“Kaelen.” I breathe in. “Darian. Eres. All of them, Reena. If you only understood, but there’s notime. Please. Call a ceasefire, at least. Let him speak.”
I look over my shoulder once more, to the raging battlefield. And that’s when I see it.
Kaelen’s shield flickers once more. And goes out.
The roar that erupts from the Lightbringers in response shreds my chest. “No. No!”
I lunge at Reena. “Please—”
The blade slams through my back. Reena’s eyes widen, her mouth moving as I stare at her face. Lower. The blade gleams with light where it emerges from my chest, almost touching my sister.
My breathing gurgles.
No.
She has to—she has to.
My lips move.
Eres. Kaelen. Darian.
And my heart is beating so quickly.
I was too late.
Too late to savethem.
Eres
Idon’t know who’s still alive.
Who’s stillbreathing. Ifshe’sbreathing, and her name thumps with every rapid beat of my heart as the Lightbringers surge forward again.
More and more bodies fall, leather buried beneath bright, glistening gold stained with scarlet. I can’t hear anything, only a single, chaotic roar of sound that rings inside my head. Screaming and shouting all pulled together into an overwhelming groaning noise as I stumble across the field, the noise of thousands of people at once.
Kaelen. Darian.
They’re still there. Still fighting, but a dozen Lightbringers separate us as I battle my way toward them. When my erevas sputters, I tear the sword from my waist and use that instead,blinking sweat out of my eyes and trying not to breathe in the stench of death that wafts from the bodies around me.
Every time I take one down, three more appear. Kaelen’s shield is little more than holes now, his Voids attempting to fill the gaps. But even those flicker, translucent and wavering as he directs them with sluggish movements.
“Lyra,” Darian roars as I stumble over to them. His eyes look behind me, to the side, as if she might appear, and my heart beats harder. He grips my arm, hauling me back from the path of a shimmering luminth arc, eyes flickering between deep, endless black and bright amethyst as if his mind is overloaded. “Where is she?”
I didn’t stop her. I should have stopped her.
But it was a chance.A single, hopeless chance for her to live, to slip between the Lightbringer forces and hide. Even as I think it, I know she wouldn’t. That the marks on her face stand out, that even if she survived this, she wouldn’t be able to hide in anonymity in Solvandyr with riftlines covering her face.
I know that she’s likely laying out there, far away from us, and I double over as the thought hits that I won’t even find her body. Not here. Not in the middle of so much chaos, and not before the horde between us cuts me into ribbons for trying.
Kaelen’s hands shake. The shield wavers again. Thin cracks of light spread across it like broken glass. “Eres.”
“Gone,” I rasp. “To Vaelion.”
Darian’s eyes turn fully black.
And Kaelen’s shield… it goesout.
I can’t hear whatever Darian roars at me. Not over the sound that erupts from every faceless golden soldier, the roar of victory as they pull back.
