Page 19

Nineteen

F ierce winds whipped biting strands of her hair across her face. A drizzling rain had started as soon as she arrived, and the ground was becoming slick, but Kamine couldn’t focus on anything but what lay in front of her.

Her village hadn’t changed since she left, as if it had frozen in time, waiting for her arrival. The stores were locked up for the day, everyone at home with their loved ones in case they didn’t make it out, because hiding in any type of bunker would be considered cheating, and no one wanted to anger the Weather Gods. Her own family was likely sheltering together in one room. Kamine hoped Damien didn’t cry. She hoped she could prevent death today, that every last one of her villagers would make it out alive.

She hoped Grimot was safe in his home, surrounded by his family.

Kamine had spent the whole night pondering what she would tell him when she saw him again, because she would see him again. There was no alternative.

Others in her cohort spent the night praying to the Gods led by Kestra. Kamine didn’t bother. She refused to get on her knees for the Gods, and she didn’t dare approach Kestra.

A horn blasted loudly, and Kamine’s first instinct was to duck and run to safety—but the gravity of the moment hit her. Today, she was the one to keep others safe. The others depended on her .

Her clothes clung to her body uncomfortably as they dampened, and her protective armor was heavy with the rain. She breathed deeply through her nose to calm herself.

She thought about her parents and how years ago they were in a similar position as her. She thought about every past Undertaking participant facing this harrowing reality. If she survived this— when she survived, she tried convincing herself—she would become part of a legacy. One that would either destroy her completely, or remind her to keep living each day to its fullest.

In the distance, the first rock fell. Kamine softened its fall as it landed in a large open field, and then let the ground swallow it. Another rock came before she blinked. It rolled down a hill, headed straight for the main square. Kamine split the ground in two and watched as the rock disappeared before it could cause any damage.

A shower of rocks came next, small ones that she had to ignore to focus on the larger ones, even if it hurt to watch them destroy the roofs of homes. Already, Kamine’s energy began to wane. She didn’t know how long she would last, but she would fight every second that she could.

Her abilities limited how much she could actually do. She wasn’t able to stop a rock midair like some of the others, or crush the rocks with her mind. She learned to get creative where she could.

One large boulder was barreling directly for someone’s home. She used her powers to move the land underneath the building, until it was out of the way. The rock smashed into a dirt mount beside the home, the rubble exploding with the impact. Kamine stumbled slightly, regaining her balance once the ground stilled again.

Yet, the storm of rocks did not stop. With every rock that she managed to move out of the way, Kamine tried to take a deep breath, but there was no break from the onslaught of the Undertaking.

She wondered how anyone—how Grimot—could abandon their people just to find the Heart. The image in front of her was too horrifying to even think about winning the Undertaking. To her, winning would be seeing her village safe.

Grimot regretted it, Kamine reminded herself. Watching her mother take her own life was proof enough that her mother couldn’t exist with the knowledge that people died because of her, even if she had pursued the Heart to save her one true love. The Weather Gods might call it cowardly, but Kamine considered it human.

Humans were never meant to come to terms with killing others, intentionally or not.

Kamine had become so focused on the barrage in front of her that she didn’t notice a rock coming down from behind. The force of it knocked her face down, and her glasses flew off her face. The blurring in her eyes raged as she tried to lift herself up, but her body became incapable of movement, her limbs stuck. She heard a terrible crash, and Kamine’s heart jolted inside her, terrified of what and who the rock might have hit. She didn’t let the panic sweep in—she thought instead of the past, thought of the good times with her family as she strained to push herself up.

She spit the dirt that got into her mouth, and assessed her body. Nothing was broken, but her protective gear had dented on her right leg. She crawled around, feeling the earth until cold metal bit into her skin. Sliding her glasses onto her face, she inspected what had occurred.

The onslaught of rocks seemed to slow down. Either the Gods were giving her mercy or false hope. She used that time to wander towards her home, a slight limp in her gait. Right as she began trekking down the hill, careful not to slip on the slick mud, a flash of pink raced by her.

“Watch it,” Roz gritted out. She ran quickly, no armor covering her at all. Was she that confident in herself?

