Dumbfounded, they exchange a word I can’t hear, and then they lunge for us. Sprinting full speed. They’re smarter than they look. One dives for my feet to knock me over. The other tackles Alia.
I’m blinded by the man on top of me. He’s got both my hands locked over my head and is fumbling for his pistol.
I can’t see Alia; I can only hear the grunts of the guard demanding she stay still. The man on top of me gets a hand on his gun, and rather than drawing the trigger, he flings it back, ready to slam the cool metal down on my temple.
“Villieldr!”I spit in his face. The man hesitates. But with his delay, my skin grows hot with wildfire, turning purple in the night.
“Yeow!” the man yelps as welts form on his palm where he was pinning my wrists together. He rips his hand away and falls back, sending his pistol flying into the grass.
“Ómegin! Rata!”I shout at him, spelling him to sleep like the guards before.
Skin still sparking with flame, I roll onto my feet and survey Alia’s situation. She’s kicked the guard off and disarmed him of his gun and hat. There’s a huge rip in her dress, bigger than before, and both her legs flash white in the dark as she stumbles up from her knees, clearly trying to go for something in the grass—the pistol.
The guard, sloppy on his feet, goes for it too. He’s longer in every way than Alia—taller frame, lankier arms—and I know he’ll get there first even with her apparent speed.
“Ómegin! Rata!”I shout at him. But he’s too far from me—the new breeze grabbing my words and lifting them away—and stays upright.
I sprint after him.“Villiedlr! Vindr!”I thrust both arms out in front of me, aimed at the guard.
A wind rustles up within me, and it takes every lick of concentration I have to funnel that strength so that it blows the wildfire from my skin, through the space between us and to the broad back that lurches for the unseen pistol in the grass.
The fire scalds his back in a jet of purple flame. The man screams and falls to the ground, desperately trying to extinguish the fire from the tip of his head to the soles of his well-heeled boots—now likely binding with his skin.
Alia grabs the pistol and shows it to me over her head. She’s trying to scream something, eyes frantic.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
She can’t see someone else die.
But I need to make sure she’s free.
When she’s clear of the guard and running my direction, I call off the spell and hex him with the sleep spell I’ve used on the other guards—“Ómegin. Rata.”
The guard stops writhing on the ground, his mind drifting off, away from the pain I’ve caused.
Alia doubles over, catching her breath. She raises a hand to show she’s all right, and I realize I should do what she did—grab the pistol off my man. Any ammunition too.
The guard who attacked me is facedown in the grass several feet away. I crouch gently, breathing hard, and considering how loud we’ve just been, I mutter another round of“Ómegin. Rata,”to reinforce his sleep. I grab his pistol, and we begin our trek again.
Alia’s previously smooth stride has an inescapable hitch in it, blood staining her leg through yet another rip in her dress. She still moves better than I do, all things considered. We stay silent as we move toward the copse in the distance. It’s clear now that no more guards are rushing down the side of the mountain for us. Most likely, if any of them witnessed that, they’re doubling back for reinforcements. I know this might mean we have someone tailing us, but I need this silence. I need to believe we’re alone. Beside me, as we slow, Alia’s breath has grown shallow. Light.
The stand of trees breaks the silence between us and around us. Gulls call to low gray clouds as the morning tide sweeps in, the ocean roaring to life with its endless, undeniable movement. Just feet from where we stand, the rolling countryside abruptly falls away, giving itself to the ocean in the form of a steep cliff face.
I don’t negotiate as she sits down on the edge of the cliff. It’s a wonky, south-but-east rotation to this jut of land, and beyond it is a deep blue line, separating where the water meets the sky, the night meeting the day. Alia pats the ground next to her, exposing the gash on her leg to the salt air. A lump forms in my throat. When I sit, Alia smiles and tears a piece of cloth from her dress, attempting to tie it around her calf. I add my hands to the problem and eventually take over as her fingers fumble—I have a much better angle to tie such a thing.
How are you feeling?she asks and places a careful hand against my head, turning it so she can see what happened to me. Her fingers are gentle as she inspects it, not pulling on the hair that’s dried over the wound, blood clotting it all into a bird’s nest of black-red and ink-ruined strawberry blond. She nudges my chin up with a crooked finger. There’s a smirk on her lips.It makes your hair look better, actually.
I cough out a laugh and sigh. The heaviness pressing down on my shoulders is enough that I think I might sink through this cliff, through the ocean, and melt into thecore of the earth. When I can’t stand it anymore—the silence, the hope—my lips begin to tremble, and I can hear my voice going high enough that it threatens to erase itself into mere mouthed words too. But Alia presses a finger to my lips before I can begin.
I forgive you. I know you thought killing Niklas was right.
I’m sorry I’m the reason you will live in this body.
I hope you come to love it.
“No! No, we can fix this. No. Don’t say that. You’re just tired. You’ve lost blood. The sun is coming up and it’ll be all right. You’ll be all right. Two sides of a coin—me and you. That’s how it’s meant to be.”
Alia brushes a strand of hair off my face.
