Page 80 of The Gods Will Sing Our Song

“Hey!” James steps close to me, squaring up. “You’re either with us or you’re one of the traitors. Which is it?”

I take a shallow breath, trying to be calm. James and his minions are jumpy and wired—I’m not about to bring their wrath down on me.

“Leave him alone,” Kai interjects. “He’s here to help.”

“He doesn’t have it in him,” James accuses.

“Ren has always had it in him.” Kai grins like we’re kids again and this just some sort of mischief we’re going to get into. “He doesn’t need to release the dragon, because he is the dragon.”

“Sure. Whatever. I’m going home, Kai.” I take a step forward. “You’re coming with me.”

“No,” he says. For once, there’s no humor or bravado or wildness in his voice. I stare at him. “I know what I’m doing, Ren. Don’t worry.”

He flashes the smile that always gets the girls swooning, but his eyes are as clear as a glass of water. He turns away from me, heading toward the skirmish. He’s always claimed to be a tiger, and never has he seemed more like one as he stalks forward through the desert. But I’m not leaving without him.

“Kai!” I shout. “Come on. Stop.”

Something whistles through the air and lands with a thunk. Gray clouds explode in plumes. My eyes burn. My throat spasms. A horrible stinging sensation spreads across my skin. I smell…pepper. Tear gas. I take a panicked breath. Makes things worse. Drags the sting deep into my lungs. My nose runs, my eyes weep. Feels like my brain is melting and leaking out of me, draining down my chin and onto the front of my shirt. I stumble forward. Something bright bursts through my vision.

Something else flickers overhead. I look up. Red bolts shoot through the looming shadows, connective points of electricity. I see my hand, floating just ahead of me, reaching for Kai.

But when I break through the smoke, he’s not there.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Violet

The deer guides me to Akira’s barrack.

I hesitate, almost too scared to keep going. Up ahead is the police post, and everyone converges on it. Whistles cut through the air and gas canisters explode in the dust, sending up plumes of dirt and noxious, stinging clouds. I cover my nose and my mouth with my hands, but my eyes burn. More and more people join in, running down the firebreaks to attack the police post. There’s a flash. I look up and almost cry out. Red spikes of lightning shoot through the dense clouds.

It’s happening.

I sprint the final distance to Akira’s barrack. Immediately, I know my deer is right. The barrack shakes. Every plank rattles. Thick shadows rise from it and flicker up toward the night sky. If they weren’t woven from darkness, they’d look like flames.

Suddenly, the deer quivers in my pocket. A panicked energy exudes from it. It flows in one direction, as definitive as a pointing finger.

Ren is out there.

The four words are so clear in my mind, I almost think I’ve heard them out loud. Ren is in the fray? Desperately, I stare down the firebreak at the mob. Men push a car straight toward the police post. Everything is doused in red light from Akira’s shadow. A voice screams from a loudspeaker, “Disperse! Disperse, or we will fire!”

Ren is out there.

And the only way to save him is to get to Akira’s barrack and stop this.

I rush up the shaking stairs and burst inside. When I enter, I let out a cry. It’s like I’ve stepped into a demon’s mouth. Everything inside the barrack is suffused in red angry light. Hot, panting breath twists through the room, but I can’t see where it comes from. It gushes sourly against my face, in and out, in and out. Or maybe it isn’t breath. Maybe it’s a heartbeat, one pulsing so hard and fast, it’s about to explode.

At its center is Akira. The shadowy hands claw at him, disappearing into his chest and emerging from his back like blades running him through.

The box. I need to put the relic I made inside his box. It’s on the bed. I stumble toward it. Suddenly, impossibly, the barrack jerks. Everything is fixed in place except me, and I’m sent tumbling violently against the wall. With a scream, I force my way forward again. The shadows leap from Akira to me. They subsume me, fill my lungs like liquid, and then shoot straight to my heart.

Restless is too small a word to encompass the agitation I feel, yet for once I understand the depths of the word completely. I think I must fight or flee or jump or claw, and if I don’t, I’ll die. My heart pounds faster and faster until a new hue of red tints everything. I have to keep going. I have to reach the box.

My fingers brush the glossy wood, and I flip open the lid.

A bright spike of blue light shoots up. It sears my eyes, bleaches my vision. The barrack tilts again, threatening to send me falling. I scream. My toes grapple with the barrack’s floor as it drops away beneath my feet.

With every bit of my strength, I thrust the relic into the box.