By the time we make it to the court chamber, every last hell has broken loose.
What in the—?The scene that greets us is so gruesome and chaotic, I hardly know where to look. The Shades bleeding, the typics screaming, the shadows around them curling like a bolt of hot silk, and at the heart of it all, a storm of color and a roar of outrage. Ezzo, charging into the midst of the churning rainbow, a knife clasped in his hand and a zealot almost within his reach.
“We need to help him!” I urge Akari forward, only to find that she’s already sped off in the opposite direction, towards where Cemmy is struggling to wrestle a needle out of—oh Gods, Saleen. I don’t know how she ended up on one of Adriel’s tables, but judging by the way her head is lolling and her skin has paled, she’s been there long enough to have lost a lot of blood.
Akari’s got her—go help Ezzo.I start running, though I’m barely to the ring of tables when a crash of thunder ripples across the court, Adriel’s power rearing up in retaliation.No, no, no, no.A whip and a crack later, Ezzo’s flying through the air, a strangled mix of pain and surprise ripping from his throat. When his body slams down to the blackened marble, he doesn’t get back up.
Son of a—
I don’t think, I just move, rushing towards the knife that slipped from between his fingers.
“Forget the knife, Raya. Adriel’s weakness is color!” Chase yells from across the room, where he’s hunched, inexplicably, over what appears to be a dead Alara. “You need to hit him with charms!”
But I don’t have any charms; the only color I have is running through my blood—and even if Adriel’s void wasn’t suppressing it, I don’t have an active power.
Though you do have a renowned legacy.The idea that strikes me is so simple, so reckless, that I don’t doubt, for a second, that it could work. I am Raya Wryvern, after all, the daughter of an esteemed line of undiluted Indigo—the most powerful Indigo the Academy’s seen in years—and this wouldn’t require me to ask a single question. There’s literally no way for me to get it wrong.
Unless I lose my mettle.The main problem with this idea is that it has a cost, the potential to end deadly.Yeah, well, so does not doing it.I refuse to allow myself any more time for thought.
I can’t think aboutmeright now.
I can’t think about Saleen, or about Akari, or about how Ezzo’s still slumped lifelessly against the wall, about how desperately I want to go and check if he’s still breathing.
I have to think about the shadows.
Because the future’s shown me where this story ends if we don’t stop Adriel, and what’s the point of seeing the future if you can’t change it, and if you can change it, then was it ever the future at all?
Except for the fact it was.
Except for the fact that thousands will die if I don’t find the strength to pick up the knife, slice my palm open, and make one last-ditch attempt at destroying the void.
“Adriel, I’m—I don’t have any charms or a weapon, I just want to talk.” I approach him slowly, deliberately, counting on his hubris to mask the danger a single Shade can pose, the cut hidden beneath the hem of my sleeve.
“You should save your breath, full-blood, savor your last few minutes on earth,” he says, though once he sees that my hands are, indeed, empty, his curiosity piques and his guard lowers. “Orperhaps you still believe you can change my mind? Convince me to spare your kind?”
“Can I?” I take another step towards him, letting him lead the conversation wherever he wants.
“No, though I applaud the effort. You and your friends have certainly proven to be more of a hindrance than I first thought. A truly valiant showing.”
“Then will you at least let us go?” Another step, then another, closing the gap between us until the deadening buzz of his power silences everything but the race of my pulse. “It would be nice to say goodbye to our families.”
“Ah, I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” he says, voice dripping with feigned remorse.
“Oh, okay.” One final step brings me close enough to drop the ruse. “Well, in that case,this is for Killen—” I spring before he can see it coming, thrusting my palm upward so that the blood will get into his eyes, mouth, and nose.
The effects are as devastating as they are immediate. Until now, the color in this room has been mostly contained in acolytes, initiates, needles, and tubes, kept at a sterile distance. Whereas now, it’s on him—in him—and when presented with such a rich supply of Indigo, the void in his veins can’t help but do exactly what it was born to do.
Consume color.
Just as I’d hoped.
Though maybe not quite so violently.The second I make contact, I realize that there’ll be no letting go, that I couldn’t, even if I tried to—that Adriel can’t either, no matter how hard or desperately he fights to claw me off. His power is stronger than both of us, and it’s tugging, and wrenching, and sucking the color right out of my bones—right out of my marrow. Until my pain is his pain and our screams are the only sound left in the world. Until the room dims and the shadows quiet and I go from feeling everything to feeling nothing at all.
CHAPTER 35
EZZO
The space between life and death is quiet. It’s free from the screams, and the pain, and the crushing weight of responsibility; it’s free from the grief that’s been eating at me every day.
