by Walsh, Sara
I dropped the torch and darted for the now locked gate. It was our only way back to the shaft. “Sol, it’s a bond key!”
Sol was checking the second guard for signs of life. “Do you see the key?” he asked.
Frantically scanning the ground, I found it in the outstretched hand of the fallen guard. “It’s here!”
Together, we dragged the guard’s body back to the lock. Sol placed the key into the recess. He covered it with the guard’s hand. The lock did not release.
“It’s still locked,” I said, tugging the gate. “Why isn’t it working?”
The guard’s hand fell from Sol’s grip. It landed with a thud on the floor. “He’s dead,” said Sol. “The key needs living blood.”
I glanced into the pit where the secret shaft waited for our escape. And then I thought of the Velanhall, vast and bustling, above us. “We’ll never make it,” I whispered.
The fear I felt was not visible on Sol’s face. He surveyed the room, at the fallen guards and the blood trickling on stone. “We have to try,” he said.
With no choice but to press on, we sprinted up the passage toward the Velanhall, our steps echoing behind us. Freaked by the Suzerain, I’d paid little attention on the journey down, but I marked the endless corridors and passages that opened around us. “It’s impossible. We’ll never get out.”
“We’ve made it this far,” said Sol. He stopped at a junction to another passage. He peered around. “It goes up.”
Glued to Sol’s side, I reached for his arm. “Guards?”
“It’s clear.”
At every junction, Sol stopped and checked the way. The stone labyrinth stretched on and on. It was eerily quiet.
“This is all wrong,” I said, after six or seven turns. “They must know by now. The place should be crawling with guards.”
Slightly ahead, Sol slowed. “I was thinking the same thing.”
We paused in the passage, Sol looking one way, me the other. Still we remained alone. “What if it’s a trap?” I whispered.
His back against the wall, Sol fingered the dagger at his side. “Then we’re heading straight for it.”
We sprinted on, the route growing steeper the farther we ran. Finally, we turned a corner and a set of stone steps rose before us. A wooden door stood at the top. Though I’d wanted nothing more than to get out of this place, that door set my mind on edge. Passages were one thing; you could see ahead and behind. Imagining what surprises lay behind that door made me very uneasy.
Sol started the climb. Grabbing what breath I could, I followed. At the top, Sol placed his ear to the wood.
“Anything?”
“Nothing.”
“Maybe it’s locked.” I anticipated us bursting into the Velanhall’s concourse and half hoped it would be true.
Sol tried the handle. “It’s open.”
His hand fell as he turned to me. Sweat glistened on his brow, but he wasn’t sucking air like me. He leaned in and without a word planted a light kiss on my damp forehead.
“What is this, good-bye?” I asked, hoping a joke might mask my terror.
“It was for luck,” he replied. “Ready?”
I nodded, shook my head, and then nodded again.
Sol pushed open the door.
It appeared to be an empty guard room, about ten feet wide and twenty long. Eight chairs surrounded a table in the center. Sheets of dappled sunlight, which entered through the narrow open windows that lined the walls, brightened the room. Another passage continued on at its end.
Relieved to have found nothing worse and hungry for fresh air, I dashed to the nearest window and pushed my face into the breeze. The sun hung in the west. Orion’s white stone gleamed beneath us; we’d come higher than I’d thought. Distant sounds rose from the city.
“We must be in the base of a tower,” said Sol, at the window beside mine. He pushed up, trying to force his body through the gap.
“Are you nuts?” I exclaimed. He looked as if he were trying to jump.
“Too narrow,” he said, as he dropped back down.
“Too high,” I replied.
“At least we’d be outside.”
“But that’s not much good if we’re halfway to the moon.”
He looked like he was about to smile. Instead he frowned, then sniffed.
“What is it?” If there was one thing I’d learned in Brakaland, it was to always trust Sol’s nose.
His gaze went to the open door through which we’d entered. “Demons,” he said.
