Phoenix Flame - Sara Holland Page 0,57

out of his grasp, easy and deliberate like a dancer.

My heart goes cold. I stare after Nahteran. Pure desperation pumps the blood through my veins and pushes the cry from my lips.

“Whatever you’re doing, we can do it together,” I yell, my voice scraping my throat. “You don’t have to go back to the Silver Prince. We can help you!”

I don’t want to lose you again, I think.

Nahteran turns and runs. Past Graylin and Brekken, who are trapped in the opening just like me, clawing toward me through empty space. Nahteran has the armor and he’s running away. He’s not coming with us. He’s not coming home.

My waist slips through. My chest. I can feel a warm breeze on my legs.

I scream for my brother one more time before I’m sucked down into the stars.

15

The familiar smell of the mountain and a warm summer breeze wrap around me, and for a moment that seems to last forever that’s all there is. I can’t see Brekken. I can’t see anyone. There’s nothing around me but air and stars.

Then I hit the ground hard onto rough, spiky grass and gravel. I roll to a stop on the hillside, pain shooting through my bones. I slowly push myself into a sitting position, head spinning and body aching. Looking around, I can tell we’re in the mountains in Haven, on Earth, a landscape that feels familiar but which I don’t immediately recognize. It’s night and the moon is overhead among stars. We’re high up, and the air is thin and cold, the kind you have to draw deep to get enough oxygen. And yet, I feel a sense of strength and wellness rising in me, from where my legs touch the ground on up. The air goes to my head like wine.

My vision is still a bit blurry, but I see someone lying a few yards away from me, facing away. I see a hand, stretched out against the damp grass, a wrist turned at a painful angle. My heart in my throat, I crawl over and reach out, touching a shoulder—but the person is cold beneath the green wool coat. And then it hits me—he’s one of the Winterkill soldiers who Nahteran killed. I rear back, fighting down nausea.

Stumbling to my feet, I go as fast as I can—which isn’t very fast—in the opposite direction. Looking around wildly, I see Brekken and Graylin uphill, and the relief that fills me is immense. The other guard’s body is a little ways down the mountain. I avert my eyes.

Nahteran is nowhere to be seen. Of course he isn’t. He didn’t jump. He didn’t come with us.

Not knowing what else to do, I climb up to where Graylin is brushing himself off. As I walk, I look around, the landscape starting to make sense and fit onto my mental map. I know these mountains. I look to the west and down the mountain, and there it is—Mirror Lake and Havenfall, tucked between the mountains and wreathed in trees. A few stray lights glitter faintly from its windows.

I exchange a glance with Graylin, hoping to see his regular self-assured smile, to be comforted that he has everything well in hand. That he knows what to do next.

Instead, I see only my own confusion and loss reflected in his face. And I know he’s thinking the same thing as I am.

Nahteran betrayed us.

Back in my little attic room, back in my own bed, my body aches, and the room spins, no matter how still I lie. It feels like all the foreign-world sickness the gauntlet held at bay is crashing in on me now. I want to sleep for a month. But my mind won’t let me rest. I can’t get Nahteran’s face out of my head. My left arm stings under the bandage where he cut me. I can’t shake the weight off my shoulders, the sensation that I’ve lost the most important thing of all. For a second I had a glimmer of hope that we could have him back. But now it’s just Marcus and Graylin and me again, and our little family unit feels smaller and more fragmented than ever.

I hold the pain at a distance, because I have to. But I know it’s there, lurking behind the curtain, ready to crash down on me at any minute. If I look directly at it, if I give the grief too much oxygen, it’ll swamp me. It’s like I’ve lost him all over again. Nahteran.