Kamine watched Roz, who kept her eyes open and searched every area around her. Behind stacks of hay, under wheelbarrows that held mountains of rooted vegetables, and even inside an abandoned barn. Each time she came back empty-handed, and Kamine could feel the frustration radiating off her.

Kamine skidded to a halt next to a fountain in the town’s square. “No luck in your village with the Heart?” Roz’s village neighbored Kamine’s, making it easier to get here than the others, but she expected that the rest of her cohort would be showing up, too.

Roz shook her head, her breaths heavy with exhaustion, but didn’t let her eyes stray away from her goal. She kicked over small rocks on the ground, and pushed aside sacks of grain.

“And you think it’s here?”

Roz nodded without a word, determined to accomplish her goal.

“Why?”

Roz sighed as she stopped what she was doing to turn towards her. “Because of how close you and Professor Grimot had become.”

Another figure bounded towards them. “Did you find it?” Lycaster asked as he rested his hands on his knees, taking labored breaths.

Kamine didn’t know what to make of everyone flocking here. Wouldn’t the Heart be hidden somewhere important? Kamine never considered her village to be special. Kamine just knew that her mother found the Heart hidden in a cave, a few villages over.

Janina and Zoya now jogged to the group. Kamine immediately inspected her friends, and besides a gash on Zoya’s cheek, they both were uninjured.

“You too?” Kamine asked.

They shrugged. “It seemed like the obvious place,” they said in unison.

Kamine crossed her arms. “It’s not like I cheated and had Kestra place the Heart here to make it easier for me.” She would never dare test the Gods that way, even if she believed that they almost encouraged such behavior, so they could punish someone. The Gods would be that manipulative.

“Maybe not,” Zoya said. “But the Gods would tell her to place it here. Somewhere it will hurt.”

Kamine supposed there was some sense to that assumption. The Weather Gods wouldn’t just make it hard to find the Heart, but also emotionally difficult. Kamine was also the easiest to target, with her past being so tied to this harrowing, yearly event.

“I—” But Kamine stopped herself. She suddenly knew exactly where it would be. Somewhere that she had avoided for years. Kamine didn’t utter a word before she sprinted off.

Being back home after months away had been disorienting. Everything around Grimot seemed to have changed. His favorite bakery had closed because the owner had died, the tree that he loved climbing on as a child had been cut down, and his room had turned into a nursery. His mother discovered she was unexpectedly pregnant while he was gone. A welcomed surprise, his mother mentioned, especially at her older age of forty-five. A blessing from the Gods, she muttered.

His parents welcomed him back with open arms, but this home no longer had the same sensation of comfort and ease. All these changes weighed on him, because the world kept moving even if he wasn’t around.

He had no purpose, no direction. He had nothing to wake up for everyday. The one good thing he had was ripped away because his past decisions once again haunted, and found him, and ruined it. He had lost her.

Look at me now , he thought. He stared at himself in the freshly cleaned mirror, his mother’s doing no doubt, and barely recognized himself. His shoulder-length hair was down. He had a pair of scissors in his hands, ready to cut that unbearable history off him. His hands refused to move, his body becoming stiffer as each rock and boulder rained down around them. He could sense it in his fingertips that he would soon become a statue, lost to time.

He should be hiding somewhere, staying safe. He could hear the pounding of the rocks coming down at full force on the roof. Grimot trusted Zoya, though. She was the chosen protector of Grimot’s village, and Zoya was skilled with her powers. He selfishly hoped Kamine had followed her own desires to stay put, and protect her own instead of dooming herself to any regret.

He huffed, and sat down in the old rocking chair, one his mother used when he was a babe. It creaked under him.

A shudder rocked through the house. He clenched the arms of the chair. His hands would miss Kamine’s supple skin. His heart would miss the way she bit her lip as she read her book, or how she smiled at her friends with such open adoration.

He should go be with his parents. He should go make sure his mother was calm, and safe. But as he pulled himself up, one of his arms would not budge as it stuck to the chair. He yanked, but he hissed at the excruciating pain, as his body began to turn to stone and graft into the chair. He opened his mouth to scream for help, but the roof came down on him.