Niklaus looks down at me, pinching his eyes together. And then it clicks.
“Dellilian!” he roars, then clears his throat in discomfort.
Dellilian, please!
A black vein tears through the air in front of us and out comes a small implosion of fusain dust followed by a fierce Short-Haired Windila charging through the air. A show of white sharp teeth on display.
“Niklaus…” I croak. “Something—something’s happening.”
The vertigo is unbearable. I’m neither here nor there. The world tilts and sways like a ship on rough waters.
“Are we traveling again?” he asks.
But I can’t answer. The sensation of moving into an invisible current is as hard to resist as sneezing. It’s a relief to give in to the pull. I taste the salty air and am swallowed up by the sound of seagulls and the soft lapping of water.
I grip Niklaus’s shirt as the darkness of the Nightlung spills over us. The terror of ever leaving him behind claws a wound into my chest more than any other time.
“Don’t let go.” My last words as we land in the tree line of a stage I have never wanted to see nor hear about.
My father’s death.
45. “On His Head a Golden Crown, and in His Hand a Sharp Sickle.”
- Revelation 14:14–16
Sapphire
From the tree line, Ihave the best seat in the house for myfather’s murder.
There is the dull roar of the ocean. The clashing of metal. And then, silence. My father’s silence. On his knees. Bent forward. A sickle cracking into his spine, sinking into his right lung.
They say his mind protected itself by splitting new personalities when he was just a child. Trauma is enough to kill a person, especially when we are little. As I watch the head of my family cut down at the edge of the sea, I wonder if I’m going to split too. This has to be it. Nothing on this earth can be worse than this.
I think Niklaus says my name. Wraps his arms around my upper body.
I think my eyes dry out from not blinking.
My world goes mute as I watch my mother scream, dropping to her knees and cradling my father in her lap. How could there be so much blood? It’s a river pouring over her legs.
My body shakes uncontrollably as Uncle Niles rolls through the sand and rushing water to put out his body swathed in flames. Niklaus goes tight around me. DaiSzek slaughters the soldiers still fighting. My mother never lets go of my father.
Her screams are forever. They’ll survive through new eras of destruction. That pain will never go away. It will outlive us all.
“Help him! Save him!”
I’m so dehydrated. I don’t know how tears have managed to wet my cheeks and drip down to my collarbone.
“I’ll love you until hell freezes over.”
My knees buckle. There is just—so much blood.
And it all happens so fast. They carry Niles’s writhing, burned body away. My father stops breathing, stop moving. My mother listens for his heartbeat in denial. Everyone watches. Their faces twist with pity and horror. Her hands are bloody, and she stares at them as if her mind simply can’t process the color. DaiSzek guards my father’s body, howling like a wounded puppy.
My mother says so many things that gut me.
Things like, “Bring him back to me! We hardly had any time. His body is still warm! Please, don’t be dead!”
I’ve never seen her like this. She’s always so well put together, so poised and composed. I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen her cry. Maybe a little sad? But she’s hid it so well for her children. We’ve never tasted this level of anguish she’s known. How has she been able to keep this from me for so long?
