The silence of the city pressed on her eardrums as every thought eddied from her head.
And in that silence, she began screaming.
Screaming and screaming and screaming.
From some faraway place, she saw herself. Kneeling in the rubble, shaking Darien—shaking what was left of him. Willing him to come back to life,begginganyone who might be listening to give him back.To take this back.Take itallback—
Her head swiveled left and right as she looked for something or someone—anything—that might fix this. That might make things right again.
“Help!” The single word broke in several places, like the crackle of the warning Darien had given her about the tower—as he’d ran for her with the sole intention of keeping her alive. Of making sure she would live—thatshewould live. Not him.Never him.
She couldn’t breathe.She couldn’t breathe.Her heart was drowning in the blood of all this hurt.
“HELLLLLPPP!Somebody!”The crackle of words drifted far and wide across the wreckage that was her city—her home. The place she’d always loved but had never quite belonged—the place she would love forever, until her mortal heart stopped beating.
Now, that city was nothing but a graveyard. A garden of remembrance.
A whimper tore out of her. “Anybody,” she whispered into the silence.
But no one answered. She was alone.
And Darien was dead.
—
Loren bent over to press a kiss to Darien’s mouth. The tears streaming down her face blinded her, lips wobbling against his.
“I’m sorry.” The apology crackled out of her, and she kissed his lifeless mouth again, hating her heart for still beating when his had ceased. “I’m so sorry.”
One magpie flew over the destruction of the city.
One for sorrow.
Setting Darien’s head down as gently as she could, she lurched to her feet. And in the silence, it was no longer the help of the living she called for, but something beyond.
“Please,” she tried. But her voice was a croak. She sucked in a deep breath.“PLEEEEAAAASE!”She stumbled through the rubble, head tipped back as she shouted at the sky, in a voice as shattered as her heart, “Take me.PLEASE, I BEG YOU. TAKE ME INSTEAD.”Her words turned into hoarse screams, with nothing but her own echo to answer her. “TAKE ME INSTEAD!I offer my life in his place,please! JUST LET HIM LIVE.”
No one answered. An eerie silence fell as the last rolling echo of her own voice rippled away. Even the replica of the Well was gone, the awful calls of the prima materia silenced.
Loren lifted her head, more tears falling down her cheeks as she blinked. As she remembered.
As sherealized.
“I can do it,” she whispered. Her heart was slamming in her chest, her shaking hands balling into fists at her sides. “I believe that I can find it—I believe inmyself. I can find the Well.I can find the Well.”TherealArcanum Well—the one she’d never had any desire to find.
Until now.
Closing her eyes tight, she called upon it. Throwing out every ounce of hope she had in her to find her father’s invention, to be able to use it to fix this—to bring Darien back. She wasn’t sure how she would do it, but she would die trying, would submerge herself into the Well if it meant she could make him live again.
“I can do it,” she whispered again, her mouth trembling. “I can find the Well. Where are you?Where are you?”
Eyelids flying open, she pivoted in the rubble, looking.
“Whereareyouwhereareyouwhereareyou.”
A warm glow emanated from within her.
She spun around, looking for the source—for a beam of light or an indication that might tell her where to walk, where to look for the Well.
