Luminary (Faylinn Book 3), page 25
I shook my head. “You’re going to be okay.” My voice trembled. His hands clutched his chest, next to the entry sight. Crimson stained his tunic, seeping across his entire torso—his torso without armor. Why did I let him leave the castle this way? “Oh gosh. Sakari. You’re okay,” I repeated. I couldn’t accept any other alternative. “You have to be okay.”
I looked up to see Adair frozen, horror staining his eyes. Skye stared blankly as if what happened hadn’t registered yet. He blinked before coldness washed over his face. It was then, as Skye glowered at Sakari lying defenselessly, that an arrow struck Skye in the neck. He stumbled back, stunned by the impact. The shouting began as arrows soared through the air. I could feel the kingdoms converging on one another, but I froze, wordlessly watching Skye fall to the ground.
“Calliope, Calliope,” Sakari rasped, and I shifted my stare back. “You know what to do.”
I shook my head, horrified, taking in what just happened. I couldn’t speak.
“Calliope,” he choked, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth, trickling down his flawless face.
“No, Sakari. Stay with me.” I took his face in my hands, curling my fingers under his jaw. “Come on. Not like this. Just breathe.” I gripped the arrow in his chest, ready to remove it, but he stopped me.
“No,” he uttered, grasping my hand. “It’s too late. It’s okay.”
“What! No, it’s not. Let me save you. I have to save you!” I attempted to remove the arrow once more, but he held on too tightly.
Sakari weakly shook his head. “No, you don’t. This is how it was supposed to be.” Lifting a shaking hand to my cheek, he said, “You don’t belong to me. You never did. Fight. Live.”
Wordlessly, my brain tried to catch up with my mouth. I tasted salt from my tears as they poured down my cheeks, but I couldn’t taste the sweetness of the meaning behind his words.
“I love you, Calliope,” he whispered. “Never forget that. My love was real.”
“I know.” I nodded, pressing my cheek into his hand. A river flowed down my face. “I love you, too.” My mouth turned into his palm and kissed it. “I know I never got a chance to tell you, but I love you, too.”
“You don’t have to say it,” he choked and spat more blood. “I know that you don’t, not really. Not in the way I love you. But it doesn’t matter.” His voice quivered. “Everyone should get to have one true love in this life.” Sakari swallowed. “The point is… you were mine.” The corner of his mouth slightly turned up. Inhaling a ragged breath, he closed his eyes.
“Wait. Wait, no! No, Sakari!” Like severing an artery to my heart, I felt our connection break the instant he was gone. My throat ripped open with a cry. I bowed over his body as the loss set in, clutching the bloody material in my hands. Blinded by my pain, I blocked out everything around me.
Sakari!
This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real. None of this was real.
Wake up, Calliope! Wake up!
“Calliope, get up! You have to get up!”
I wept, clinging tighter to Sakari, shaking my head, but nothing coherent came out of my mouth.
Let me be.
My body was hoisted up. “Calliope!” Declan shook my shoulders, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “You’re caught in the middle of the crossfire. You need to get to higher ground. Get out of here now!”
I could hardly grasp what was happening around me. I looked, but it was too unbelievable to comprehend. Arrows and daggers flew past and overhead. Axes and blades of white collided. Shouts. Screams. Bodies dropped faster than I could count.
Roots tore from the ground, exploding soil, and spun like lassos in the air, shooting and lashing out at other fae. Water shot from the ground and the sky like darts, powerful enough to cut through flesh. When a tree went up in flames, the fear began to settle in. Why it was the fire that suddenly made me focus I couldn’t tell you. It was as if I felt the tree’s pain. It was a cyclone of elements and weapons caught in a disaster sure to obliterate the entire kingdom.
“I can’t leave Sakari here,” I cried.
“I’ll get him out. Just go!” Declan shouted, pointing to the trees. “Stay hidden no matter what you do.” When I didn’t move he shouted once more, “GO!”
I couldn’t think. I leaped.
