Page 41
Author: Jodi Meadows
A million things happened inside me at once, most prominently my heart squeezing up to my throat, and my stomach flip-flopping. Grateful and sick and filled up with misery.
“Cris, no. ” I didn’t want to die, though, or be trapped forever. I wanted to live, to have experiences. I wanted to see the world with my single short life. But Cris…
“Think of it as a gift, if it helps. One you can’t turn down. ”
Stef stood nearby, eyes round as if she’d begun to accept what he was going to do.
“Janan is too strong. You can’t beat him,” I whispered, half saying the words because I knew I should. “He’s had five thousand years to gain power. You will be new and weak. He won’t let you stay in the walls. ” He needed to see how futile his plan was.
“I only need a few moments to open a door for you. ” He cupped my cheek with his free hand.
“What happens if he kills you? Will you be reincarnated?”
“For a newsoul’s sake,” Cris said, “I hope not. ”
But I didn’t want him to be gone forever. Where would he go? What would he do?
“Ana, you have to live. You have to get out of here, stop Janan from destroying Heart, and live this life. Do everything you can. Don’t waste it. Promise me. ”
“We’ll find another way. ” Why couldn’t he see?
“When? How? There’s nothing here but skeletons. ” His eyes were glassy, and he blinked several times as though trying not to cry.
“Please don’t. ” I looked to Stef for help, but she just watched us with a hard expression, like ice.
Just as I turned to him again, Cris leaned forward and kissed me. Not long, and not desperate. I barely had a chance to register the way his lips tasted like tears before he drew back, looking as surprised as I felt.
“I thought you were in love with Sam. ” That wasn’t what I wanted to say, but it saved me from having to think too hard about the simultaneous thrill and fear and stress of what had just happened. I still didn’t understand why Sam wanted to kiss me, let alone anyone else.
“I will always be in love with Dossam. ” He focused inward, somewhen-else. He didn’t mean my Sam, but a Sam from lifetimes ago. “And I love you,” he whispered, coming back to the present. “Not like Sam does, not nearly. But that’s why you have to live. I couldn’t bear to let anything happen to you when you’ve just begun, and I couldn’t bear Sam’s pain if he lost you. ”
My breath was too heavy, crushing me from the inside. I couldn’t let him do this, but I wanted to escape. I wanted to live and be loved and not die. Pieces of me were becoming resigned to it, even welcoming his fate because it meant I might be free.
Stef was still ice. No hope of strength from her.
Cris squeezed my hand. I’d forgotten he hadn’t let go. “You’re going to live,” he said. “You’re going to make it out of the temple, and then you’re going to use everything you’ve learned to stop Janan. Save the newsouls. ”
I hated myself as I nodded, and warmth trickled down my cheeks. He was crying, too, but I didn’t know what to say to other people who cried. Instead I just hugged him. His wiry body tensed before his arms went around me, too.
If I spoke, I would be undone. Everything in me would spill out. So I squeezed him until he pried himself loose and said, “I shouldn’t have kissed you. I hope you can forgive me. ”
Because I still couldn’t speak, I pressed my fingers to my lips and nodded, and hoped he knew that I understood. He was afraid.
“Be ready to run,” he said, “because I have no idea how long it will take, or how long it will last. If I have time, once you’re free, I’ll try—I don’t know. Maybe I can save the souls he’s trapped here. ”
Was that even possible? Maybe it was to the boy who’d ride across Range to save his roses from frost.
“You don’t have to,” Stef whispered. “I could. ”
“The world has more need for a scientist and engineer than a gardener, especially right now. ” He hugged her as well, and kissed her cheeks. “Please don’t kill each other after I’m gone. ”
Gone.
He was going to do it now? Shouldn’t he wait?
My legs were numb, my arms useless. My voice had long since abandoned me. I wanted to tell him to stop, to reconsider, but it would only delay the inevitable. He’d already decided, and I selfishly wanted to go home.
Without regard for my silent urging him to wait, Cris climbed onto the table next to Janan, found the knife, and lay down.
I wished I had something strong or brave to say, something that might give him a breath of reassurance. But I had nothing to offer. I was useless.
Stef stood next to me, put her arm around my waist. Crying, I leaned my head on her shoulder and watched Cris settle on the stone and position the knife above his heart. He was really going to do it. There had to be another way, and I was crying instead of figuring it out.
“Please, Cris. ” The temple smothered my words. Please don’t. Please wait. Please come back.
He turned his head to look at us, managed a grim smile, and closed his eyes. Silver and gold flashed in red light as the knife pierced.
He died.
30
SACRIFICE
I SCREAMED.
Fingers dug into my arms, through my sleeves, and Stef yelled my name over and over. I strained against her, reaching for Cris on the table. His eyes were dull and glassy; his knuckles were white around the knife hilt.
No matter how I struggled, Stef was stronger. I rushed toward Cris, but Stef yanked me back and shoved me to the floor, pinning me. “Stop it!” she yelled.
But I wasn’t flailing anymore. I was too busy watching a white light bleed into the table.
The light expanded, flooding around the table legs that stretched over the pit. It was so bright I had to squint as the glow encompassed Cris’s body.
