Page 38

T he dark night sky rushes past me as I ascend into the clouds that surround me with their chilling moisture, and then I burst up onto the bridge.

Only to discover Hunter pacing furiously back and forth along it, her mahogany hair braided back, her body clad in a black assassin’s suit.

She spins to me as soon as I breach the clouds.

“Peyton!” Her eyes widen as she takes in Striker’s body, but she barely misses a beat. “Bring him! Quickly!”

I need to tell her that he’s gone already, but she scoops her arm across my back, a comforting but forceful pressure, propelling me along the bridge to the entry point before I can take a breath.

I take another step, and it feels as if I’m about to walk off the edge of the bridge. Instead, my foot lands on mossy ground, and I look up to find myself surrounded by ancient trees again, moonlight streaming through their branches.

Tanzanina Grey waits only a few steps away, pacing back and forth as wildly as Hunter was.

A man stands at a distance behind her, and I recognize him as the Master of the Dominion, the one I believe is called Alexei Mason.

He has a beat-up nose and stands seven feet tall.

He is instantly alert, his worried gaze flying from Tanzanina to me, his steps bringing him to me nearly as quickly as she darts in my direction.

Tanzanina’s gaze passes across me, but it must be obvious that I’m fully functional because she turns her focus entirely onto Striker next. “Put him on the ground. Let me see the damage.”

Her sharply indrawn breath sounds when I place him as carefully as I can onto the moss. “Oh.”

In the background, Hunter and Alexei have both frozen.

My eyes burn. Hot, painful tears spill down my cheeks. Before I went into the maze, I would have found crying unnerving, but now…

“He gave his whole heart,” I say, trying to explain. “Typhon is dead.”

“He killed a primordial being?” Alexei’s low rumble is nearly emotionless. His thoughts are closed off to me, but I sense strains of astonishment. “How?”

I’m not sure I can explain, but I attempt to as best as I can. “Evil cannot abide peace.”

Tanzanina’s hand drops from her mouth, and her lips set in a line of determination. “I will try.”

“Tansy—” Hunter begins, but Tanzanina shakes her head.

“I have to try!” She holds her hands out over Striker’s body, power glowing around her fingertips and then her palms.

It must be her instinctive power because she hasn’t reached for any carefully handwritten spells.

A moment later, my own power confirms for me that she’s reaching deep into her heart for this magic.

“I have to believe that nothing is impossible,” she cries. “I need to know that I can do this.”

Hunter withdraws a little, looking at Alexei, who very slowly steps forward and lowers himself into a kneeling position beside Tanzanina, his shoulder brushing hers.

He doesn’t speak, but I sense the connection between them; a bond deeper than either of them seems to be acknowledging, although Tanzanina’s power grows brighter the moment Alexei murmurs, “I believe you can do this, Solnyshka.”

I step away from them, and then I take more steps until my back connects with a tree, and I slide to the ground, drawing my knees to my chest and resting my head on them.

Tanzanina’s power glows ever more brightly with every passing second until it fills the air around me.

I tuck my head to my knees, knowing there’s nothing I can do to help, waiting for the quiet tap on my shoulder that will tell me there’s no hope.

A long time later, so long that my body has become stiff and I can’t feel my toes where they rest against the moss, I become aware that the light has faded.

Hunter’s quiet voice sounds from across the distance. “Will he wake up?”

Tanzanina’s reply is low, her voice filled with exhaustion. “I don’t…” Her exhalation is soft and defeated. “I don’t know.”

I force myself to my feet, gripping the tree in an effort to stand upright despite the weight that’s resting within my heart.

“Peyton?” Hunter is in front of me in a flash, her green eyes filled with concern. Her thoughts aren’t guarded from me, and her sadness is heavy.

“I need to go,” I say.

I haven’t heard my sisters’ voices since I emerged from the maze, but then, I haven’t reached out to them either. I’m not ready to do that because they will hear my thoughts, and my thoughts are tangled and filled with despair.

“I can help you get home,” Hunter says, reaching for me.

“No. Thank you.” I evade her hand before I pause. “But I would like it if you were to visit me more often.”

Her grief lifts, a moment of warmth, and she gives me a nod. “I would like that, too.”

I force myself to look at Striker before I turn away.

He appears peaceful, even if his dark hair is matted with blood. His body looks healed and whole on the surface, but his chest barely moves, and his heart is hardly beating.

Slow, labored beats.

Fragile beats.

I try to speak past the constriction in my throat. “If Striker wakes up… Will you ask him…”

My eyes burn, and I press my lips together, trying to quell the tears while Hunter waits patiently for me to continue.

“Will you ask him if I could come and see him?” I manage to say. “Will you ask him if that would be okay?”

She nods, her expression gentle. “I’ll ask him.”

Her thoughts tell me she thinks he will say yes… if he wakes up. At that, her emotions become heavy with sadness again.

I wish I couldn’t read her mind. I would even welcome the way my power was muted while I was in the maze.

Now that my shock is wearing off, all of the input from the outside world is pushing at me again. All of the hatred, the evil, the sadness, the love, the needs, the wants…

The never-ending mess of it all. The darkness of this life that’s now mine.

I rise into the air and dart through the trees, acutely aware once again that there is no peace for me.