Chapter Forty-Three
KAI
The shrubbery concealing the opening of the burrow didn’t block out the cries and shouts when the battle began. I cupped my hands over my ears to muffle the sound. My hearing might not be as strong as a faery, but nothing could drown out the terror and fury.
An unsettling feeling set in when I realized I didn’t even know where Violet was. Who did Allura and my mother leave her with? What if she was in danger? What if Allura and my mom didn’t take shelter? Knowing Allura, she leaped into the battle swinging.
“I can’t do this. I can’t sit in here listening to the sounds of this war and not do a thing about it. My sisters are out there, and so is my mom. What if they are in danger and I’m in here. Cowardly hiding in a hole. This isn’t me.” I bent my head down onto my curled up knees.
“In case you missed it, I don’t think you’re exactly yourself right now. And you heard what Sakari said, Kai. You have your family to live for. Calliope’s dad to live for. Don’t be stupid.”
My head shot up. “I might not have a family to go back to if I don’t help them!” I grunted in frustration, staring back at the ground, rocking, trying to think of a solution. “I know I have to survive, but I can’t handle not knowing if my kid sister is okay.”
“She’s probably fine, hidden somewhere. Your mom would make sure of that, don’t you think?” Cameron tried to reassure me, but he failed miserably.
“But what if she’s not?” I demanded. “My mother was sick when they came to the Oak and left Violet. What if whoever is protecting her can’t? What if something happens to her, and I never got to see her one last time?”
Cameron didn’t have an answer.
“I’ve got to go. I can’t stay in here.”
“Are you listening to yourself?”
“I have to find Violet.” With renewed determination, I gradually got to my feet, feeling my way along the dirt wall until I reached the opening. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”
“Kai, you’re being reckless, man. Think this through.”
“I’m not, and I have. I won’t head straight for the battle. I’ll stay out of sight. I’ll travel on the outskirts.”
“And if someone happens to find you?”
I turned to face him. “Then I’ll have to fight until I’m the last one left standing.”
Cameron’s head fell back against the dirt wall, frustrated, and he sighed. “Fine,” he said, standing up. “But I’m going with you. I care too much about Calliope to stay in here and not cover your stubborn butt.”
Chapter Forty-Four
CALLIOPE
I latched on to the nearest tree above the battlefield. With one hand on the coarse bark—my other fist clenched against my chest—I tried to compose myself. I tried to find a rational thought. Any rational thought.
What just happened? Is he really gone? How could he be gone?
The battle was spreading throughout the trees. Not a single piece of land was bare as far as I could see. I leaned back against the trunk and attempted to catch my breath, struggling through the tears.
I couldn’t focus on Sakari’s death right now. I had to force it aside. But how? How was I going to push that aside? I cried harder.
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. I finally accepted us and now…
When I got my tears under control I turned back to the pandemonium. I had to move forward. I couldn’t afford to do this now.
I couldn’t find anyone. Where was my dad? Where was Kai? Kai. Scanning the trees, I looked for the one where I left him and Cameron. I found it, but he was gone, and so was Cameron.
Frantically, I searched the ground below, but not only were there bodies to weed through, smoke began to permeate and created a cover I couldn’t see clearly through. Thousands of figures were in a dance for their lives. It was like an acrobatic battle as faeries flipped through the air and pushed off tree trunks for momentum.
Cameron could have helped Kai down. I looked at the height of the limb in proximity to the ground. There was no way. He would have broken his leg if he tried to jump. How could I leave them without hiding them? How could I be so stupid! Maybe they climbed down. I held onto that. It was possible. It had to be possible. Kai could have been strong enough.
I needed to find Kai and Cameron. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I shouldn’t be cowering in a tree, watching the kingdoms fight to their death without me. This was just as much my war as it was theirs. I had to disregard what Declan said. Adair had taken everything from me. I wanted to fight. For Sakari. I wanted to win.
