Page 46 of The Song of Sunrise (The Prentice Teller #1)

Just as that one falls, three more Underlings charge toward us from the shadows around buildings. Each marking their targets, one per each of us.

My pulse races, but I easily master the panic, having already worked through it multiple times throughout the night. I steel myself, observing the scenery around me and the giant Underling running my way. I note the slight limp on her right side and make a split-second decision.

I sprint toward the abandoned cart on the other side of the street. She catches my movement and shifts her own trajectory. I pull a dagger from my corset and throw it as hard as I can.

It lodges into her shoulder, but she doesn’t slow. Only laughs and pulls it out, giving me a toothless grin.

“Fuck!” I climb up the plank to the cart. She’s almost on me when I use the momentum of my climb and jump on the edge, tipping the cart over just as she draws nearer.

I tumble away from the cart, remembering to tuck and roll, just like I had when I jumped from Heru.

The cart slams down, pinning the Underling beneath.

Leaving no time for guesswork, I press my blade into her chest, piercing through the breastbone into the meaty center of her body until she no longer moves.

I pull out the sword, and my hands tremble violently.

“Akemi!” Castor runs toward me.

I turn toward him in a daze, his broad silhouette going in and out of focus.

He reaches me and pulls me into his arms.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he repeats over and over. Crushing me into him until I let go of the sword. It clanks to the ground as the battle nears an end, the Watch reinforcements sending the Underlings scurrying back to the depths from which they came.

“It’s okay,” he says again.

It’s not okay.

I’m not okay.

This is Goldenpine all over again. I can smell Rosie’s apple pies, hear Marrow’s fiddle.

It’s been way too long since I’ve heard Row’s bad jokes and Bane’s ridiculous laugh.

I barely register that I’m moving as more memories of Goldenpine flood my mind.

Castor keeps me under his arm as we walk back toward the rallying group of Watchers.

Some will stay back and help with the fallout and rebuilding for a week or so.

Others head back to the Academy. The WatchGuards will return to their towers, one of which is stationed near Redrock.

The same tower that called for help. Both Castor and Leaf stay by my side, standing wordlessly on either side of me like two walls, protecting me from the outside world.

But what they don’t understand is that I’ll never be able to unsee the horrors I’ve witnessed.

That danger lurks within us as much as it does outside.

Around me, others continue to pack their belongings for the ride back to the Watch, but I need to process. I need to get out of here. I need to return home .

I can barely breathe, but I manage to mask my panic with a smooth voice. “I need to be alone for a moment. Please.”

They exchange looks, agreeing to something without words.

“We understand,” Leaf says finally. “Take the time you need. We are riding near the front. Look for Tiny and Lux. We should be able to get back in two days before classes resume.” They leave me and join the rest of the cadets that are preparing for the ride back.

I walk back toward one of the abandoned townhouses and sit on the wooden porch. No longer able to stomach the sight of blood on my clothes, I close my eyes for a minute and try to make sense of everything. The minute passes, quickly turning into more.

I did what I could.

Three minutes go by. I helped this village, made a difference.

Four minutes pass. Before, I hadn’t been able to fight.

Five minutes. Before, I was helpless… but I will never be again.

Standing with a renewed sense of purpose, I walk back toward the open farm fields now covered in ice from the water magic of the River Tribe. I carefully shuffle out into the open space and look up to the sun now blazing high in the noon sky.

I know what I must do next.

I pull the white feather from my chest pocket, not sure of how this process works. But before I can manage to try anything else, Heru lands with a thump next to me and bows her head.

I reach out and pet her feathers. “It’s time to go home.”

Darkness descends upon us as we continue our flight east toward Goldenpine. Heru soars with such ferocity, onlookers below may mistake her for a shooting star. The moment I mounted Heru and asked her to take me to Goldenpine, she knew exactly where to fly.

I wonder how much these magical creatures really understand. If all rocs are anything like Heru or the famous Tellings, they are extremely intelligent creatures. And now here I am, riding one. Living like the heroes in the stories I so often used to sing about.

Heroes of the great battles are highly regarded, honored even.

At what cost? How many had to die for their honor?

How many Tellings have I shared about battles and wars with reverence, not thinking of the death and destruction that likely followed?

It all starts to feel raw and wrong the more I think about it.

I don’t bother to cast a protective solarys shield or conjure sunfyre as we fly to Goldenpine. I embrace the cold. Let it seep into my bones and wake me from this nightmare.

Heru slows her pace as we near the thick pines that I know by heart along the northern border of the village.

“Here is fine,” I say. “I want to meet them on foot. No offense, but you would scare the shit out of them.”

Heru seems pleased by that comment with the slight pecking of her beak and glides us down. I slide a leg over the side like Garrot taught me, let go, brace for impact, and roll. Heru flies away, giving me space.

I brush off the snow from my Watcher uniform and walk through the tree line toward Goldenpine. I forgot how dark the sky is in the countryside; only the stars and a sliver of the moon light my path toward town. Though I would know my way around these woods blindfolded.

Breathe in, breathe out.

The noise of my boots cracking the layers of ice on top of the snow is abnormally loud in the silent night. That, or I’m not used to how quiet it is.

