Surely that wasn’t her mother crumpling lifeless to the ground, missing half of her neck and face.
It was happening to someone else. Someone else.
Not real. Not real. You aren’t even here. It’s not real.
Her father threw out his arms with an ear-splitting roar, and the buildings around them rumbled. Boulder-sized chunks broke away from the tower bases. They vibrated as they spun, until each one fractured into millions of tiny shards. Even Lunara wasn’t safe from their razored edges, the bits pelting her arms, her chest, her face as they shot out.
“I’m going to fucking slaughter you,” Stellan rasped, and swept them into a frenzy.
Malachyr only smirked before he misted through the moonstone fragments. Some hit their mark, but it wasn’t enough.
That was the moment she knew. Knew what came next. Knew she’d never speak to her parents again. Feel their arms andwarm laughter wrapping around her. Witness their love, and wish for a bond even half as strong for herself.
Knew she’d never be the same.
Lunara watched from outside of herself, utterly numb as Malachyr the Mistwarden, Keeper of Illamiata buried a fist in her father’s chest, withdrawing his still-beating heart with a laugh before crushing it in his hand.
With his cackles still echoing like a flock of mad birds, Malachyr tossed the ruined scrap of flesh and unleashed the Tear Stone. Power exploded from the center of him, beams blasting outwards into the buildings and along the walkways. Upwards into the dark sky.
She didn’t know how or why, but it must have been her power that saved her when their quarter of the Upper Block was reduced to a pile of rubble and twisted bodies. When the screams started.
None of them were her own as she drifted in and out of consciousness, inches from her father’s unseeing stare. It wasn’t until Cordelia’s face appeared in front of hers hours later that she joined the chorus of agony.
“How?” she sobbed out. “How did he know we were here? Why would he do this?”
Cordelia knew exactly who she meant. Lunara could see it in her eyes even through the haze of misery as the aged Elder used her magic to dig. “Your parents called a vote earlier. Theirs were the only two cast against him.”
The only two.
“How could you?” Lunara whispered. Her repeat was a shriek. “How could you!”
“I had my reasons.” Cordelia didn’t look at her as she said it, wouldn’t meet her eyes.
Lunara would have spit on her if she’d been able to move.
Then, it hit her. “They knew we would be here. Every… everyday the same walk after supper.” Something inside of her disintegrated—a blind, happy trust she’d taken for granted. “They—you—let this happen. Wanted it.You wanted this to happen!”
Cordelia’s flinch may as well have been a lengthy confession. Still, she refused to acknowledge it out loud, instead saying, “We’ll get you somewhere safe. You can stay with me or one of the others until you?—”
“No. Please, Cordelia,” she begged through gritted teeth, hating she had to ask the snake for anything. “Please. Don’t make me go to them. Not after this.”
“Death is the only way to escape them, Moonweaver.Thatis their method of persuasion.Ourmethod.”
“Then I am dead!” Her voice shredded itself apart as she gripped Cordelia’s collar. “I am dead, and no one need know otherwise.”
Cordelia looked away, eyes shining. “You have a responsibility.”
A single tear dropped from her chin and Lunara wanted to strangle her for daring to shed it.
“So did they.” She couldn’t help it. Her hand was flying before she knew it was happening, her palm landing with a stinging smack against Cordelia’s cheek. “So didyou!”
That was the end of it.
Cordelia didn’t say another word as she used her fire to cut stone and debris. Didn’t utter a sound as she bloodied her knuckles digging and digging, or as she carried Lunara through the wreckage and abandoned back streets to her own tower. Not so much as a whisper over the days it took to mend the crushed bones of Lunara’s legs, the mangled flesh—something her mother could’ve done in hours.
It wasn’t until she was healed, heading out with no plan and only a splintered soul for company, that Cordelia finally spoke.
“I know somewhere you’ll be safe.”
