Page 19 of On Burning Paths

Fog swirls around our ankles. The night is dark around us, and the light of the moon cuts through in clean streams. From here, we can’t see the other side of the burial grounds. We can only hope that an exit truly does exist.

“Okay,” I whisper. “Put on your blindfolds.”

When they’re firmly in place, and I’ve checked twice to make sure, I take their hands in mine and squeeze them. Thorian’s is impossibly large and Fenric’s is impossibly warm. We start to walk.

The other teams don’t join us, and now I know what it’s like to be Ulric, the rest of them standing and watching with bated breath as we attempt to make the same journey the warlock did. Like before, I can feel the weight of Talon’s stare on my back, watching and tracking me as I maneuver my teammates around the gravestones and through the space.

Rather than looking up, searching for a point in the distance that might not exist, I instead stare just a few paces ahead of my feet, focusing on our path, focusing on making progress.

Somewhere in the distance, there’s the roll of thunder, low and growling, like a massive beast about to strike. I feel the warm, storm-like breeze on my neck like that beast’s breath, and it’s a reminder that Valtor is watching. That he, and the other gods, control all of this.

“We’re making good progress,” I say to Fenric and Thorian, because the quiet is affecting me, and I don’t want to think about the storm, or about beasts, but especially not about the Ashen. I just want to think about the men on either side of me. I’m doing this for them.

I’m doing this for Lyra.

They don’t speak, but squeeze my hands softly. Perhaps we’re more in sync than they might think.

As we walk, I feel the shapes start to coalesce. The scattering of shadows becomes thicker as they drift toward me like moths drawn to an open flame.

The Ashen.

I try not to think about what they are, try not to think about the poor, innocent souls taken that day. The fear they must have felt. The lives cut short.

Without thinking, I raise my gaze and come to a stop when I see a toddler standing in our path, her nightgown ripped down the side, her shoulder bloody, her feet bare. Her light hair is mussed in the back, and I can’t help but think of Lyra, her refusal to let me braid her hair. How tangled it was every morning, how it stood up from the crown of her head. The little girl is crying, tracks of tears and snot running down her face, her large, wanting eyes pointed at me.

This is precisely what Thorian said not to do: make eye contact with them. But I don’t feel any anguish or guilt. All I feel is sorrow, and the faint grasping of her power. Like tiny hands reaching out, pulling at whatever she can reach. It brushes up against my soul, making me gasp.

I have to resist the urge to pull my hands from theirs, to reach for the little girl. To pick her up and cradle her to my chest and offer her any comfort I can.

But I can’t. If I let go of their hands, they might remove their blindfolds. So, instead, I try the next best thing.

“Hi, baby,” I murmur, biting back the tears pressing up at the backs of my eyes. I hold her gaze, refusing to look away from this, even though it hurts. Sometimes, the only thing we have is to bear the suffering of others. To avoid erasing them with our inattention. “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t kill her, but my sorrow and pain can’t stand for anything else. She moves to the side, and I continue walking, meeting the eyes of every child in my path. A boy, skinny and lithe, holding a toy to his chest desperately, one of his legs missing. Two teen girls holding hands as they stand still, their eyes tracking me. A baby crawling along the ground, wailing like all he wants is his mother, her milk.

More and more of them appear, and the brush against my soul turns to a scraping, nails fighting for purchase on a smooth surface. It’s uncomfortable, but there are no relived memories. No pain and anguish beyond what I feel faced with the reality of what happened to the innocents before me.

Swallowing through it all, I keep whispering to them. Sweet nothings, apologies for what they’ve gone through.

“You are loved,” I whisper, still thinking of Lyra. Though my parents weren’t killed here, weren’t killed like this, I still know what it’s like to lose someone to the wrath of the gods. I think of what they might want to hear. “Those you left behind miss you, cherish you. They have not forgotten what happened. Your memory lives on with those who remember you on the earthly plane.”

Thorian and Fenric follow when I lead, and I wonder if they can feel the souls around us. If they can even hear what I’m saying, or if they’re trying to tune everything out.

Walking through the burial ground is exhausting, both physically and emotionally. By the time we stumble out through to the other side, I feel much like I did when grieving my parents. I’m cried out and limp, my body heavy with the weight of the feelings I had no idea how to process. And yet, being out of the graveyard eases the feelings just a little.

“We’re through,” I tell them. “You’re safe.”

“Nyx,” Thorian whispers, dropping his blindfold down around his neck and reaching for me. He leans down, tracing his nose along mine, his thumbs brushing over my cheeks before he kisses me. I sigh into it. It’s a kiss that gives more than it takes, one that’s not wanting, but supporting.

Loving.

When he steps back, breathing hard, Fenric slides in, pulling me to him and putting his arms around me, holding me as my knees start to buckle. As always, his embrace is warm, and I realize after meeting his heat that I’m shivering. It’s drizzling lightly now, the thunder still groaning ominously in the distance, mist still pushing up to our knees.

“Nyx,” Fenric says, kissing me briefly and pulling back to push his hair away from his forehead. “That was unbelievable.”

“I could feel their power,” Thorian says.

“I could too.” Fenric nods in the demi-god’s direction. “It took everything in me not to pull away the blindfold. It was like they were pushing for it. I could hear you talking, but I’m not sure what you said.”