Tears leaked down my face, from despair and shock and light. All the air swept inward, wind rattling bones and snatching at our clothes; I caught my scarf as it tried to flee my neck. Deborl’s skeleton skidded on the floor toward the pit, as though all the air were being sucked down. It strained against the shackles.
The glow flared so bright I had to close my eyes. I wanted to close my ears as the wind howled around table legs.
Beneath me, the floor moved, slick against my clothes.
No, I was moving on the floor, both Stef and me. Shrieking wind pulled us, even as Stef scrambled to help me off my back. Wind-deaf and light-blind, we had to feel our way as the pull grew stronger, like gravity was shifting.
My heart hammered with a surge of adrenaline.
“We have to find something to hold on to!” I couldn’t tell if she heard me over the rush and keen, but I reached—her arm reached with mine—and felt along the floor, trying to dig my toes in.
“No!” Janan’s voice filled the room, thunder and waterfall-crashing.
I fought the wind’s pulling, the way air thinned, and I lost track of Stef. Twice, I felt her bump against me, but I focused on not sliding as red light pulsed beyond my eyelids, and white light burned and moved. Even with my eyes closed, I saw silhouettes of my hands splayed on the floor, desperate for traction.
And then Cris’s voice: “Ana. Stef. Go. ”
I couldn’t help but sob. He’d done it. Done something. “Cris!” My voice was lost under Janan’s rage and the wind still sucking toward the pit. Bones clacked, and silver chains rattled and clanked.
Janan roared words I didn’t know, had never heard. His voice was pressure on my skin, hot as a sylph turned solid.
“Ana, now!” Cris again, like sparks catching and burning. “Please. ”
It was his desperation that made me open my eyes. A gray archway waited ahead of me, just a few paces away, and mostly in the floor so I wouldn’t even have to stand. He’d done it. Freedom.
His plan had worked.
Jaw clenched, gasping at thin air, I clawed toward the misty portal and hooked my fingers on the bottom lip. I just had to pull myself up and tumble out. Quickly, too, because the outline wavered, shot with streaks of black and white. Changing its destination.
If I didn’t hurry, Janan would seize control.
“Go, Ana!” Cris again, choked and smothered. Lights and air pulsed all around the chamber as the two battled within the temple walls.
Stef. I couldn’t find her.
Digging my fingers into the stone—what would happen if the archway vanished altogether?—I adjusted myself to get a better look around the room. I shouted her name, but she wouldn’t hear me over the stampede of Janan’s rage.
The table. If I squinted right, I could make out arms looped around the near table leg, and Stef straining to keep herself from being sucked the rest of the way in.
She had bumped against me before. Nudging me away from the pit?
Her attempt at heroism had almost gotten her killed, too.
I had a scarf, but even if I had been strong enough to hold on to the archway with one hand and pull her up with the other, it wasn’t long enough.
There was no asking Cris for help. The shrieking and wind grew worse, and Cris cried out in pain. I had no idea what Janan could do when they were mostly without substance, but the wailing sounded like stars dying.
I pulled myself far enough to the arch and braced my elbow inside it, then lifted my leg as high as I could. My heel caught the edge. Terrified every motion would make me slip, I tied one end of the scarf around my ankle, making sure the knot was secure.
Leg down again, the scarf whipped in the wind, close to Stef but not close enough. I couldn’t see her face in the searing light, but her arms didn’t move from around the table leg.
Chest muscles aching with the strain of holding on, I switched to my hands again, so now instead of my upper body at the archway, only my head peeked in.
Stef—I hoped Stef—tugged on the scarf, but the weight wasn’t enough to make me believe she’d taken a good hold. It wasn’t constant pulling.
Sam would never forgive me if I got this far and didn’t save her. I took three breaths as deep as I could, wind stinging my throat and eyes, and lowered myself farther so my arms stretched before me. Only my fingers stayed in the archway as the sucking wind grew stronger.
Red flashed like bloody lightning, and the cacophony grew worse. But then there was steady tugging on the scarf as Stef grabbed hold and began climbing.
“Please let the knot hold,” I whispered.
The scarf yanked on my foot, and Stef was more weight for me to keep up. My hands were numb as I struggled to hold on, struggled to keep my foot flexed so the scarf wouldn’t slip off. My muscles shook.
A hand closed around my ankle, and another on my calf. My own scream was lost in the din as I begged my arms to pull us up again. If I could just get my elbows over the edge, I would be able to fall through the hole.
Stef used me like a rope, climbing as I worked to bend my arms. The wind pulled and pushed, and lights flared. I focused on breathing, focused on the archway stretched above me. Freedom. If only Stef’s arms weren’t wrapped around my waist.
She must have been pushing with her feet, because a nudge gave me the weightlessness and strength to move my left shoulder over the lip and hang on with my elbow. Now I pushed instead of pulled, but fire still ripped through my arms and chest as I gained enough strength to move my upper half over the archway.
Stef reached for the edge with one arm. Her other around me slipped.
“Just a little farther,” I urged. The wind stole my voice.
Chasms of concentration lined her face. She clenched her jaw tighter, reached again, and caught hold enough to pull herself up next to me.
The archway had been gray when Cris opened it, but now it was midnight dark. Relief for my eyes, but I was pretty sure that meant Cris wasn’t in control anymore, and no matter how much I shouted his name, the archway didn’t change.