Perhaps the afterlife has always been the only place a Tashiri girl and Vanzadorian boy can be together.
The thought brings the tiniest smile to my lips, but pain obliterates it a second later—bone-crushing, earth-shattering pain that starts in the soles of my feet and spirals up my ankles. It cleaves through my calves, thighs, and hips, exactly how I expected slamming into the ground at the base of the mountain would feel, except I hoped not to feel it. I assumed death would claim me on impact, but I’m in far too muchpain to be dead.
My legs are pulsing, my back is hot and tingling, and when I manage to crack my eyes, I decide they must be damaged too, because what I see doesn’t make sense. Rowenna and I are sprawled across a smooth slab of stone, rather than shattered across boulders and scrub oak. And while the wind continues to blow, my hair streams down my back instead of up around my face. The sheer cliff wall seems to be moving perplexingly downward. Something that could only happen ifIwas surging upward.
My heart somersaults, and disbelieving laughter spills from my lips, because there’s only one way a slab of stone could be moving contrary to the laws of nature. Only one way rock could burst from the mountainside and catch me out of thin air.
“Alaric!” His name is a laugh, a cry, a prayer on my lips. I can’t stop saying it as the stone slab reaches the summit and dumps me back into the scree before returning to the earth, just as quickly as it appeared.
I tumble to a stop, and Rowenna’s lifeless body lands beside me. I stare at her blank face and unseeing eyes, and my eyes finally flood with tears. In part because she’s really, truly gone this time, but more so because she’shere. Because Alaric caught her too. He knew it’s what I’d want, despite everything.
With a painful grunt, I push up to my knees and squint across the summit, praying I’ll find him alive and conscious, maybe even sitting up. But he’s precisely where I left him, face down in the red-black puddle of blood. The only change is that one arm is extended, fist clenched. Proof he moved the earth to save me, though I still can’t fathom where he found the strength. He was already so close to death.
Elodie is kneeling beside him, flapping her hands and crying hysterically. “You have to wake up! I can’t carry you down the mountain, and I can’t just leave you to die. Too many people have died today already.”
My body screams with pain as I hobble closer, but it’s nothing compared to the other feelings exploding in my chest—feelings of love, joy, relief, and regret, but most of all profound gratitude for these twopeople who risked everything for me. Who sacrificed everything for me.
“Elodie!” The sound is a rasp in my throat, but somehow she hears it and turns.
Her mouth drops open, and now she’s crying even harder, tripping over herself as she runs toward me. “Indira! H-how is this possible? How did you survive?”
“Alaric moved the earth and caught me,” I say as I fall into her arms.
We sink awkwardly to the ground, both of us crying too hard to speak, holding on to each other like neither quite believes the other is real.
When I finally catch my breath, I pull back and grip Elodie by the shoulders, so I can look into her brave, beautiful face. “Thank you for saving my life.”
“Alaric is who really saved you. I was too late.”
“Your timing was perfect. You did what I couldn’t. You…” I steal a glance back at Rowenna, and an awful, strangled noise escapes my throat.
“I didn’t mean to kill her,” Elodie admits. “I just saw her driving you toward the edge, and instinct took over. I saw the stones, and it felt like they’d been placed there by fate—the one weapon I was equipped to use. I didn’t mean to hit her so hard.”
“Thank you.” I cut Elodie off with a hug. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough. I just don’t understand how you’re here. How did you know where to find me?”
Elodie wipes snot and tears across the back of her arm without a thought for her gloves or dress. “I followed Delphine.” Elodie watches me as she says the name, gauging my reaction. “She was acting so strange—all of you were—but when she excused herself from the queen’s gala preparations, I knew something was afoot. She’d been having such a grand time barking orders and overseeing plans. She wouldn’t have left—and she certainly wouldn’t have delegated authority tome—if it wasn’t something important. So I excused myself and followed her. I’m a much slower climber, though, so I saw her running back down the mountain as I was coming up. She didn’t see me, and I didn’t stop herto ask what happened, but she seemed to be in a hurry.”
“She was working with my sister,” I say flatly. “They were using me to get close to Alaric’s power—so Rowenna could cut the gemstones from his wrist and take them back to Tashir.”
“Is that why he’s so injured?” Elodie looks over her shoulder at him. “Rowenna attacked him?”
I bite my lip and look down. “No, that was me…when I believed my sister’s lies.”
“I see,” Elodie says gently. “But I don’t see why Delphine would help your sister. She hated Rowenna.”
“She did. But Ro is the reason Delphine’s sister has been sick. Ro was using the girl as blackmail to force Delphine’s cooperation, so I understand why she initially betrayed me. But I don’t understand why she ran away instead of trying to help me once everything was out in the open.”
A sniffle escapes me, which feels utterly ridiculous. Of all the people who’ve betrayed me and things I have to cry about, a maid should hurt the least. But we shared so much. I thought we were friends.
“She said we werefamily,” I blubber, “and now she’s gone. They’re all gone.” I gesture back at Rowenna and over to Alaric, each loss more crushing.
Elodie takes my hand. “I’ll be your family. So will Alaric.”
“Not if he’s dead.” I peer at him over Elodie’s shoulder, lying completely still. I can’t even tell if he’s breathing, and I can’t bring myself to check. If he’s gone, it will shatter me, and there are already so few solid pieces left.
“Come on. I’ll be right there with you,” Elodie says. When I still don’t move, she adds, “Whether he’s alive or dead, you still want to take care of him, right?”
With a painful cry, I nod and let her lead me to where Alaric lies. I drop heavily to my knees and take his outstretched hand. It’s heavy and cold, and he doesn’t react, no matter how hard I squeeze.
