“You’re wasting time,” Hazlitt muttered.
My eyes met Ava’s, and for a long minute as hot tears streamed down my face, we just stared at each other. It was quiet. Hazlitt and Silas were silent. The soldiers were silent. Ava and I were silent. That minute passed, and my eyebrows furrowed and the corners of my mouth tensed with a grievous frown. And Ava knew. Her bottom lip quivered and her eyes filled with fresh sorrow, because she knew what I had to do just as much as I did. And when it fully sank in, her face converged with a pain like I’d never seen. The tears broke and what was left of her heart broke, and she was already on her knees, but she collapsed forward with a gasping sob. Her forehead met the earth and her chained hands covered the back of her head. Her shoulders shook, and she wept.
My gaze fell as salt bit at my eyes, and I took in a deep, trembling breath, working up the nerve and the will to move my feet. I couldn’t look at Ava, because her sobbing already threatened to rip my heart right out of my chest. Nor could I look at Silas, or Albus’s body, as I paced forward and took the reins from Hazlitt. I mounted the horse, and for a moment, I just sat there. Staring at the leather in my hands as the bitter torment of what I was doing cut me to the core. I’d hate myself after this, and if Hazlitt didn’t kill her, then surely Ava would hate me too. But I couldn’t let my innocent mother and brother pay for what we’d done. It wasn’t a choice. They were never a choice.
I bumped my heels back, refusing to take my eyes off of my hands as I steered the horse north. The soldiers blocking the road parted, creating an opening in the middle for me to ride through. I passed them slowly, part of me hoping Hazlitt would change his mind and put an arrow in my back so I wouldn’t have to go through with this. So it wouldn’t matter what choice I’d made and I wouldn’t have to live with the consequences. But it didn’t happen. I got past all the soldiers and couldn’t bring myself to look back. I kicked hard, and the horse took off at a gallop, leaving Silas and Hazlitt and all the soldiers behind. Leaving Ava behind.
Hazlitt hadn’t lied to me. The horse was fast. So fast that it didn’t even feel like its hooves were touching the ground as we flew over miles and miles of land. It was strong too. The animal pushed on no matter how long I forced it to run, and the farther north we got, the colder it got, until the wind whipping by us had turned my flesh numb. Numb and cold like everything inside me.
I felt nothing. Had shut everything out because I couldn’t allow myself to feel if I was going to make it, if I was going to rescue Mother and Nilson. Couldn’t allow myself to think about what I’d left behind. Not Albus. Or Ava. Because if I let myself think about it, I’d let myself hesitate. I’d grow more conflicted and more tormented, and in my fragile state, a conflict like that would be enough to break me, and I’d stop, and I wouldn’t make it to the cottage, and I wouldn’t make it back to Ava.
So I shut everything out. Stared straight ahead with nothing in my mind but left, and right, and dodge a branch, listen to the hoof beats. I was so numb that even though the horse galloped miles and miles, all day and into the night, I wouldn’t let it stop. It would kill the horse, pushing the beast so hard, but I didn’t care. I needed it to keep going. Needed it to sacrifice because losing Mother and Nilson wasn’t an option. I’d lost too much, and wouldn’t survive losing any more.
It galloped well into the next day. Every time it tried to slow down just to breathe, I kicked it hard. Made running less painful than stopping. Two days, and on the close of the second, we finally burst out of the forest and were nearly there. The sun was setting, but on the horizon, over the few remaining miles I had to go, there was smoke. A thick, black pillar of it, rising high into the air and originating exactly where I knew my destination to be. NO.
My heels kicked as sharply as they could, trying to urge the horse faster, but it wouldn’t move any quicker. “Go!” I hollered, kicking back again, and in my urgent fury, I felt a static start in my chest.
It was no use. I’d pushed the horse too hard. So hard that it stumbled, its front legs gave out and we were already going so fast that it skidded on its shoulder across the grassy dirt. I couldn’t wait, and I knew the horse wouldn’t have the strength to rise again. It was as good as dead. Before it had even stopped sliding, I hurled myself out of the saddle, and that static in my chest finally did something useful. Like that day with Ava, in a blink I’d traveled a distance without a step, but this time it was so much greater. One spark-fueled jump and I was halfway across the six miles to the cottage, hitting the ground again with such a powerful current like lightning that it burned the earth beneath me. I took in a deep breath, allowing the magic as much control as it needed to take me the remaining distance.
This time I landed right in front of the cottage, so close that I stumbled back a few steps at the singeing heat of the fire. The entire thing was in flames, and they were spreading to the dry grass around it.
“No,” I whispered. I dashed forward, attempting to run past the fire to get inside, to see if they were trapped, but it was too hot. “Mother!” I hollered, sprinting to the back of our home. “Nilson!” They were nowhere in sight, and I squinted into the fading light of day to scan the distance. Searching for them or a group of soldiers or anything. There was nothing. “Please,” I whimpered, feeling a heavy flow of tears flood my eyes.
The entire cottage was engulfed. Without a doubt, my mother and brother were dead. All I could hope was that they’d been killed before the fire had started. Defeat crept into the very core of my soul. Complete and utter defeat, and I fell to my knees as those tears streamed down my cheeks, because all I could do was watch my home burn. All I could do was sit there on the ground, sobbing as the fire devoured everything I had. I watched it burn all night, until it died and I was left with absolutely nothing.
Silas, Brande, Albus, Ava, my mother, and Nilson, I’d lost it all. I had nothing to my name but the clothes on my back, my dagger, and my two necklaces. No food. No home. And worst of all, I had no one. I’d lost everyone I loved. Soon, I probably wouldn’t even have a kingdom. Who knows what Hazlitt would do with the power once he conquered Ronan and found the elixir he was after?
By the time morning came and the fire was out, I didn’t even have any tears left. Those were gone, and there was nothing in me, either. No hope, no drive, no purpose. So I stayed there, on my knees and empty and unmoving for half the next day, undeterred by the cold or the suffocating smell of smoke. Eventually, I stood, if only because nothing was happening here, and I wandered toward the snow-covered Black Wood. I walked the miles to the forest, and I kept going.
I wandered, well into dusk and then into the night. Maybe these woods really were haunted, maybe with something that could put me out of my misery. If not, there were always the wolves, or the cold. Or bandits. I’d take whatever death would be swift, because that had to be better than this. Better than knowing that my best friend had killed Albus, and that my mother and brother were dead. Better than knowing I’d betrayed Ava and abandoned her to an unknown fate with a man that she hated. With a man who’d made her kill her own father.
There was so much more I should have done. So many things I could have tried to keep this from happening. I should have felt it when Ava left my side that night. Should’ve known when she rose from bed and left the room to kill the king and queen. If I had, I could’ve stopped her. Could’ve saved her from Hazlitt’s control and from doing something that would torture her. That would haunt her for the rest of her life. I should have sought someone at the castle in those short days that could have taught me to control my magic. Maybe it wouldn’t have been enough to defeat Hazlitt, but it would’ve been enough to save us—to save Albus, and Ava, and Mother, and Nilson. It would’ve been enough to keep me from losing everything.