Chapter 49: In Which Things Are Torn From The Inside

A dead Sky Monk looks the exact opposite of a living one. It crashed to the ground at my feet, raising a curtain of sand. When it settled, I saw a creature made of cold silvery stone, a shrivelled body, the skin wrinkled and collapsing inward like a raisin. I looked at the hollow face and empty black eyes, the sick, greenish sheen that reflected off the folds of dead wings and skin. He dried up before my eyes, becoming smaller and smaller until he became less than half of what he had been while alive.

I couldn't take my eyes off of him. Sky Monks can speak with humans, can love humans, but they aren't human, they are more magical than humans could be. Among them there are Wielders and non-Wielders, but regardless of whether or not they could Wield magic, they were always and forever connected with the magic of the sky.

With no sky, they die.

Sorrow gripped my heart as I looked at him. His fluid beauty, his brightly glowing golden skin, the fierce freedom of his wings – I had seen them all only moments ago, and now they were gone forever.

"I – can't – stand – it."

My attention was ripped away from the dead Sky Monk to Erbaun. She was on her knees, clutching her head. I looked at Erich, some distance away. He continued screaming and while it certainly made me uncomfortable, I was otherwise unaffected.

I didn't like Erbaun., I felt like leaving her there as she was, I felt that I had every right to do so and that I wouldn't regret it one bit. But, like an arrow in my heart, doubt was there. I did not really know if she was the person who had killed Varemini's child, or perhaps that person was still hiding for some unfathomable reason, or maybe there was no one like that to begin with.

Cursing myself, I approached her and roughly shook her shoulder. "Get up," I said loudly.

She shook my hand off, folding in on herself even more. I caught hold of her wrist and yanked at her arm. "Get up," I said harshly.

She clumsily got to her feet, but then ripped her arm away from my hand, bent over and emptied her stomach on the sand. I wore my most artful scowl, my entire face wrinkling at how pitiful she suddenly was without her magic.

She swayed, about to fall and I caught her round the waist, feeling disgusted.

"To the trains!" called Burgen's voice, carrying clear over the silent world, "Everyone to the trains!"

"Hear that?" I asked sharply. "Go to the trains." I pushed my shoulder into her spine. "Walk." I commanded, and she began to stagger forward, "One foot in front of the other."

She lurched forward slowly. It took us ages, but we finally reached one of the metal doors that led out of the arena and into the audience area. I pushed down the handle, the door was locked.

"Locked?" she breathed out, weakly banging her hand over the metal.

I used my magic to turn the lock; it felt strange, as if the magic now was only inside me and that using it injured me. I pushed down the handle and the door opened inward with a creak. "It's not locked," I lied.

There was a steady stream of people heading past us. "Go with them," I said as I began running up the stairs.

"Where are you going?" she call after me.

"To get my sister."

***

There were hundreds, or maybe thousands of frozen people sitting along the wooden benches of the stadium watching the duel that had already stopped several moments ago. There was a whole range of expressions: excited, disappointed, confused, sulky, and bored.

At some point I avoided looking at the faces I passed. There was something disturbing about those still, wide-open eyes, locked in time or rather – locked out of it.

I got lost looking for the special area reserved for religious people. I remembered where it was in relation to where I had been inside the arena, but wandering through the rows of benches and people I completely lost my bearings.

I paused and looked down at the arena where the child was still screaming, a tiny pale figure from a distance. I located the double doors from which I had entered and drew a straight line with my eyes to where I remembered I had seen the white-clad girls.

I found them. I felt a pressing need to hurry; what if the train left without us? I ran, careful not to touch the still bodies as I passed. My shoes banged on the stone tiles on the floor, my breath turned shallow, my muscles felt heavy. I hadn't run in so long, hadn't had the need to run. My body had turned dull and soft from all those hours of sitting and reading in the lamplight.

I increased the speed of my run, jumping down the stairs that passed between clumps of benches, until I came upon them – the novices of the Goddess of Dreams. I wasn't surprised to find a great many empty spots on the bench. Some Wielder-born girls had finally found their freedom. I rushed down the row of girls until I found her.

She was sitting on the edge of her seat, both her hands were clutching the bench; her forehead was creased in a look of concern.

I touched her cheek; it felt cold and hard, as if she were made of stone. Outside time, outside life, all these people appeared to be here, but in truth their bodies were somewhere else where nothing really moved or existed.

"Fizz, wake up!" I tried. Nothing happened. I crouched down before her, placing each of my hands over each of hers. "Fizz," I said softly. I closed my eyes, focusing on her stone-hard hands. It was as if I found a wispy string and pulled at it, while at the same time I gave something from myself. It hurt a little, like having several hairs torn out from your head at the same time. But it wasn't hairs I was tearing from myself, it was time, my time, six months, a year, maybe two years of my life.

I opened my eyes and Fizz was no longer staring at the arena. She was warm and soft and looking right at me with a perplexed expression. "Rat?" She breathed out in disbelief.

"Fizz, there's a curse here, we have to run away fast," I said, rising again, the sense of urgency returning to me. I grabbed her wrist and urged her to rise. "We have to hurry."

I watched her face as she saw the missing sky for the first time, and her frozen friends, and down in the arena, the toddler. "What about...?" she began.

"No time!" I breathed out urgently. "We have to get away."

"But..."

I pursed my lips and began walking quickly, pulling her along with me. She did not protest, she followed, stumbling after me. Just like back then, just like when we were both street kids fighting to survive, just like before all this had started.

"Down there," she mumbled, "it was you, Rat?"

"Yes," I said, as I weaved us through the benches and stairs and passages.

"It was really, really you?" she sounded doubtful.

"It's really me now, it was really me before and that night that I visited you at the temple, that was really, really me too."

Suddenly, she hugged me from behind, making my heart leap into my throat, making me freeze as if I too were a non-Wielder. I closed my eyes, for a moment so happy I couldn't care about anything else. "I don't care what's real or not anymore," she whispered. "I'll go with you wherever you go."

I smiled for a moment, before shaking my head; and gently peeled her arms off of me and held her hand tightly. "Fizz, we have to ..." I began, and stopped.

We were in the special area reserved for royalty. The King hadn't come to watch this fight, but the prince had. I looked at his still form. His face was contorted in an expression of dismay and his eyes were locked upon the toddler at the centre of the arena.

Even though the prince was the son of the man I hated most in the world, he was a good man. And if anyone hated the King as much as I did, it was him. I hardly knew him, I had hardly spoken to him, and yet I couldn't just leave him there.

Before I could change my mind, I let go of Fizz and stepped toward him.

"Rat, what're you doing?"

I touched the prince's forehead and closed my eyes. It was easier this time because I knew exactly what I was doing, but it also hurt more, because the prince somehow required more time to be given to him than Fizz had needed, and also that part of me was still sore from the first injury.

The prince blinked at me, confused, questions hovering over his lips. He took everything in, quickly and decidedly. Unlike Fizz, Joaquin knew exactly what was happening. "We have to hurry," I said. "We have to run, or else the train leaves without us and we're trapped here forever."

"Right." Joaquin got to his feet, Fizz glanced at him warily. I took her hand again firmly in mine and the three of us began running in the direction of the trains.