With resolve, I wiped the wetness from my face and dropped to the ground. I darted through the masses, trying to remain undetected. Lying about twenty feet away from me, I spotted a set of arrows strewn across the soil. To better equip myself, I bent down to retrieve them, but the strap of the quiver was caught beneath a body. Shaking the image away, I averted my eyes and tugged. I tried not to focus on the fact that I was about to steal arrows off a dead faery.
Shrugging the second quiver over my shoulder, I pulled out an arrow. Lifting the bow like Sakari taught me, I let my arrow fly toward the first Rymidonian I could find. He charged an unarmed Auroralite who attempted to shield a child at her feet. Struck in the side, he hit the soil, but victory didn’t wash over me as I thought it would. It didn’t feel as gratifying as it should, but at least it was one less Rymidon who could kill an innocent.
The Auroralite woman looked up at me with tears in her eyes. With a gracious nod, she swooped up the child in her arms and ran. I spun around to defend myself and as many others as I could find.
“Kai!” I screamed. “Cameron!”
With the chaos swirling all around, it was almost too hard to decipher what side I was fighting against. Rymidon might make up more than half of the fae here, but they were so scattered and disbursed I’d already nearly shot arrows into the wrong fae at least five times. Sakari might have taught me how to use a bow and arrow, but he was right. It was so much different to use it for more than training.
This was survival.
“Kai!” I shouted again, desperate to get some sort of response. But my voice merely died in the commotion. There was no way his human ears would be able to hear me.
When I spun around, poised and ready to defend myself, I stood face to face with Marcus of Oraelia, his arm arched and ready to shoot his arrow, just feet away from me. When he recognized my face, he shifted the arrow an inch and released it, sending it to the right of my shoulder. I turned and saw the Rymidonian he struck. She lay with an ax in hand, lying flat on her back, his arrow in her heart. He saved my life. I looked back at him in shock. With his prominent jaw set with resolve, he watched me. I silently thanked him with my eyes. Marcus’s dark eyes peered back at me and he nodded before pressing on into the battle.
Even with the extra, I ran out of arrows too quickly. I shrugged my bow over my shoulders. If only I was thinking, I wouldn’t have been so reckless with them. I searched the ground for more, or at least something else—anything else—to protect myself with.
“AHHHHH!” I turned at the scream to see a Rymidonian, all in black, rushing toward me with his cream blade slicing the air.
Searching more frantically, I finally spotted some sort of blade made of bone clutched in the hand of a dead Oraelian. Diving for it, I tucked and rolled, jumping back to my feet to fight him off. His eyes were glazed over with hatred. It didn’t matter that I was a female or small or a True Royal, he was out for my blood.
Hand-to-hand combat was far from my list of mastered abilities, but I was somehow holding my own. I focused solely on him and the form his body took when he was about to strike. My senses kicked in, almost as if we were going in slow motion.
I cried out when searing pain spread through my left arm. He sliced me. But I kept on, flipping back out of his reach.
It was getting hard to breathe. The air of Faylinn was no longer crisp and fresh. Smoke saturated the air, cloaking the sky above us in darkness.
His next strike knocked the long blade from my grasp. His sneer held no room for mercy. He wasted no time lifting his arm to land his killing blow when he was struck in the chest by an arrow, driving him to the ground.
I looked behind me to see Lia standing with a bow in hand. Her face arranged in determination, wings like fire flickered behind her. She rested the bow down at her side and shifted her stare to me.
“Coming to kill me yourself?” I asked.
“I just saved your life,” Lia retorted as she lifted the bow back up and shot another arrow behind me. “And again. You’re welcome.”
I decided not to question why.
“What are you waiting for? You just going to stand there like an imbecile, or are you going to help me fight?” She sent another arrow flying to my right. “Use your element!” she shouted.
I stopped staring at her dumbly. “I made a thunderstorm before. I’m not sure I trust myself to control it.”
When I’d only meant for a rainstorm on the Waking Oak, I made it rain over the entire kingdom. What if I caused a freaking tsunami this time and wiped out everyone? I wasn’t sure I wanted to take my chances. There was also no telling how weak it would make me.
