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Kaleb dropped to his knees, his body slumping just enough that I could see the arrow protruding out of his back, directly over his heart.
“Kaleb!” I screamed as I dropped in front of him.
His eyes met mine, his hand reaching for my cheek, as he brushed away a single tear. He tried to smile, but blood dribbled out from his mouth and his legs gave out.
I caught him before he collapsed completely. Soren helped me guide him to the ground. We positioned him on his side, and I leapt over top of him so I was facing his back. My hands frantically clamped around the arrow, trying to apply pressure to his wound, trying to stop the blood.
Another arrow whirled past, nearly missing me as it bit into the ground a few feet away, causing a spray of tiny rocks and dirt. I didn’t move when I heard another one whiz by because right now, the only thing that mattered was stopping Kaleb from bleeding out.
Soren jumped up, twirling, trying to locate the archer, but the archer’s arrow found him instead. He stumbled back. His hands wrapped around the shaft as he looked at me, white-eyed with horror.
My bloodstained hand shot out towards him, and a scream—my scream—shredded through my throat.
Cast in moonlight, soldiers—realsoldiers—began to fill in around us. Everywhere I looked, the king’s crest stared back at me. A soldier stalked up behind Soren, his sword raised.
“Look out!” I screamed, but it was too late. The soldier ran the pommel of his sword into the back of Soren’s head, and he crumpled to the ground. He grabbed Soren’s collar and dragged his unconscious body away from me.
I screamed something, I thought, but I could no longer hear sound—only a steady ringing in my ears followed by the frantic cleaving of my heart. This was not how it was supposed to go. I looked down at Kaleb. This wasn’t it . . .
Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.
Tears fell down my cheeks.
Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.
Hands ripped at me, trying to pull me away from Kaleb.
Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.
No—not again. I would not let them take him again.
Sound suddenly came filtering back and I called upon my Water Curse, but a bluish-purple fire answered instead—the color itself a dead match for the gaze of the moon.
The soldiers that held my arms scrambled away from me, screaming as they tried to remove the red-hot metal gauntlets before my flame welded it to their skin. The smell of singed flesh permeated the air, clogging my nostrils.
“She’s Cursed!” yelled one of them. I didn’t know which one. They all looked the same—wearing the emblem of the king.
“I am.” I embraced the word, reveling in this newfound power—in my Fire Curse.
The soldiers moved closer towards us slowly, cautiously.
My hand shot out, a trail of fire ripping through the ground, the flames spinning into monstrous waves, a serpent of flame that swallowed its tail. It birthed a ring of protection around Kaleb and me.
“Stay with me,” I pleaded, my trembling fingers wrapped around that arrow.
Blood. There was so much blood. No matter how hard I pressed, it just kept coming. It felt like there was no end. No end to the blood that seeped out of him.
“Want . . . to . . . see your face.” His voice was weak. “One . . . more time.”
Kaleb knew. He knew the very thing that I was struggling to comprehend—that he was dying. And there was nothing either of us could do—not even my shaking hands could stop the blood pooling from his back. He had accepted it and asked to see my face because that was the image he wanted to have before . . .
I knew what I had to do—knew that it was going to be the hardest thing I had ever done. I turned my head to the side, wiped away my tears with the back of my sleeve, and left the wound, knowing full well what abandoning it meant. But I also knew what staying there meant too—it would rob me of these last moments with him. Rob him of his last request.
I lay down beside him and took his hand and pressed it over my heart. “I’m here, Kaleb. I’m here now.”
And for a simple moment, we were little again—just two kids sitting by the window, waiting for Ezra to come home.
Von