Was it always this quiet?

I clutch the pendant necklace and squeeze, finding comfort in its ornate design as familiar to my hands as my own fingerprints. No matter what I find, I am not alone.

I squeeze my necklace once more and put it back.

I am not alone.

Step after step, I work my way toward the main roads of Goldenpine where I’ll find the familiar sloping roofs of the town shops. Some of the farms outside are dark, but I pay them no mind. It’s late; I wouldn’t expect to see bright fires burning from their houses.

I crest over a hill and descend into town and see… and see… I rub my eyes, willing the image to change, to be wrong.

“Nooo!” The cry rips from my throat as I stumble forward, then break into a sprint toward what remains of the village square.

“No, no, no, no, no…” The words fall from my lips in a rhythm of panic, a helpless chant as I search through the broken bones of Goldenpine.

Wooden beams lie snapped and blackened, homes reduced to piles of ash and splintered timber.

The air is cold and still, thick with the scent of damp smoke.

A dusting of snow has settled over everything, softening the edges of the ruin, as if nature has already begun to reclaim what remains. As if it’s trying to forget.

But I can’t forget.

Each collapsed roof, each scorched doorway, is a ghost of what it once was.

My throat burns, but I no longer hear myself scream. Flashes of Bane, Row and Rosie appear in my mind. Marrow’s lifeless stare as he lay broken on the stage.

Sorrow and rage course through my veins, and I instinctively pull on the Source magic still thick in the air, feeling the intense rush of power wash over me, and scream to the stars above. Cursing them for what they witnessed here.

I was supposed to come here eventually, or sooner, if I didn’t make it farther into the Summit and find myself expelled for whatever foolish reason the Elder Superior rashly decides upon.

A small part of me cracks deep inside as I realize that this back up plan is no longer an option.

Goldenpine is destroyed. It’s just… gone.

I fall to my knees and try to grip the unforgiving ice and snow. Even the land refuses to let me grasp it once more.

And I scream.

My scream becomes a cry.

My cry becomes a song.

And, after a while, my song becomes the starlight.

I cradle my knees to my chest on the cold, hard ground, barely registering Heru flying above, checking in on me. Time becomes obsolete.

Eventually, something nudges me. For a moment, I hesitate to respond, but the brisk cold air and cheeks tight from frozen tears tell me that this is real. I open my eyes and see Heru’s golden-yellow ones staring back.

“This was my home,” I say. A part of me always believed there would be something to go back to. A place I could go if I didn’t make it past tasks and Elder Markus kept his word to expel me from the Watch.

Heru nuzzles her neck forward against me, and I lean into her warm feathers, unable to comprehend this fate.

Not believing that everything could be lost, I let myself hope. Just a sliver of light that not everything was taken from me. “We need to find shelter for the night, but I want to check one more thing first.”

Heru pecks her beak in approval.

Finally ready to see my home one last time, I carefully maneuver through the wreckage to the third street corner, where the remains of the Rose & Raven must be.

Piles of wood and debris litter the area.

I cautiously move a fallen door and push aside a heavy piece of burnt metal that was once a kitchen stove.

It’s still here. It’s still here. It’s still here. Familiar wooden stairs descend into a basement, preserved beneath the rubble.

I carefully walk downward, trying not to bump any of the fallen beams or pieces of debris around me for fear that the whole thing tumbles down.

At the bottom of the stairs is Marrow’s walking stick… fully intact! The air seems to push out of my lungs until I’m gasping, clutching onto my chest for the pain that now aches there.

I remember him rushing downstairs to comfort me after my panic attack. He must have thrown aside his walking stick the moment he was downstairs.

Fresh tears stream down my face and I cannot help but smile, then laugh. A euphoric sense of joy floods my system knowing that the Underlings did not ruin this last remaining piece of Marrow.

I reach toward the walking stick. The moment I touch it, something feels off. Like with my channeling rings, I can feel the Source magic around me swelling and charging with energy. It vibrates in my hands so intensely I almost drop it.

Suddenly, the top of the walking stick begins to glow as a powerful magic is released, and with it, an illusion. Layers of Source magic flicker down the stick in bright sparks until a golden staff remains. A purple jewel sits at the top, held in by a set of ornate claws.

I don’t know how to explain it, but this feels right. I can feel the magic pulsing from the staff, like a beating drum, thrumming faster and faster until the beats meld into a single vibration. It is the oddest sensation, like the staff is tuning to a particular note, except the frequency is me.

I don’t know how to explain it, but I know this is still Marrow’s walking stick and somehow also… this . Perhaps he collected this during his travels as a Master Teller before settling down in Goldenpine and found a Watcher or Elf to make the illusion?

I smile once more and turn the staff a few times in my hands. Its weight is perfect, like it was made for me.

“Even in death, you had to upstage me Marrow.” I chuckle and wipe another tear.

I tuck the golden staff under my arm and head carefully up the stairs. I pause and look upon the destruction of Goldenpine, and though I’m surrounded by wreckage, I know this was meant to be. That I was meant to come back here and find this final gift from Marrow.

Pulling the white feather from my chest pocket once more, I call Heru to fly us to another place I pray wasn’t attacked: Nickel’s hunting cabin.