“That was you?” She twirled, pinning her back to me and shooting another arrow into a Rymidonian Keeper charging us.
“Guilty.”
“Well, if you don’t try something, you’re as good as dead. I can only cover you for so long.”
“Why?” Stupid moment to ask, but I had to know. “Why aren’t you trying to kill me?”
She paused and spoke over her shoulder. “When all is said and done, you’re still the best friend I’ve ever had,” she said begrudgingly. “Skye is dead. With him gone, you’re all I have left. I hold no more allegiance to Rymidon with him gone.”
With our backs to one another, I noticed we were surrounded. Swiftly closing in on us were five Rymidonians.
“If you don’t whip out your element now, we’re both dead,” she growled.
Why hadn’t I picked up that dang blade again?
Two charged me, axes held high. I didn’t think. My hands shot out, and water blasted out from the ground, blowing the two fae into the sky. My breath caught. They floundered on top of the water blast. With the swipe of my hands, the water threw them across the battlefield.
“Holy Hannah! How did you do that?” Lia shrieked.
“Don’t ask,” I shouted back as three more Rymidonians came at us. One. Two. Three. Like a volcano, water erupted from the ground, firing each fae up and away. I watched as they fell to the earth a hundred feet away. Apparently extreme fear played a part in getting your element to work properly.
“That’s not normal.” I turned to see Lia gaping. “No Royal in Rymidon has that kind of power.” She stared at me to respond, but I just blew up Old Faithful. With my hands. I looked down at them, turning them over and back, still trying to grasp that. “Do you even know what that means?”
“That I have influence over the elements?”
“You have the power to do a lot more than that. Royals borrow enough to do a little bit of damage. Seems as though you have the power to completely obliterate.”
Another Rymidon came barreling toward us behind Lia. With the flick of my wrist, he sailed backward. My legs quivered.
Lia noticed. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“I can’t keep using my elements as weapons,” I shouted. “It’s taking too much energy. I need to find another set of arrows. It’s the only weapon I’m semi-comfortable with.”
Lia covered me as we fought our way through the mob. Along the way I picked up another bow and collected every arrow I could find. I searched all over for my dad, but couldn’t locate him. There were too many faces, too much destruction.
Bravery was so much more than being willing to fight back. It was being willing to die. And I knew as Lia and I pushed on through the battlefield, protecting one another, I would die for her. Even after everything that had happened, I was willing to do what it took to save her.
I heard Lia scream, and I turned to see her spin and nail another faery who collapsed onto the forest floor.
“She got my side,” Lia panted and touched the wound at her waist.
I looked down to see a streak of red spreading across her knit top. Gone were the days of being queasy at the sight of blood. I’d seen too much of it today.
“Gah! It’s a good one,” she cringed.
“Let me heal it. You can’t keep fighting like this. Can you cover?” I asked as I placed my hand on the open wound.
She hissed in pain. “I guess I don’t have a choice. You just better hope no one attacks while you’re doing that.”
I tried to calm myself enough to concentrate. It was working—slowly, but surely.
“Calliope!” she shouted.
I spun and propelled away five faeries—some I knew were not Rymidonians—with wind. Wind. How had I conjured that?
“You just used the wind,” Lia gasped. “How can you control water and wind?”
I didn’t answer her question as I finished healing her. “And you’re welcome,” I said as the gash closed.
“How was that possible, Calliope?” she persisted. “You shouldn’t be able to do that.”
“Never underestimate the power of a True.”
Everything seemed to blur together as we fought for our lives. It was as if I was watching myself from above. Who was this person swinging a blade and firing arrows? When did she become this fearless warrior? Goodbye girl who lay in sundresses on blankets in her backyard simply to watch the clouds float by. Gone was the girl who could kick up her feet on the leather ottoman and watch weekly sitcoms just to waste time and avoid homework. So long girl who stole glances of her lifelong crush as he leaned against his locker, laughing carelessly.
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