“I wish to help you,” I say, holding Dante tighter as he groans. “But I must heal my Dante first.”
“Dannnntee,” Zynath attempts to say. But much like me, he has not been given the gift of human language. “He is like the other? Commander Rathyn’s companion?”
I nod. “Yes.”
Though he is nothing like Everest, but that is a subtle detail I do not expect my brothers to understand just yet. The same way humans view all Vyastil as monsters, we feel the same about them.
“I met him,” Zynath says after a long moment. “He was…kind. He spoke to me as if I mattered. He openly defied the princes.”
And he paid for that, but I do not speak those words.
“Allow me to heal my Dante,” I say again. “Do not call the guards?—”
“We will not,” Alvayn says quickly, touching his lips, then pressing his fingers to his chest in our most solemn vow. Hesteps forward and places his hand against the side of my neck, touching me for the first time.
It nearly breaks me.
It has been so long since I have felt any connection with a Vyastil. No matter how kind Quilliyn has been, or how tolerant Rathyn has become, they are not mine. Not my family.
Alvayn is.
“We did not agree with your sentence, Cielo,” he murmurs. “We feared the worst for you.”
“And yet it seems as though you bear the brunt of my punishment,” I tell him. Dante groans again, and I see that once more, he is sweating. “Do everything you can to remain in the village. I will heal him and take him back to Earth, and then…and then I will come for you.”
“Cielo,” Zynath starts.
“I will not force you, but I can promise you that there is a better life there. Missing Erethar is painful, but there is hope that it will not be forever. That somehow things here will change. For all of us.”
Zynath stares at me, then looks over at Alvayn. Their exchange is silent, but eventually he looks back at me. “Go.”
It is not an agreement, but it is also not a refusal. I nod, wishing to press foreheads with them, but there is no time. I must save my Dante.
And after that, I will see how I can save my people.
twenty-five
DANTE
I’m only vaguely aware of moving. It feels a little like the pain is actually going to kill me this time. When the flares first started, they used to cause surges of adrenaline that would turn into panic attacks.
My heart would race, and I’d sweat, and for a while, I truly believed I was going to die. But then I got used to it. I acclimated myself to the agony, knowing that it would pass.
And it always did.
But this feels like it’s going to be my constant. My forever. That somehow, I’ve made all the wrong choices and have broken myself for good.
I don’t remember much about traveling through the portal. The pain is eclipsing my awareness so that I only noticed I was being literally cradled by the ground when I could no longer see Cielo in the distance.
For a while, it was comforting, but the farther away he walked, the more afraid I became. I trusted him when he said nothing could hurt me, but I couldn’t stand the distance.
I walked on autopilot, following what I swear was the scent of him in the air, and that’s when I saw the two other Vyastil.The moment looked tense, and I felt real fear, but then I was in his arms again, and the fog settled over my brain.
I know we’re moving, but all I can think about is the way my nerves are on fire. I want to throw up, but I don’t have the strength to do anything except flop against his chest as he runs. We pass by gorgeous trees and glowing mushrooms, strange bird-looking things startling from the branches as Cielo’s massive body disturbs them.
And then…then it’s dark again. And cool.
It smells like earth and damp and something else I can’t quite name. And it’s only as we venture further that I realize I’m hearing a soft, trilling melody, and it’s coming from the walls.
