“We don’t know,” Malice answers for Aerin. He moves to them, helping Cisera to her feet as Aerin stands. “Emrys, take her outside, to Theo. Tell him she needs to go somewhere safe, then come back. We may need help finding them. My senses are mostly shot from the blast; I can’t smell a thing over the smoke.”
Those honey brown eyes bare into Malice. For a long moment it looks like the Wolf might argue having to leave them when he’s only just found them. But instead, Emrys nods resolutely, throwing Cisera onto his back and shifting at the same time. She lands on soft fur with a shocked scream, but Emrys doesn’t slow as he bolts back out the way he came.
Aerin is already moving debris with her magic.
“Please, please,” she murmurs.
It takes them too long. They move and shift rubble in the hopes of catching a glimpse of either Bruin or Khortland.Neither head of blonde hair can be seen. It feels like the entirety of the ceiling collapsed in this area.
Emrys is back, sniffing at first before he starts digging. Aerin and Malice join him, removing remaining debris until finally, a glimpse of blonde hair.
Malice moves faster.
“At least one of them is down there,” he says. Aerin’s gaze finds his for only a second. The pain in her eyes is beyond his comprehension.
Emrys pounces, like a fox on snow, over and over. When Malice peaks over the mound of cement he realizes, what before seemed like flooring, bare of any bodies, is ice.
Khortland.
“Here, move,” Malice says, laying both of his flaming palms over the ice.
“Aerin, here!” Emrys calls, now shifted back into his Fae skin. Aerin clears rocks with her magic like skipping stones, no longer caring where they land, until the area around Malice is clear.
Laying before them, bloodied, bruised, and soaking wet are both blonde males.
The relief in finding them is quickly banished when neither male stirs.
75
AERIN
Aerin is certain her brain is simply no longer processing the things happening around her. She feels two emotions. They toggle like a flip being switched: anger and anguish.
Staring down at the unmoving bodies of her bother and her Paramyr moves her entirely to anguish.
How?Howis she supposed to make it through this?
Swaying on her feet, she’s unable to truly take in the details of either of them. They blur into one, unmoving, damaged body.
Malice says something to Emrys, who immediately takes off in his Wolf form. The words sound faint around the ringing in her ears, which came back at a fever pitch at the sight before her.
Whether Khortland moved into Aerin’s chair after she left or lunged for her brother as the building exploded around them, Aerin doesn’t know. They lay shoulder to shoulder, covered in dust and smaller bits of rubble Aerin hasn’t cleared away. Covered in blood. Broken.
Ice protected the top half of Khortland’s body, head to hips. Beyond that, his legs are crushed. His bones protrude from his clothing in multiple places. Aerin can hardly stand to look belowhis waist, especially when his face is tranquil, as if he’s just asleep.
On the other hand, only Bruin’s abdomen and left shoulder were covered, as if the ice didn’t have enough time to protect the rest of him as it reached from Khortland to her brother. Aerin realizes then that her Paramyr sacrificed his legs in an attempt to save Bruin.
She wonders briefly if the sacrifice will matter in the end. Or if they will both die anyways, at a party meant to celebrateher. The same way her parents had.
Something inside of Aerin, the last part of her that could feel anything aside from the pure and utter grief, crumbles away.
Malice is still talking, shaking Khortland’s shoulder, saying something that floats right past Aerin when her gaze finally takes in what is left of her brother. His legs look like Khortland’s, though not as bad. Only an ankle bone protruding in one place, a femur in another. Blood seeps into the ground below them, mixing with the melted ice to form a pool of pink. Bruin’s abdomen is injury-free, though his clothes are soaking wet. His right arm looks dislocated, and his wrist is turned in a grotesque direction.
It’s his face, his head, that steals Aerin’s breath. Her ability to exist. The entire right side is caved in. Shattered under stone she’d tossed away. Aerin stares at her sibling, at her copy, at the better version of herself, and he looks broken beyond repair. Even if he lives, he will never be the same.
Aerin’s body collapses beneath her. She hears Malice call to her, frantic, but she can’t. Shecan’t.
Warm arms wrap around her from behind, cradling her as she lets out cry after cry. The body behind her is familiar, smelling slightly of salt and seaweed. The hands gripping her arms, folded over her center, are Theo’s. He lifts her and Aerin keeps screaming. Her body rattles with it; there is nothing insideof her now but this grief. So large and all-consuming nothing else can reach her.