Any thought of escaping through the window fled as we dashed to the door. A visage demon, with several more behind it, was climbing the stairs.
“Brace it,” yelled Sol.
I slammed the door as Sol grabbed a chair and wedged it beneath the handle. As soon as it was secure, I grabbed another chair and then another and another, stacking them haphazardly against the wood.
“What do we do?” I spluttered.
“We have no choice,” said Sol. “We keep running.”
We’d gone no more than a few steps before the first bang came at the door.
“Don’t stop!” yelled Sol.
The passage at the head of the room led to another set of stairs. A second room, identical to the first, appeared at the top. On and through. Up another set of stairs. A crash sounded from below. Screeches echoed.
“They’ve broken through!” I hollered. “Sol!”
We sprinted into the next passage. A spiral stone staircase, dimly lit, waited at the end. There was no other way onward.
Sol ushered me up. “Go!”
I ascended as fast as I could, my hands gripping the walls as I counted the steps beneath my feet. Twenty. Thirty. All the training sessions I’d skipped in the gym returned to haunt me. My lungs screamed.
“Keep going!”
Forty. Fifty. Sixty. There had to be a way out—somewhere! Or a way back down! I suddenly felt as I had in the Wastes when I realized that the sentinels had herded us there on purpose. This must’ve been the same. There was no way to escape, and the visage demons knew it.
My head down, arms pumping, I was watching my feet so I wouldn’t trip, when I crashed squarely into a door above. Off balance, I fell back onto Sol. He grabbed my waist before I could topple down the stairs. With his free hand, he yanked open the door. Fresh air and daylight flooded into the tower.
The flight of stairs we’d climbed continued on through the door, only now the steps coiled around the outer wall of one of the Velanhall’s towers. All I could see was gleaming white stone.
“We can’t go that way!” I gasped.
Screams carried up from below.
His hands tight on my shoulders, Sol forced me to look into his eyes. “Mia, you have to trust me,” he said, rapidly. “Tell me you trust me. Say it.”
Air rushed into the tower like water gushing from a broken dam. It whipped our faces and hair. Sol never released his hold, his eyes penetrating my soul, his fingers crushing my bones. The look in his eyes. Was it Sol admitting defeat? I remembered sitting with Sol on the grass outside my father’s home, and the night in Bordertown when I’d first seen the visage demon and had cried at Sol’s side. But mostly I recalled the first time we’d spoken at Crownsville High with radios blaring from the parking lot and students streaming by. The moment when Sol had truly entered my world.
I glanced down the steps. The demons were drawing closer. I gazed back at Sol, who was watching me keenly, his hands tight on my shoulders.
“I do,” I said. “I really do.”
“Then follow me.”
He pushed me through the doorway and out into the blustery air. The wide, white steps spiraled the Velanhall’s tower all the way to the clouds. It wasn’t the best idea, I know, but I looked down. Orion lay far beneath us. At least two hundred feet of air separated us from the Velanhall’s roofs. It was what I’d feared. The only way down was back.
“This isn’t a good idea!” I gasped, my vow of trust already forgot
ten. Dizzy, I grabbed at the tower’s white stone. Sol brushed past me, continuing to climb.
“Just run!”
“Run where?”
Screeches carried up the spiral staircase.
“Up! Mia, you have to move!”
I ran, but to what I didn’t know. Death? That and the clouds were all that waited for us on top of the tower. All I’d wanted was for the others to get away and for Jay to be safely home in Crownsville. I would have given anything for that. But regardless of the dangers we’d so far survived, I’d never thought that saving Jay might cost me my life. Everything I’d wanted, everything I’d worked for—college, Willie, the chance to just get out of Crownsville and be something—flashed before my eyes and, just as quickly, faded. Those things were gone.
The wind kicked and swirled against the tower. We continued up and up. At least I’d get my view of the Brakaland Plains before I died. At least I’d have one last chance to look across the land and think of Crownsville and everyone I loved waiting safely on the Other Side.
