more Paladin? Could his body truly have withstood that much power?
“We don’t know it was him for sure,” Grandmother protested. “There’s still the chance it was a rakasa attack. They were all found in a town that borders their lands. Attacks there are common enough not to rule out.”
“You know it was him. And if it’s true—if he now wields the power of eight Paladin—there is no one who will be able to stop him.”
Grandmother ran a weary hand over her face, pressing her fingers to her temples, a gesture I was beginning to recognize as one she used when she was under great stress. “No one could survive that much power.”
Though my stomach roiled, and I was nervous to admit it after their reaction to knowing the Mother of all Paladin had spoken to me, I didn’t dare withhold the information that could lead us to him in time to stop him from hurting others. “I felt him,” I admitted quietly.
“What was that?” Grandmother sputtered.
“When I was in the light … I could sense … everyone.” Trying to explain it out loud made me realize how ridiculous, how impossible it sounded. But it had happened, and though I didn’t know this world well, I knew the direction of where I’d sensed him. “I recognized him. If you show me a map, I can give you a general idea of where he is. At least, where he was when I was in the light.”