Today’s bloodshed and loss will haunt me forever, but for now, I open my senses and search for healers in the overwhelming field of Metal Mages Mother left behind. I feel the strong, liquid tide of their power in more than one place and know that at least some of the healers survived.
Our soldiers haven’t dared approach us, so I have to call out to the nearest ones. “Find me the healers!” To another group hovering not too far away, I shout, “Organize triage. Those who can wait, wait.”
“What about theirs?” one of the Sintans calls back.
“There is notheirs,” I answer in a tone that successfully conveys my loathing for that question. “I see no difference between dying Thalyrians.”
He pales and nods. He and his comrades rush to do my bidding.
To drive home my point—unity and all—to a group of Fisans that didn’t arrive with us, I say, “Put the injured on the left.” I point to the pockets of shade created by the rubble. “The dead go on the right.”
I don’t bother to ask if they brought any healers with them. Mother thinks she’s too omnipotent to ever need a healer for herself, and she doesn’t care about anyone else.
Instead of moving like I asked them to, the Fisans look at me like I’m a ghost. They’re a good decade older than I am, which means they might have known me as a child. A child in a cage. I’ve gone from a cage to wings. Is that fear in their eyes, or pity that I’ll never be able to fly away and be free?
I give them a hard stare, and they vacate the vicinity within seconds. I know I must look like a monster. If I still had the brass-studded whip, it would definitely complete myDon’t mess with me, or I will annihilate youlook. Pent-up aggression seethes inside me, but my rage is directed inward. Maybe that’s the difference between the monster that is Mother, and the monster that is me.
With only Beta Team within earshot again, I say fiercely, “I did everything wrong.” I’m livid at myself, at my own irreversible choices. “I had the magic. I had a weapon. I could have ended her—ended all of this. Fifteen years ago, I could have stopped her. At Frostfire, I could have stopped her. Here, I could have stopped her, but I didn’t! Ineverdo!” I ball my hands into fists. I want to beat them down on myself. “Instead of ending it like I should have, I gave up the magic. I lost the bloody weapon!”
Griffin grips my shoulders, looking at me intently. “You did what you had to do, Cat. What you felt was right. You saved everyone you could.”
“I sacrificed the win.” I wrench from his grasp. “You know I did.”
His eyes search mine, their steely strength battering my divided soul. “Would you do it again?” he finally asks.
I turn away.And that’s the damn hard question, isn’t it?I don’t know.
For a few moments, I was a terrifying instrument of truth and vengeance. I saw the fear in Mother’s eyes. But instead of wielding the whip of justice against her like the Furies clearly meant me to, I used all that power to erect barriers in everyone else’s minds instead.
Why? Why did I do that?
“I should have ended it,” I say, my mouth as dry as ash. “It was the obvious choice. The objective one.”
Griffin doesn’t agree or disagree, but his eyes hold no censure, when I know they should.
Next to me, Kato reaches out and lightly touches the arch of one of my dark wings, drawing his battle-roughened finger down the fluttering edge of a bold, black feather. “Maybe you make other choices because it’s not your role to end it, Cat. Maybe that’s someone else’s job.”
Not my role?His words make hopefulness and disbelief grapple inside me, both of them trying to gain the upper hand. Doubt wins out since the burden seems to fall squarely on my shoulders. And I’ve done a bang-up job so far with a resounding tally of fail, fail, fail.
Still, I can’t help asking him, “Then what’s mine?”
The smile that spreads across Kato’s handsome face breaks my heart, and I don’t even know what it means. He seems to light from within, so bright he’s almost blinding.
“Thea mou,” he whispers.My Goddess.
My breath catches, but I shake my head. “Adelphe mou,” I whisper back.My brother.
Heartfelt words spoken in the old language always hold power, and I gasp as they squeeze my chest. Kato looks like he’s been struck by a lightning bolt. Then his eyes flick to the side, and his expression changes entirely. He rams into me, sending us both crashing to the ground.
My injured shoulder jars painfully, and I cry out. Before I understand what’s happening, I see the knife in his throat, feel his blood on me.
No!I rear up. Kato stays down. Blood spurts from his neck.
My mind refuses to believe what I’m seeing, but my heart instantly does. It shatters beat by beat. I press my hands around the blade. It’s my knife, the one I threw at Mother before she flew away. A Metal Mage must have thrown it back at me, but Kato intervened.
Blood gushes between my fingers, running in hot rivers over my hands.So much! Too fast!
People shout for a healer. Griffin is there. There’s noise and chaos all around me, but I only hear one thing—the wet clicking in Kato’s throat as he desperately tries to breathe.
