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Of course, now all that magic would flare to life, now when it would only cause more chaos when I had only minutes.
“Please, I have to hurry,” I rasped, tucking my hands behind my skirts. “I need something for whips.”
“Adain,” Lari’s eyes didn’t deviate an inch from mine as she called out, the word meaning nothing.
“I need something for whippings.” I was still trying to hide my hands, something I was sure was going to be impossible soon with how everything was boiling.
I couldn’t stay there, and not only because there was a high chance I would explode something soon. Why did it wait for now to ignite?
“Don’t fret, child. Adain will help.” Lari’s pinched face was still staring as she knocked herself to the side and the cloaked woman who was rushing through the kitchen toward me.
My mother’s catalyst.
What was she doing here?
She wasn’t in her red robes, she was instead draped in a tattered gray wool cape, the frayed edges and seams pulled and gaping. She looked more like the beggars I had seen in the alleys of Turin on the few times I had been allowed out of the Runturin. I only recognized her because of the deep auburn color of her hair, because of the way the hood was pulled low over one side of her face.
“You best be going, Princess,” Lari said, pulling me from staring at the woman who was now staring back with all the worry I felt. “You don’t want the snakes to find you gone.”
“The snakes?” I questioned, even though I knew what she was talking about, having seen the white creatures wriggle on the black clad soldiers' tunics. But how did she know about them? I had never seen them before, and she seemed almost scared to even say their name.
I didn’t get to ask, my mother’s Catalyst, Adain, was pulling me toward the still open doorway to the passageway, her aged and lined face near a panic. Lari gave me one look, the fear there lined with something I didn’t recognize before I was fleeing back up the stairs.
“Clean that up, lad, cover the door!” Lari yelled, the door to the kitchens below shutting us into the dark.
Except it was not dark.
My hands were still glowing, the bright white light emanating not only from my palms, but from me. Every inch of my skin was glowing, the golden light rippling over the ebony stone in streaks of blazing light that made everything sparkle.
Adain froze, her foot on the step above as she turned to me, her bright green eye wide. I could only stare.
Would she tell my mother? Did I want her to tell my mother? I had risked showing her that power when I fought in the Pankreatin, but after seeing her face, after Batian’s reaction… it didn’t seem right.
“The Boy,” the words were a sob. “We have to hurry.”
Those wide eyes fixed on me for only a moment before she turned and continued to run up the spiral stairs, our feet slamming against stone with the same force of my heart against my chest.
The smell of blood flooded my senses the second we emerged back in my rooms. Thankfully the snakes, as Lari had called them, weren’t there. It didn’t appear anyone else was either. The sound of labored breathing and pained moans were silenced, it was only the faint sound of water from the other room.
“No!” I practically screamed, pushing past Adain to my rooms, to the Boy who lay motionless in his own dark blood.
“No!” Tears exploded from me, the heat and panic pushing against my skin as I raced to him, hands shaking as I turned him over.
“No! No!” The words kept exploding, the world kept shifting. I couldn’t get enough air. I wasn’t even sure air existed, even if I could breathe it in it was exploding through the painful hole that was ripping open in my chest.
“No!” The sobbed sound ripped out of that hole, Adain’s hands wrapping around mine as she got my attention, she gestured to him and to me before knocking her head toward the bathing chamber where water was still running into the porcelain tub.
“He’s gone.” She shook her head wildly in answer.
‘No.’ I looked at her in disbelief before she knocked her head again, gesturing for me to pick up his feet.
“He’s alive?” I whispered even as a sharp pain in my chest attempted to rip its way through me.
She nodded to me and then to his feet, her need clear. I did as she asked, his body limp and lifeless as we lifted him.
I tried not to think about how he didn’t stir, about how he made no noise as we carried him, even though my soul was trying to rip me in two, the burning heat still threatening to explode. I tried to lock it all away, lock away the pain that was everywhere.
He couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t be.