My legs heard my heart. Though heavy beyond belief, they carried me up. The cold air cooled my sweat and brought gooseflesh to my arms. I thought of Ben Griffin wrapped in my jacket and prayed that he and Alex were safe with Vermillion and Delane. This final flight toward death was worth it, as long as I knew that at least two of the kids had made it out. I imagined them at home, their parents spoiling them rotten, celebrating their return with hamburgers and ice cream.
Tears fell as I pictured home and all the stupid things I’d never do again. Never again taste my favorite combo at Harper’s Ice Cream Parlor? Black raspberry, chocolate chip, French vanilla . . . This wasn’t how it was supposed to be! But we were cut off from escape—nothing in front but a dwindling number of steps, nothing behind but demons. Would I really let them take me? Or could I take that leap and put both myself and the Solenetta forever out of the Suzerain’s hands?
I ran out of steps to wonder.
After passing me on the stairs, Sol had already reached the top of the tower. Miraculously, he didn’t seem breathless. He gazed over Orion, head high, shoulders straight—the King of Brakaland’s son.
Speechless, panting, I collapsed onto the third step from the top. I peered over the edge of the tower. Black cloaks swirled below us as the demons mounted the coiling staircase. They streamed in line, twenty, thirty, forty visage demons. Not even Sol and the Lunestral could save us from this crowd. “They’re coming,” I said, my throat dry.
The first demon appeared about ten steps down. It stopped. I don’t know how a creature with no face could portray such hatred, but I felt its disgust with every ounce of my being. Others formed a pack behind it until a black wall of bodies sucked the light from the bright white stone.
Though I saw little point in delaying the inevitable, I shuffled up to the next step and took another glance into the void of open air. But when I thought of spreading my arms, of taking that final leap . . . I couldn’t rise. I wanted me and Sol to live. The only way that could happen was to give myself up.
I looked down at the demons. A familiar face, repeated over and over, gazed back at me. The visage demons had seen into my heart. Only this time, they hadn’t found Jay. They’d found Sol. All the wasted moments between us swirled through my mind. The real Sol waited just a few steps away and here I’d wasted our last few seconds thinking of ice cream and surrender.
The demons screamed, the collective sound of their call piercing my ears. I raised my hands to block out their cries, then froze.
A swath of gray fabric fluttered in the breeze, landing at my feet. I glanced at the fabric, perhaps a flag liberated from the parade by the wind. But then the color looked too familiar. And was that a sleeve hanging loose across the step?
Confused, I twisted to face Sol.
Then my eyes widened and my heart leapt.
I couldn’t believe what I saw.
TWENTY-NINE
Sol’s wings reflected every ounce of light. In green, gold, red, and blue, each spanned more than six feet. Shaped as eagles’ wings, they formed a rigid line from his shoulders, like two great arms held out to his side with a curtain of feathers across them. This was the Lunestral’s power in all its glory.
Sol stood tall and strong, his bare chest out, his wide shoulders back. His eyes had blackened and bore into the demons’ with the Lunestral’s steely gaze. Thick red veins—I could see scarlet blood pumping through them—had risen to the surface of his skin. The Lunestral made real in man.
Delane’s words tumbled back to me. Solandun’s not rarefied. But that’s different.
Sol was descended from the dream bird. Its power slumbered in his blood. A power unleashed on the visage demons paralyzed by his gaze.
He held out his hand. I didn’t take it. The wind carried my whisper. “How?”
I didn’t expect him to reply, I mean, it wasn’t even really a question, just a barely evolved thought that had escaped my lips. I got to my feet and inched closer with tiny, uncertain steps. Sol held still and bore my gawking with good grace, as if he knew it was better just to let me see. No words could truly explain what had occurred.
I ducked beneath the tip of one of the wings. Soft vanes brushed against my hair as I passed. The wings sprang from Sol’s upper back in the exact place where the tattooed wings met the Lunestral’s body. The inked image of the dream bird lay between them, but now its wings were real. His shoulder blades had shifted, rotated, and the muscles around them firmly braced the wings. Two deep gashes had opened along the length of his back. Each was at least a foot in length. Blood trickled from one.
