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I had saved her from monsters.
Her words cut through the grumbling roar of the ground as it shook and broke. Her horror filled eyes staring; digging into me sharper than even my own blades.
“I’m not a monster!” I tried to yell the words at her, but they were lost on the sound of the world as it rattled and roared. Without looking back, she raced from the ever widening hole in the ground and back toward the Qit.
The magic of vio. That was what I had taken from my great-grandfather, Theadore. It was ripping through me, taking all of the pain and splitting through the soil in a giant gash.
“Jayse!” I screamed her name, still she didn’t turn. My voice was nothing but another noise rumbling and mixing with the scream of the world, with the scream of pain that was ripping me apart.
I had always kept Jayse protected, kept her safe, even from me. I had placed her behind walls, but now those walls were gone. Now, not only did she realize exactly what I was, but I realized what she was. Everything that she was to me.
I couldn’t lose her, not after everything. Not after an entire life of her by my side. She was the last thing I had. The only thing that mattered. I needed her to know it was an accident, that I had simply lost control. Just like now.
I forced out a breath, forced all that breaking, ripping agony that was shredding at my chest back in. This new magic would destroy everything if I would let it, but I wouldn’t let it. Not now, anyway.
Thankfully, the grinding scream of the world slowed, the shaking rumbling to a groan that rattled from everywhere before it drifted off into silence.
By the time it did, however, Jayse was gone, leaving me standing alone on the far side of a gap in the ground that had swallowed trees and brush and part of the road. The maw that the new magic had created stretched far enough I could not jump the distance, and deep enough I could not scale it.
Feet and hands slick from blood, I scrambled my way around the opening, cutting over rocks and through the scrub brush that lined the beaches as best as I could in an attempt to reach the ferry I was sure had already left. I didn’t care, I needed to reach her, I needed to explain, and I would swim to the Qit if need be.
I needed to tell her about Jack, how it had been an accident, how it was the first time I lost control of my magic and it had actually sent me back thirty years. I had spent a life training to kill, to fight, and when I walked back in on the scene it was to Jayse, staring at my back as Jack faded into nothing. She hadn’t recognized me through the dark cloak, so when the me from the past ran I grabbed Jayse, giving myself time to escape. That hadn’t been my intent, however, I had wanted to stop it. I had wanted to save Jack.
I had failed in that, but I was not too late to cover for myself. To blame the man who had truly been at fault, and to explain away what she had seen.
I needed her to know. I needed her to understand.
My cloak and breeches caught against the underbrush as I raced around the end of the gap to what remained of the road, most of it having fallen away and been devoured by the powerful vio magic that had exploded out of me. The ground shifted as though it would fall away more as I bolted down the dirt road, a plume of brown and gray exploding behind me. If only I had any time left to use, to rewind all of this and stop her from seeing me, to stop her from running. I had none left.
It was only my terror that pulled me down the path at impossible speeds.
By the time I reached the pier, Tayln was there, his ferry bobbing against the waves. He stood at the entrance to the small boat, one of the long spears the Wave Walkers used for the big fish in his hands.
“I need to cross,” I said before I even reached him. He shifted his weight, holding that sharp barbed end out to me.
“Not anymore. You’re not welcome here.” The end of the weapon was still as he pressed it against my chest, the sharp point digging into my tunic. It pressed through the fabric with a pop, the sharp point painful against my skin as it threatened to cut into it.
“I need to speak to Jayse.” Even I heard the break in my voice, the same crack rippling against my torso as something deep inside me broke. Something I hadn’t felt since I watched Lily drift into the waves.
“She has no interest in that, not anymore.”
“But I–”
“You killed that little boy, Caspyn. You killed Jack. We all watched out for those two after the fever took their parents, and you killed ‘im. I’d wager you killed a lot more, too.” There was nothing I could say to that. I stood there, covered in blood, the memory of all the other times I had shown up to his ferry covered in deep reds or purples sparking in my mind. He had said nothing for years, and he had warned me it was all coming to an end.
“We will do anything to protect our kind.” He pressed the sharpened tip of the fishing spear harder against my chest, the warm wet beginning to trickle as pain blossomed there, I didn’t even flinch.
“But I am–”
“Not anymore,” Tayln pressed the point against me with a kick that forced me to step back lest the sharp blade slice deep. The pier rocked underneath me as I landed with a thud against the aged, damp wood and Tayln kicked off from the pier.
His hard eyes narrowed in a disgust I had never seen from him as his ferry gave a lurch, the ropes that they used to pull across the waves moving all on their own as the ferry moved back toward the Qit.
They were pulling him in. They were pulling both of the ferry’s in.
“I warned you, Caspyn,” Tayln said, still pointing the weapon as his ferry rocked on the increasing wake.
“But this is my home.” The words were shattered as an unwanted pain crisscrossed against my chest, the slices of something I hadn’t felt since I was a child threatening to cleave me into a million pieces. I gasped against the pain, trying to say the words again, but it didn’t matter, I was not loud enough for anything I said to reach him.
