The firelight doesn’t stop, though, and that’s how I know I’m still alive and on Mount Gandhak. They pound me, throwing my body to and fro like a ship lost at sea. Each time my leg is jostled, intense pain wells and splinters through me.
The lights accumulate into one big ball of fire. I’m not lost at sea. I’m sinking. Red blazes over my arm, diving into each vein, each vein that pops out as if it’s the tracks of lava running down this volcano. A putrid variation of reds swells and lashes out. My skin puffs in fluorescent hues. I…my arm can’t take any more. My own blood is too full of magic.
Snap.My left arm breaks in what feels like a dozen places. From skin to muscle to bone, I’m being torn apart. My screams swallow all other noise, all other twig-sounding snaps.
Adraa. You must keep going!Erif’s voice yells inside my head.
The heat rises and it’s not just my arm anymore. My shoulder blazes. I tear at my neck, which feels like someone is cutting into me, branding me. When the pain hits my face I’m nothing but screams. It’s too much.Make it stop. I can’t breathe.
Adraa! I’m doing what I can, but you have to keep casting. You have to keep casting.
I raise my arm. I try to say the spell. It falls from my lips in a whimpering stutter.No.
If you ever have had a destiny, it is this. So be a witch and cast.
“Help him! Help Jatin. If you are a Goddess help us.”
Sometimes one must die so others can live. It’s you and him or millions of lives. Fight this.
“Erif Yatana Agni—”My voice cracks.
Adraa.
I chant. I chant through the razor blades ripping at my throat. I motion in the dirt what needs to happen. I have to keep absorbing my magic even if my soul flees back to the red room with Erif. For what feels like hours, red coats me in pain as I chant. Dying the first time was so much easier. But I guess it’s always easier to die when you don’t expect it. Knowing is much more terrifying.
But I can’t think that. If I stop the volcano someone will come for Jatin; someone else will save him. If I stop the volcano my country won’t burn alive. And so I chant.
I don’t black out from the burnout overwhelming my consciousness. Years ago I learned to push myself beyond burnout and keep going, to stay awake. Now I wish for the unconsciousness, for the end. The pain both steals time and elongates it into torturous, immeasurable moments. In one last effort, I roll to where I last saw Jatin. I stretch my right arm until I’m touching his hand. He feels like ice, what I imagine death feels like. Maybe I am ice. Or maybe I am fire.
Either way he can’t be gone, he can’t. I continue to chant.
Adraa! You can stop. I think. I think…
I mutter, moving my lips endlessly even though there cannot be any noise coming out of me now. Feet crunch in the slush beside me, and then stop. Thank Gods! We are saved. Then dark-green shoes eclipse my view of Jatin. Slowly, the figure squats down next to me.
“I knew you were special.”
No! Not him. Not him. I try to move, but it’s useless. I’mbroken.
“And somehow I just knew you would regret rejecting my offer.”
Tears stream down my face until finally I greet the darkness and the numbness of black. It’s over or I am.
Adraa?
Adraa…
I open my eyes. Then wish I hadn’t. It feels like a pike is trying to split my head in two. I blink and try to rise. My head pounds even harder. My arms ache as if my bones have dissolved.
“He’s awake!” someone shouts. Doors open, close, slam. Cheers sound in the hallway.What is happening?
Suddenly, the bed sags and my father comes into view, leaning toward me. “Jatin? Thank Gods. How do you feel?”
I peer into my father’s face. “Ah, my head is killing me. What happened?”
“Mukleah,”he casts, and blue smoke unleashes from his hands and dives into my forehead. “I was hoping to ask you the same thing. But don’t worry about that right now. How are you feeling? Everything okay besides the head? You broke four ribs, though they should be healed, and you have some bad bruises and, of course, a bad burnout. But other than that…”
Burned out. That’s what happened. I burned out. My kurta is gone and a white bandage wraps around my torso. Sorting dreams from reality is one of the hardest things to do. Especially the kind of reality I last remember. Heat sucking at the air. Sweat beating down. Lava coming for us. Falling. And Adraa back from the dead and right next to me…
