“Yes,” I panted aloud. “Help – help… me. Please.” I needed it to smother the current. I poured every last bit of my willpower into that singular thought, directing it. Shaping it.
My chest split and the slumbering creature inside me cracked one eye open. It greeted me like an old friend, its wrath pouring out to dull the stream lashing across my skin. The current subsided, inch by inch. I whimpered in relief, my limbs sagging with the respite.
It was short-lived. Images flashed through my head, like a slide show on hyper speed. I struggled to press pause on a single one of them. It was all a blurry mess of faces I did not recognize and places I had never been. As quickly as the pictures came, they filtered out in a dazzling stream of light, leaving me clutching at my temples with a pounding headache.
Colors floated in my vision, crystalline and incandescent, as the pain dwindled and my other senses returned. My sight was crisp through the smog left behind by the lightning. I rose on shaky limbs like a new fawn and stretched my hands out before me, marveling at how similar yet different they looked.My fingers were slightly longer, my legs heavier, and when I ran my hands along my head, they caught on the tips of my ears. The pointed tips. Inside, my chest whirred with a power so vibrant, so fluorescent that it felt like it might rip through me at any second, demolishing everything in its path.
I breathed through the transition, focusing on my lungs expanding and contracting. Even the air smelled better, the night brisk and fresh. Something rustled behind me. I whirled around, my senses on overdrive, only to find… Lana.
She clutched at her chest, eyes wide with panic. I dropped to my knees before her as she wheezed for breath.
“Focus. Fight through it, Lana,” I urged, “Breathe and think of home.”
I didn’t dare touch her as she choked on nothing. She stretched forward, her fingers grasping at the snow, knuckles white, a pale glow coating her skin. She bared her teeth in anguish. I watched in amazement as her body changed, fingers stretching and ears lengthening. Her blue eyes flashed violet, and I shielded my own against the glare of a blazing golden arc. When the light dimmed, I found her eyes had returned to their normal pastel blue hue. Lana stared up at me, shock coloring her face. She was even more beautiful than she had been as a mortal.
“The Rite…” she breathed.
I stared down at my fingers for a second time, still as surprised as she was. “We made it. We… We’re elven.”
I helped Lana to her feet, holding onto her as she adjusted to the new weight of her bones. She pulled me to her, tears streaming down her face. I held her tightly. She was alive. I was alive. Against impossible odds, we had survived.
“The others?” she whispered. I let her go and we took a few steps to the side, to where we had last seen Moric and Rayna.
They were both sprawled on the snow, unmoving.
I blinked, sure that in a few seconds I would see Moric’s fingers twitch, his chest heaving as he rose onto his elbows. I waited, but he remained still. I dropped beside him, my hands roaming across the planes of his shoulders.
“Moric.” I shook him.
He did not stir.
“Moric, wake up.”
Lana had crossed to Rayna, checking for a pulse. She looked at me and shook her head. It couldn’t be.
Moric… Rayna… It just couldn’t be.
I shook him again, this time more violently. His neck rolled to the side, hazel eyes staring out unseeingly. Lana collapsed beside me, tears streaking silently down her cheeks. I didn’t understand why she was crying. Moric wasfine. His body just needed a minute to recuperate from the current. The pain had been intolerable. I knew how it felt. His body just needed time.
“Lirah.” Lana placed her hand on top of mine, where it rested on Moric’s shoulder. “He’s gone.”
“He’s not gone!” I snapped. “Just… give him a second.”
Lana swallowed. “He… he struggled with the earth magic.”
“No. We’ve been practicing. Heknewwhat to do.” I tried to keep my voice steady, but a sob ripped free from my throat unbidden.
I was not going to fail Moric like I had failed Anama. I was not going to let him die. I pushed at his chest, slamming my hands against his sternum. I lowered my lips to breathe air into his mouth and pumped his chest. He grew blurry beneath me, tears obscuring my vision. I wiped them away, hot, metallic anger coating my tongue.
This was not how the Rite was supposed to go. I was supposed to leave here with my friends, or not leave at all.
“Lirah.” Lana clutched at my wrist, and I whirled blazing eyes at her.
I wrenched my wrist from her grip. “Why are you trying to stop me from saving him?”
The heartbreak on her face cleaved something inside me. She drew her hand up my arm, pulling me toward her. I let her, my face crumpling as I finally registered just how pale and cold Moric had become. The spark in his hazel eyes had been extinguished. He would never return to Foulkan or make maps for his brother. He would never tease Lana or recite facts about Lortan. He would never leave these mountains. All the pain, all the worries that had plagued him, all his hopes and dreams and every thought he’d ever had, vanished in a wink. Snuffed out, like it had never existed.
And Rayna. Rayna had been so young. She should have had decades more to live. Now, there would be nothing left of her but her bones on this mountaintop, and a memory that would exist only in others.
