Page 14

Chapter fourteen

T he ground shuddered beneath Antony’s feet, and his fingers clenched tightly around his hammer, as if it could aid him in keeping his footing. Still, he lurched forward as the Smiths and Healers around him scurried on unhindered. If Antony was feeling the shocks of the battle this far from the front lines, he couldn’t fathom the mayhem in the thick of the fighting.

From where he was stationed, Antony could just make out the shimmering ward that separated the main force of the Eteria from the Shadow. Between him and the barrier churned a mass of purple and green, with occasional splotches of red and navy scattered throughout. The barrier between Light and Shadow inched ever closer, engulfing more of the dwindling ranks. Antony stood at the back of the crowd, ready to repair any broken equipment, but there wasn’t anything for him to fix at the moment. Either no weapons were breaking, or nobody with a broken weapon made it back to the safety of the ward.

Instead, Antony helped carry water and bandages, shifting injured Warriors off stretchers to the ground, only to have the stretcher reappear a moment later with another wounded Defender on it. He thought it was a Defender from the dark color of the tunic, but when he went to shift him, he saw that the tunic was actually purple, stained dark and saturated with blood.

“Antony?” a voice rasped from the head of the stretcher.

“Elias!” Antony choked, making out the face of his old friend under the matted hair and swollen mass of bruises. “How did this happen? Why were you fighting?”

“Almost out of Warriors and Defenders…” Elias trailed off as a pitiful cough racked his body. “I had to help. Just glad I made it back to die while looking at a friendly face.”

“You’re not going to die,” Antony murmured, searching Elias’s body for the wound that bled so profusely, but Elias’s shoulders shook in a humorless laugh.

“You really haven’t been in a battle before,” Elias commented. “This is what it looks like when all is lost.”

Indeed, Antony could hear the explosions and the screaming pushing ever closer, but he refused to look away from Elias’s gray eyes, overbright in his mutilated face. It was true, Antony had never accompanied the Eteria on any of their combat excursions, even though they normally brought a Smith and a Healer along. His lack of combat training kept him back at the Sanctuary, where he wouldn’t be a liability. Now, it looked like the first battle he would ever see would be Eteria’s last.

Elias coughed again, bringing Antony back to the present. He failed to find the wound, and instead slipped his hand into Elias’s, who did not even have the strength to return his reassuring squeeze. Antony clutched him tightly, as if that alone could keep Elias’s soul in his battered body.

“Although, maybe you’ll be able to figure out a way to save us.” Elias wheezed. “You always were the best of us.”

Antony shook his head, ready to protest that he couldn’t possibly be the best of the Eteria—not when he stood by, useless, as his friends gave their lives. How could he possibly be the best of them when he was cold with terror, unable to save his friend from his wounds? But Elias could no longer hear his protests, the Light already gone from his eyes.

To Antony’s great shame, he didn’t close Elias’s eyes. He didn’t kiss his forehead and send him into the beyond with the time-honored words, to fos na kouvaláei tin psychí so .

Instead, Antony turned away in time to retch, spilling the contents of his stomach over the churned mud, among the blood and debris. Tears stung his eyes even as bile burned his throat. Still, an explosion sounded even closer than before, and the adrenaline helped Antony blink back his tears and conquer his stomach. He controlled his body when he Smithed; he could command it now. He pushed to his feet, keeping his back to Elias’s body lest his stomach rebel again.

Just as he straightened himself, the Commander appeared before him. The mud and stains dimming the radiance of her white chiton shook Antony almost as much as the nearby screams of the dying and the faltering shimmer of the ward losing strength. Several mahogany strands escaped her tight chignon, and a scrape decorated her cheek, shattering the ethereal image Antony had never had a glimpse beyond.

She gasped. “Antony, we need protection. Anything you can give us. If there was ever a time to test the limits of your power, it’s now.”

Antony gaped, bile and blood still fresh on his tongue, his mind empty from all but the horror and carnage around him—from the lifeless corpse of his friend lying at his feet. He wasn’t a Defender, he couldn’t make a ward, nor could he fight off the Shadow. There was one thing that might work though—

“Antony!” the Commander bellowed. Antony didn’t see the Shadow hurtling towards him until the Commander had leaped, throwing herself between him and the creature. The spear she held cut a bronze arc through the air, shattering the creature with a pop. It didn’t matter.

Crimson bloomed across her white robes. Blood spread across her chest even as the great ward shattered, and the Shadow spilled across the remainder of the battlefield. Antony lunged, not able to catch the Commander before she fell, but at least able to soften her fall into the mud. It was a moment where Antony thought time would slow down, forcing him to digest every horrific detail, but instead, everything happened before his brain could accept it.

“Antony,” the Commander rasped. “You must protect the Light—protect the Light.”

Antony wanted to say that he couldn’t. If she could not lead them to victory, then he had no chance. She was the one who could fight. She should have let him die in her place. His powers couldn’t help them now—weren’t worth the Eteria losing their leader for. But it didn’t matter, as she was already dead. The second person in as many minutes to die in his arms, begging him to save the Light even as the world collapsed around him.

The Shadows closed in, and Antony shut his eyes, knowing that fighting back would be futile. If he could not save his family in the Eteria, then he would join them in death.

Then, Light bloomed behind his eyes, so powerful his heart sung in return. The warmth of it brushed his skin for what could have been an eternity or a millisecond. He wondered if this Light was the embrace of death, but the pain of a killing blow never came, and he could still feel the mud of the battlefield under his knees. The Light burst before fading away again.

When he opened his eyes, all that was left of the Shadows was dissipating smoke, like hundreds of candles had just been snuffed out around him. Before he could wonder at this turn of events, fresh claws of panic tore at his heart.

The Light he had always felt like a second consciousness in his mind was fading. Even in the world around him, its presence weakened. Without the Light, what was left of the Eteria would be unable to defend themselves, and without their leader they were doomed. But Antony—he would follow the Commander’s last orders. He would use what remained of the Light to protect the survivors of the Eteria, no matter how ridiculous his idea seemed.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in through his nose, filled with blood and smoke, reminding Antony of all that had been sacrificed. Of those who had died for the Light, and how vital it was their loss not be in vain. He focused on the Sanctuary, how it had always been a safe haven, the center of all Light, and it hopefully would be again. Safe . He repeated that word in his head. Safe, and inaccessible to the Shadow—a place where the Eteria could endure.

Light burned under Antony’s skin, extending far beyond the comforting warmth that normally bloomed in his flesh when he channeled its power. He might have been on fire, but he kept repeating safe in his mind until it was indistinguishable from his heartbeat.

A sucking feeling surrounded Antony, and pressure engulfed him, like the feeling of diving deep underwater. A dull pop emanated in his skull, and the heat and pressure disappeared.

He cracked his eyes open, finding the churned mud replaced by lush grass. Fresh spring air filled his nose in place of the smoky air of the battlefield. He looked up to find the Sanctuary before him, standing tall as it had for hundreds of years, and now hopefully would for thousands more. His vision blackened around the edges, even as the presence of the Light that always inhabited the corners of his mind darkened, slipping away to almost nothing. He didn’t fight the loss of consciousness now, knowing he had carried out the Commander’s final orders. Here, in a dimension apart from the rest of the world, what remained of the Eteria could regroup. They would be safe.