Page 69

Chapter Sixty-Three

B riony

I’m somewhere else, somewhere I don’t recognize. The ground is hard like home but it’s warm beneath my feet and the landscape is barren. No trees, no flowers, no grass. Not even any houses. Just hard brown earth and the wind hot and full of sandy dust.

I raise my hand to my eyes, shielding them from the glare of the startling sun, and peer across the landscape.

“Hello?” I call out, my voice coming back to me in a hollow echo.

Is this part of the trial again? Another round, the next level.

Far away in the distance, silhouetted against the vast blue sky and only just visible to my eyes, a lone figure crouches down low at the horizon.

Is that my next challenge? I swing my gaze around, there is no one else here – nothing else here!

I cross the empty landscape and as I come closer, I see the man is cowering on his knees, his hands crossed over his head.

For a moment, I think he’s praying, then I hear a cry of such anguish it permeates right through to my bones.

I squint, trying to make out what’s wrong. Is he hurt?

Then a crack of wings like thunder catches my attention. I tip back my head and look up into the bright dazzling sky.

The dark silhouettes of sinister shapes loom above. They circle like vultures and then, with vicious shrieks, dive at the man as he trembles in terror.

Dragons?

But I know they are not. They are more human than reptilian and there is something unsettling about their form. They aren’t solid, as if their bodies are made from air and not flesh. They are long and thin and bony, their large scaly wings fanned out behind them, twisted horns crowning their heads.

These dark shapes slash at the man’s head with pointed beaks and sharp talons, tearing through his flesh and ripping his skin to shreds.

The noise they make is hellish too, halfway between high-pitched wails and unbearable shrieks. I cover my ears, pain reverberating around my skull. But even still the sound of the injured man reaches me.

“No! No!” the man sobs. “I didn’t mean to. Please, I didn’t mean to hurt them. I was trying to save them. I didn’t want that to happen.”

I freeze on the spot.

Because I know that voice. I know it well .

The voice is Thorne’s.

I squint my eyes.

Is it him? Is it really him? Or is this just another illusion? Like before, will he dissolve away into dust?

But like before, it’s real, so vivid and once again a terror grips my body.

The monsters swoop down, attacking him with no mercy and no pause.

He doesn’t fight back, doesn’t try to brush them away, doesn’t try to shield himself. Thorne just trembles and cowers on the ground. He doesn’t even try to defend himself.

I don’t understand. What’s wrong? Why isn’t he fighting? Why doesn’t he blast them away with his powers?

“Thorne!” I yell over the distance, running towards him before I’ve even registered what I’m doing.

Because what am I doing? This might not even be real.

And what exactly can I do to help? I’m weak, powerless.

I might be able to stand up to an old woman with a broom, but five, six, seven monsters? There is nothing I can do.

That doesn’t stop me. I run as fast as my legs will carry me, my feet pounding the hard earth, calling his name as I do, begging him to get up and fight.

The monsters lift their heads, peer towards me but they take no notice, too busy with their prey, their jaws and their claws covered in Thorne’s blood. It’s pouring from his body, pooling on the ground around him. Scarlet against the dull brown earth.

“Leave him alone!” I shriek. “Leave him alone!”

But the monsters take no notice.

The distance closes. I keep running. I can see I will be too late. He’s no longer crying out. No longer moving at all. His body is lifeless. His head flops from side to side as the monsters slice at his flesh.

Thick bile lines my throat and the terror I feel is so vast it may drown me completely. Because I can’t lose him. Not Thorne. Not beautiful, wonderful, tortured Thorne.

“No!” I sob, my feet slowing. “No! Thorne! Get up! Get the hell up. Get up and fight.”

It’s no use. They’re going to kill him and I will have to stand here and watch and do nothing.

“NO!!” I scream with all my might.

No, I won’t let that happen. I will not lose another person who I love.

And I do. I love him. I know it now deep in my soul. It’s why he has the marks. It’s because I love him and I can’t lose him.

I charge towards the monsters feeding on my protector, lifting my hands as I do.

Anger and fear crash through my body, and all the pain, all the damn, damn pain, careens along my veins, shoots down into my fingertips, and then it’s there streaking towards the monsters. A light so bright it dazzles my eyes. More radiant than the sun.

It hits the dark forms of the monsters and blasts them away from Thorne.

They squeal in pain, flames erupting across their large, outstretched wings.

“NO!” I scream again, the light shooting from my hands with a force I can’t control.

That I don’t want to control. The flames race along the monsters’ wings, curling into their bodies, burning them alive until soon they are completely consumed by fire.

They twist and screech in the air, clawing at their burning bodies.

The flames eat and eat at them. And then they are nothing but ash, fluttering to the ground like gray snowflakes.

The light races back into my hands, hitting my body with a force that leaves me gasping. I peer at my hands.

Did I do that?

Was that me?

Thorne!

I rush closer to him, falling to my knees by his side. He’s a bloody mess, his skin ripped to shreds, and I can’t tell if he’s alive or dead.

I reach out my hand to touch him and his eyes flick open.

Horror registers over his face as he takes me in.

“Briony, don’t touch me!” he croaks, his voice broken, hardly more audible than a whisper. “Please don’t touch me.”

“Thorne,” I whimper. He’s alive but barely. And for how long?

I flip back my head, curl my hands around my mouth and yell up into the wide sky. “Help us! Please somebody help us!”

The world swirls away again, Thorne and the blood-stained earth melting away before my eyes.

And then I’m kneeling in the snow. The forest of the academy right before me. The sky dark with the approaching dusk.

A hand lands on my shoulder.

“Come with me. Quickly!”