The targeted sharpness of pain spread wider and climbed higher until my whole torso flamed in beat with my pulse.
Staggering back, her bottom lip quivering, her tears mixing with the downpour, Kali released the knife sunken below my ribs.
But the cold drops couldn’t extinguish the burn skyrocketing inside me.
She had stabbed me.
And it was my fault. I was the one who had marched into her circle when she was going through her training sequences.I was the one who had failed to heed Zion’s warning not to come too close. I was the one who had taken that final step toward her right when she had turned around, her weapon at the ready.
Yet she was the one who now lowered to the grass, the ocean of green blades cushioning her fall. Her gut-wrenching scream pierced the moving wall of water, the howl as excruciating as the grooves she clawed in the earth, the sound more severe than the edges of steel cutting apart the tendons and organs inside me.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Zion chanted, his hair plastered to his scalp, errant strands glued to his forehead. My fingertips tingled with the need to brush them away.
Carefully tearing my shirt around the knife embedded in my flesh, he probed the wound until a wave of sticky warmth washed down my front and soaked into my pants. “Fuck, it’s in there deep. We have to get you back to the compound.”
“No,” I objected, my resolve as steady as the ebb of my strength. I slumped to the ground with a groan, my peripherals darkening from a jolt of pain so harsh it paralyzed me. I willed and willed my muscles to move and get me back up, but they refused to work, weakness rendering them useless. “Kali, look at me.”
Sitting on her heels, she clenched her fists on her thighs hard enough to cause damage. All color had left her complexion, her fair skin as colorless as raindrops.
I could not let her blame herself for this. I knew she had not done it on purpose. This was a stupid accident, and I was not going to allow her to pay for it. She had paid for too many things in this life already. Neither my life nor death was going to fall on her shoulders.
“Look at me,” I growled, choking at the burst of red-hot sparks in my stomach.
“Gedeon, I—” Jumping to me, she stroked my shoulders, my neck, my chest, and then repeated the cycle, her eyes reddening. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“Little death—” Speaking caused my core to tighten, and the sparks of ache grew white hot. A bout of coughing shook me like an earthquake. The bed of mud underneath me chilled my legs, soaking through my jeans until my lower body froze into icicles.
“No, don’t say that. I’m not your death. No, no,no.” She yanked on her hair, rocking back and forth on her heels. “I can’t lose you too. No, please, gods, no.”
“Kali.” Mustering the last dregs of energy, I cupped her cheek. “Do not blame yourself for this. Believe me, you are the death I would gladly succumb to, but this is not your fault. It’s truly not. I saw you training and walked into your path.” Laughter bubbled out of me. “I keep telling you not to go into danger without a clear head, and look at what I did myself. Like I have said, sleep deprivation will do you no good.”
Shaking her head, she raised her pleading eyes to Zion. “Make him stop. He can’t say things like that. Please, please, make him stop.”
“Gedeon.” Zion flanked my free side. Dirt splattered as his knees hit the soil. “Let us take you back.”
“No.” Softly, I smiled at Kali nuzzling my palm before peppering it with gentle kisses. “You have to go back alone. Tell them we were attacked. Tell everyone Zion and I told you to run.”
“What?” She crushed my hand in her grasp. “I won’t leave you here to die. You can’t ask me that.”
“You have to. Zion was right; we are on the cusp of collapse. Our own people are slowly dividing into factions. If you bring me back, and I die there, everything will fall apart. They won’t let Zion or you lead. Opposing groups will want to take thereins. It will be chaos. Everything we worked for will be for nothing if fights break out.” I breathed through another cramp, savoring the raindrops pattering down on me in a soothing flow. “You have to go to war. Tell our people Ilasall ambushed us. Tell them they took me. They will believe you. Fear will make them follow you. Zion will take care of the rest.”
My gaze strayed to him. Although I had never seen him so lost before, he dipped his chin in agreement.
“I can’t.” Her face dropped, her expression as wild as the morning storm. “You won’t die. I can’t let you. Iwon’tlet you.”
“Go,” I ordered as the trees around me blurred. The forest was swirling, the naked branches of trees bending into waves, and I blinked rapidly, trying to shake it off. “Go!”
Shaking, she rose. “I….” Her eyes darted from me to Zion.
“Do as he says,” he grunted, ripping off his shirt. Wrapping it around the increment of steel poking out of my flesh, he yelled, “Run!”
She jerked at his bark, but it seemed to do the trick. Her feet moved backward before she turned, bolting across the clearing, sprinting back to our compound, not daring to glance back.
Her tall figure disappeared in the treeline, swallowed by the gloom drowning our reality. As if nature had suspected what was going to happen and had prepared the forest for it.
“This is bad. You’re bleeding too much, even with the knife still inside you.” Zion pressed his shirt harder against my abdomen. “I don’t—” He gulped. “I don’t think?—”
“I know,” I interrupted him. “That’s why I told her to get away. She cannot take it, not now, not so soon after Alora.” I ran my knuckles down his neck, searching for his pulse, its rush so fast his ribs were going to fracture from his heartbeats.
