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“Alana, what have you done?” I whisper.
She tilts her head, blinking at me. For a fraction of a second, panic crosses her face. Panic chased by guilt. But then it is gone. She narrows her eyes at Garratt, then clicks her fingers. His mouth drops open, and a plume of purple smoke bursts from his lips. It spirals into the air and swirls round, and round, then dissipates.
Pria steadies him. Garratt frowns and shakes his head. He looks down at Elodie. “I... I don’t understand.”
“I took her life, and I took your pain.” Alana stalks towards him. I step between them, but she passes through me as if she doesn’t see me anymore. When she reaches Garratt, a ring of purple smoke coils around his throat and holds him still for her. Pria steps away. Alana raises her blade.
Eldrion says nothing.
“Alana...” I tug at her arm, but of course she feels nothing.
She hears me, I know she does, but she is choosing not to listen.
“I eased your pain for you, Garratt,” she says. Her voice is like poison and ice.
“Yes,” he mutters.
“But I can give it back again, tenfold. I can make it hurt so much you wish you were dead.” She snaps her fingers. The smoke around his throat creeps up towards his mouth. He slams his lips closed and tries desperately to hold them shut, but the smoke prises them open and makes him gag, and choke, and cough as it multiplies on his tongue and surges down his throat.
He drops to his knees. Elodie’s blood coats his hands. He skids on it, sits up, scrambles backwards. He’s sobbing. Tears stream down his face. He clutches his chest and starts to wail.
“Does it hurt?” Alana asks.
“Please,” he murmurs. “Take it away again. Please.”
She smiles. It is a smile that sends chills through me. It can’t be real. This can’t be Alana. Something has happened to her. Finn. Or Eldrion. They’ve done something to her, they’ve taken her powers and turned them against her. They’ve addled her brain.
“Do you see now?” Maura’s voice makes me turn around. She is standing behind me, arms hanging loose at her sides, despair on her face. “Do you see what she is?”
When I turn back, Alana has, once again, relieved Garratt of his grief. He stands up, nodding, thanking her.
She smiles and tells him he’s welcome. As if she just did him a favour. “I think I made my point. Did I not?”
Garratt nods, even though I don’t think he knows what her point was at all; I don’t think he knows his own mind anymore.
“You help us, we’ll help you.” She clasps Garratt’s hand tightly. “That’s a fair exchange, isn’t it?”
Pria is standing behind Garratt, eyes wide, looking absolutely terrified.
But Garratt simply nods again. “Yes,” he says. “A fair exchange.”
“And if you don’t help us...” Alana flies up so she’s hovering above the crowd. “You know what will happen.” She looks at Eldrion. Without needing to exchange a single word, he understands what she wants him to do. He scoops Elodie into his arms and flies so he is treading air beside Alana. He holds out Elodie’s body.
Alana pulls balls of purple light into her palms. And then, while Eldrion holds Elodie still, Alana sets fire to her dead body.
The purple flames flicker.
Eldrion keeps holding her as if he doesn’t even feel them. And then he lets her fall.
She hits the ground, the way I did, and her broken body is consumed by Alana’s fire.
While she is still smouldering, the stench of charred flesh filling the air, Alana returns to the ground and stalks back towards the castle. “Follow,” she calls.
The elves do not look at one another.
They do as she commands.
I cannot stay here. I don’t understand what just happened and I don’t know how to stop seeing it when I close my eyes.
