“Stone?”
"Yes?"
She leaned away and looked up at him when another drip landed on her lips. When she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, it came away stained crimson.
Blood.
“Stone...” Her hands trembled.
“What is it?” The rain was still heavy, impairing her vision but through the heavy pelts she could hear Bee’s laugh. She peered past Stone.
“Bee?” Another drop of blood landed on her cheek, then another, and when she looked up the laughing she thought she heard, she now realized, was screaming.
The Strix hovered several feet above her, its wings strong against the wind and the rain. Its yellow eyes, wide and haunting. Blooddripped from its mouth, tinting its chin and white feathers of its chest. It dripped down to where a body lay motionless in the clutches of its talons. Dark brown curls stood stark against its light talons and Aesira’s head spun.
Eldrin.
Aesira reached for her sword only to remember she’d left it in the cave.
Shit.
The Strix’s piercing shrieks hammered against her ears as she ran for her sword, then another sound.
Another scream.
“Commander!” Birdie was there pulling something from her bag. “Commander, let me help.”
Aesira brushed her off, her sword now eager and hungry in her hands. The Strix’s large wings beat against the heavy rain and thunder, then, all at once, it opened its talons and there was Eldrin, falling from the sky. Dying all over again.
“No!” Aesira lunged, keeping her swords tight in her palms. The body slammed into the ground with a sickening crunch but when Aesira rolled it, it wasn’t her brother’s face that greeted her. The boy’s hair had once been blonde, now soaked in old, putrid blood. Still, the curls were the same. The age. Her heart sped, mind racing through the memories she’d pushed away for so long.
The boy’s head was heavy as Aesira brought it to her lap, her sword laying useless at her side.
A roll of thunder clapped in the distance followed by a beat of wings.
“Wake up.” Aesira shook his shoulders. She couldn’t save her brother but maybe she could save him. She just had to try harder. Be better.
Blood caked his mouth and nose, his body rigid. Someone screamed behind her, maybe Birdie, followed by another shriek from the Strix.
“Commander,” Stone’s voice drifted to her through the heavy rain. “Aesira!”Aesira whipped her head up just in time to dodge the Strix’s talons. She screamed, then drew her weapons from the ground. “We can help–”
“No,” she ground out. The Strix hovered above them, its pallid skin now kissed pink with blood, its moonlit eyes wide and watchful. Aesira held her breath, let her lungs burn and scream, and only when the Strix dove towards her did she let it out. Rain pelted her skin. Her lashes. It mixed with the blood left on her from the boy.
Not Eldrin, she reminded herself.
It isn’t him.
She tasted salt and iron and water and rage. The world stilled until it was nothing but thedrip, drip, drip, of the rain and the flap of wings and the hammering in her chest and only when it was close enough for Aesira to smell the decay on its breath did she strike, piercing straight through the heart.
Nineteen
Kamari
Kamari traced her fingers along the words etched into the parchment as she read them again and again.
“My name is Desmond Orathka. My story is not a happy one, but I hope you will listen to it anyway. The voices have told me never to write these thoughts down. Never to tell anyone what they’ve told me but I fear I can’t hold it in any longer. My mind is slipping faster and faster and if the only way to”
There was a quick tap on the door. Kamari’s stomach sank and she slid the journal under her pillow.