Sol glanced over his shoulder and the wing beside me separated the air as it made a gentle beat. His eyes were so, so black—not a trace of white remained. But they were still Sol’s eyes. It was still him.
I skirted back to the front of the tower and looked down on the visage demons. Not one had moved since Sol’s metamorphosis. It was as if someone had simply pulled a plug. Their menacing aura had gone.
“We really should go,” said Sol.
“You mean, fly?”
“Unless you’d rather go back the way we came.”
I turned away from the demons and scanned Sol’s wings from tip to tip. Huge. Powerful.
“You said you trusted me, Mia.”
I looked out over the city. We were so, so high . . .
“I do,” I said. It was the time to prove it.
Unsure of the recommended form for flying with one’s crush turned dream bird, I put my arms around his neck. “Like this?”
“You’d hang like a dead weight. I need to lift you.”
I clung tight as he swept me up. His wings commenced a slow beat, casting a deep thrum as they sliced the air. I tapped him twice on the back of the neck.
“What’s that for?” he said.
“It’s for luck.”
I couldn’t help but smile. This was so surreal, so amazing. Minutes ago I was preparing to say good-bye to Sol and the world. Now we had risen like a Phoenix from the ashes. Or in this case, a Lunestral. My heart beat in anticipation of taking to the sky.
“Okay,” I said, and held tighter. “Like on a one, two, three?”
“Like on a right now.”
Sol moved with such speed, I barely felt us go. One great leap and we were off and out.
The wind stole my breath. My stomach flipped. Face buried against Sol’s shoulder, I screwed my eyes shut. The whoosh of his beating wings was the only sound I heard over the rushing wind.
“The masks,” said Sol. “They’re moving.”
I wanted to look, but that would involve opening my eyes and I was kind of pretending that we were still on top of the tower, or on a really windy street.
“Mia, it’s okay to open your eyes.”
Easy for Sol to say; he’d done this before. But was I really going to spend this amazing experience with my head buried in his shoulder? I tightened my grip and peeked open an eye.
Orion
lay far beneath us, its main thoroughfares cutting like runways toward the outer gates. The black veins of darkened alleys threaded through the city’s heart. Beyond the walls spread the Brakaland Plains, the road to Bordertown a pale ribbon in a patchwork of brown and green. Forests grew in the distance, the mountain I’d seen from the valley lay hazy beyond. I could see how far that mountain actually stood from Welkin’s Valley; it had seemed much closer from the ground.
Though it remained difficult to breathe against the rushing currents, from over Sol’s shoulder I could see that we’d already sunk below the tops of the towers. The visage demons spiraled back down the steps of the Morningstar tower, their black cloaks stark against the white stone. Soon the Suzerain would know we’d escaped.
“Can you find Vermillion’s?” I asked. It was only then that I noticed Sol’s labored breathing. Knowing it couldn’t be a good sign, I held on tighter. “What’s wrong?”
“My wings are meant for one,” he replied.
“Then we need to get down!”
“I’m looking.”
Though we descended smoothly, the rapidly approaching rooftops made my stomach flip. A little like in the Wastes, the sounds of the city popped into life. Clear among them, a tolling bell.
“Does that mean the same thing it did in Bordertown?” I asked.
“They’ve called out the guard.”
“Then they must know already. Sol, the demons saw your wings. Elias will know who you are!”
The beat of Sol’s wings slowed and again we dipped lower, the ground clear beneath us. We were close to the wall, east of the gate I’d first entered, but far from Orion’s main streets. Sol straightened. His legs pushed down, and we dropped onto a shadowy, deserted courtyard between a tight cluster of buildings. As soon as we landed, Sol gently put me down. Then he dropped to his knees and lowered his head, his breaths deep.
I knelt before him and cautiously touched his shoulder. “Is it always this bad?”
