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I shook my head and pulled myself free. “I’m not going.” I rubbed my hand over the tickle that rose up in my nose, shocked when it came away bloody. “We stay here.” I pointed at a building that had collapsed. “Praxis, start pulling rocks off. Make sure no one is trapped below.” Commands helped my thinking fall into place. “The rest of you, spread out, find the wounded and get them to the hospital.” My heart squeezed at the word. “Oh, the children.”
I stumbled toward the south end of the market, the world tipping and swerving as I tried to hasten my speed. Where were the children? I stopped at the center of the square, standing next to the toppled maypole that had marked our celebration only a couple of hours ago. Hours that now felt like another century.
An engine roared to life, sending my heart rate soaring as I braced for another rumble of the earth. Instead, I spotted Esmerey helping children onto the bus, calming them as they went. I nodded to myself, grateful she was there. I pressed forward, seeking out the cries of anguish that called from the rubble. My hands locked around a large rock and I rolled it from the surface. Screams pierced my ears as I lifted another rock. Someone had been trapped.
“Help!” I shouted for anyone who could help. “Please help me move these.”
Within seconds, Blair arrived at my side. Her eyes widened as she spotted the twisted limbs tangled beneath the stones. Bone protruded from one leg, and the screams of torment erased all sense of sanity from my brain. I had one focus—to free the souls who’d been buried.
“Your Highness,” Blair tugged on my sleeve, but I locked my grip around another rock and hefted it from the pile. She became more insistent, gripping my wrist to stop me. “Let someone else! We must get out of here!”
“No.” I shook her off. “They need me.”
“They need a king, and you can’t rule if you’re dead, Leonidas!” She pushed my hand away from the largest rock and pulled on my arm. “If there are aftershocks, your life is in danger! We must leave now!”
I ripped my arm from her grasp, barely ignoring the pain that reeled through my back. “I won’t leave them. You’d be a fool to walk away at this point.”
She shook her head, obviously disgusted with me. “And you’d be a fool to stay.”
I didn’t wait to see if she would stay. My hands had already found the next rock that had to be lifted away. Streaks of blood, theirs or mine, stained each piece I moved.
“Praise you, Prince Leonidas!” The man called as I removed the last piece of rubble from his chest. He pushed his son forward from where they were trapped, helping him into my arms. Sirens wailed as emergency crews finally arrived. I waved down the medics as they entered the field, instructing them toward the man with his broken leg and his young son. I wanted to stay with them, but too much destruction outweighed the hands available to help. Too many had shared Blair’s mindset and had fled.
Tears flowed freely over my cheeks as I took in the horrors from the aftermath. Not just the physical toll of the damage, but the emotional wreck and condition of my people. Esmerey had returned to the square, carrying children who needed wheelchairs on her back. She called out for Gwen, but my old friend shook her head and faded into the shadows, unwilling to help. My heart clenched with the desperate need to multiply myself and do more. I gripped the arm of a woman who’d been struck in the head. Blood dripped over her nose, but I helped her to her feet. She nodded slowly and waved me off as she stumbled forward. I understood. She was in need, but others needed more.
Too many were missing. Dagny. Chantal. My mouth opened in shock. “Coco.”
I spun around, furiously searching the area for any sign of her. Had she run like the others? Did she see the wreckage and save her own skin? Or was she hurt? Was she under the remains of one of the buildings?
I gripped the nearest rocks and started flinging them off, frantically searching for her like a man possessed. Rain began again, pelting the earth with large, unforgiving drops. Fire hissed as the rain collided with the flames. I removed another rock and found a hand, limp, lifeless. Moving faster, tearing my skin as I worked without regard for my own safety, only a blinding need to know whose corpse waited below the fallen wall, I removed the final bricks and stared.
Guilt flooded my heart because all I could think was: Not Michaela. But even though she wasn’t the one who’d died, someone had. And they wouldn’t be the only body I found in the debris.
Michaela
As soon as the shaking stopped, I took to my feet again. A chorus of wails rose up behind me. I couldn’t turn back. I couldn’t split my focus. I needed to get to Leila before something happened to her. With a series of walls covering the hillside, one more shake and one could fall and crush her tiny body. I refused to let that happen.
“Leila!” I shouted for her again, but she didn’t answer. At least the rain had stopped. I curved around the wishing well and peered up the hill. Near the mouth of a cave, I thought I spotted a flash of red like the coat Leila was wearing. With renewed determination, I started running again, calling her name over and over. Finally, I received my reward for my persistence.
“Lady Michaela! Help!” I hurried to her side, where she’d become wedged beneath some discarded lumber. “Please, I’m stuck! I don’t want to die!”
“You’re not going to.” I gripped the largest piece of lumber and pushed it upward. She still couldn’t move, so I started working on the next one. “We need to get to the others though. I bet Nurse Natalya wants to get you back home, right?”
“Yes, milady.” Her choked words came out as a sob. “Sorry I went for my stuffy. I will be good from now on, I promise.”
“Don’t worry about that.” My muscles burned as I strained against the final beam. “But I can’t get this one up. Can you wriggle out?”
“I will try.” She started to cry as she wiggled and shimmied her way free. Tears rolled down my cheeks as my body quivered under the weight of the beam. “Almost there.”
“You can do it,” I assured her through my gasps.
“I’m almost—I think I—“
The pain became unbearable as the weight of the beam pressed back on me. My muscles couldn’t hold it anymore. I couldn’t—
“I’m free!”
The lumber crashed to the earth as I lost my grip on it. Arms limp, I folded forward, aching with every breath that heaved in and out of my chest. For the first time, I allowed myself to look down the hill.
