“HE’S NOT!” Ryder raises his voice, and I can see his anger start to reach the surface. My muscles tense involuntarily as I watch him carefully, like a china plate edging towards the table end moments before it is about to smash.
“The Sun is dying, Ryder, what don’t you get about that?” River says. “Don’t you think we should at least consider that maybe The General was right—”
“Say his name again. I fucking dare you!” Ryder spits as his body erupts with the emotion he has been holding in. Although the sun had affected our Gifts, it is clear Ryder’s remain uncorrupted by its dimming. His breath is heavy as his shadows bleed out of him, looking for something to take his anger out on.
“Ryder!” I say aloud, my tone enough to tell him to calm down. His eyes dance over mine intensely, then to each of us in the room. Our shocked faces sober him, making his shadowsquickly retreat. The air feels tense, thicker, like the dust particles that have been accumulating down here for hundreds of years are now airborne, suffocating us from the inside out. My eyes are still on him, and I watch him like a hawk—his eyes narrow slightly, and his knuckles turn white.
“Would everybody stop treating me like I’m some kind of fucking monster.” Ryder snaps, landing a hit on the surface of the desk, making us all jump.
“Maybe keep your emotions in check, and we wouldn’t have to.” River pokes the bees’ nest, and I find myself wedged in between them again. River’s eyes are tainted with the same fury that grips Ryder, and I know their emotions are entangled.
“You think I’m a monster. Trust me, you haven’t seen a monster.” Ryder says, his teeth gritted, hidden behind his pursed lips.“The General is the fucking monster, and I refuse to believe that a man so wrong about everything could ever be right.” His words emanate the fire within him, like they could singe our eyebrows if we got too close. “So you can ask your questions if you want, but fuck if I am going to be here when you do it.” He tenses and storms towards the door that leads to Moon Castle. “Asha, meet me here at eight p.m.” And with that, he leaves. Taking only a part of the tension in this room with him. The rest still lingers in the air between us, clinging to the ceiling, watching us.
Waiting.
River and I stand for a moment, the silence that loomed over us when we first entered this room has reclaimed this space. His lips part as if he is about to speak, but I stop him.
“Don’t.” My words catch in my throat. I’m too emotionally exhausted to have this discussion. I know what he is going to say—that Ryder can’t control himself, and I am in danger.
“But Asha.” He exclaims, desperation clenching his jaws.
“I don’t wanna hear it. I’m going tonight, and you can’t stop me.” My words compel River to stand down. He knows this is a fight he cannot win. But after what I have just witnessed, the fight within me to find this cure is fiercer than ever.
Because I know Ryder is dangerous, but with their emotions entangled, maybe River is too.
Chapter Seven
The skies have been barking at us, lighting up the horizon and threatening to drench us if we don’t pick up the pace. I can see the storm in the distance when I look back, the dark clouds hanging over the distant valleys. My village was right. I imagine rain pelting at the walls of Sun Sovereign and bolts of lightning screaming in the sky. My feet quicken as we travel away from the heavens’ assault, though each crack that splits the sky in two reminds us of the surge gaining on us.
Tall grass swallows my boots up as we edge closer to the place that gave me nightmares as a child. Ryder walks slightly ahead, wading over the rubble and bones of a building that once stood tall. I stand for a moment in the heart of its carcass, seeing remnants of what this place could have been. A strange feeling washes over me. Bricks scatter over the scorched ground, their grey cement tarnished by soot and ash. Some still cling to each other, like they made an oath to stay together even as the flames threatened to tear them apart, now they stand as a relentless half wall refusing to crumble fully, though I know if I gave it a kick, the wall would probably all come tumbling down. My feet come to rest at a broken podium, much like the ones that stand guard over Sun Castle. Though this one is chipped and tarnished, and I can see where the flames licked its surface, eating its original white marble and replacing it with a charcoal grey colour. Its other half lies in the ground, protruding upwards like a brokenrib. My hand glides against its rough surface. Graffiti plagues its skeleton with words like ‘SUN SCUM’ and ‘ALL SUNS TO DIE’, tainting whatever purity remains of this place. Saliva wells in my mouth, and my heart quickens as I read these words.
I know I do not belong here.
The wind howls low, almost as if it is mourning something, and my hairs stand alert. There’s a weight here, not just in the air but in my chest, pressing down like a grief I’ve never lived. I walk straight ahead, though my eyes dart around me, unsure of the strange feeling that numbs me. A faint whisper in the wind whisks my head away with it. I immediately make eyes with Ryder to see if he had beckoned me, if the wind had dragged his words from his lips to meet my eardrums, but he stands facing away from me, staring at a scorched altar. The trees rattle as I continue towards him, their leaves encouraged to shake by the wind, but no person hides in their branches whispering sweet nothings in my ear.
“What happened here?” I ask Ryder, ignoring the strange energy emanating from this place.
“It used to be a Sun temple many years ago, before the Moons burned it to the ground.” He talks while he walks, ash dancing through the air as his feet disturb it. Funny. This place feels more like a graveyard than a temple.
Lightning flashes again, making me jump; it’s much closer now, throwing jagged shadows across the ruins like the ghosts themselves are reaching out. A whisper haunts me again, too broken to make sense but too loud to ignore. My stomach swirls as my feet urge me to escape the hallowed ground.
The first cold drop hits my face. We need to move.
Something about that place affected me. When I stood on its ruins, I wanted nothing more than to run as far as my feet would take me. But now I stand as an outsider looking in, my body aches to hear the whispers again, like the shallow breathsare calling out to me, drawing me in. But I have to keep moving, I can’t afford to dwell on it. Ryder says we are almost at the Shadow Realm, and I have to focus; otherwise, I may share the same fate as the temple.
“Okay, remember what I said—Do as I say.” Ryder reaffirms to me as we approach a clearing.
“Yes, sir.” I snark and sarcastically salute him.
“Seriously, Asha. The stakes are too high to be making jokes.” His words send a shiver down my spine, and I nod my head at him. He’s right: if they even sense that I do not belong in their world, I risk being killed. Their hatred for the Suns is like a sickness they want to eradicate. I saw it written on the remains of that temple; they won’t stop until they have washed their hands of us all.
Ryder pulls up my oversized hood so my face is cast in shadow.
The landscape ahead of me does not warrant anything out of the ordinary—just an empty field where the trees have halted around its circumference. Ryder continues ahead, he too wearing a long hooded coat. I can feel the storm nipping at my heels as we tread across the open plane. The moisture in the air licks at my exposed skin as I walk, the backs of my hands and my cheeks dampen with a slight sheen.
“I thought you said we were close?” I ask Ryder, who is trudging a few steps ahead of me.
“We are.” He says, not stopping to face me. “You see that over there.” He points to a tree I hadn’t noticed before. It stands crooked and gnarled, like it’s been twisted with centuries of pain. “That’s our way in.”
