So Speaks the Ruinous Light || To Herald a Dawn Book 1

Chapter 6 (His Light)

I sink the armor in the brown sewage sludge. Michael's note floats to the surface so I rip it up, scattering it like salt on a burnt hog's insides.

Slumping, I sit on the base of the round grate cover, clear of the sludge. The iron bars dig into my lower back, faint sunlight warms my smock.

I shut my eyes. Despite my exhaustion, the too-much magic I've probably used, I fix up the bruises on my neck, where Regalia's elbow throttled me. My fingers investigate my nose; it's swollen and still dribbles blood. I do know how to heal broken noses--soldiers end up with those in the healing wing all the time. But when I try to prod at the bone with my magic, stars dance across my eyelids and I wobble, back of my head bumping the iron bars.

Wincing, I suck in a breath, and energy trickles into my body. My eyelids flutter and color seems to return to the world, to the golden bricks, the brown sludge, the translucent-wet paper scraps.

It's like I've just eaten a small meal. Licked up droplets of soup with my parched tongue. I rub my eyes, frowning. The only explanation I can think of is, I was maintaining the mist bubble containing Regalia and it came apart just then. But...I have no idea how I did that.

I try fixing my nose again. I have enough energy to mend the bone and make it quit bleeding, but it drains me again so my face stays swollen, painful to the touch.

My stomach growls, and my eyes ache. Outside, the goldenrod, butter-yellow grasses rustle in a breeze. My heart wants to go out there and fall asleep in the dirt, drink water from the forest and stuff my face with whatever thing isn't poisonous.

But, there's guards on the wall.

So I curl on the narrow width of bricks above the sludge, knees tucked up, feet wet, my side warmed by the sun and iron bars. I try to sleep.

I dream about the trail of blood drops, the mushrooms eating them, the crimson carpet soaking them up. But Regalia's mad now, or terrified, and I'm not even a person to her anymore. She doesn't use my name in describing to those who heard her scream how she attacked the assailant, how the bubble of mist trapped her. She doesn't mention whose trail of blood they're hunting for in the carpet and stones, whose scent earlier tonight she thought was worse than something knocked over in a storage room. And--

Shouting wakes me. And splashing. My eyes snap open and my hand fishes into the water, grabbing a strap on my bundled armor.

Wait. There's no sound. Did I make this up?

A mutter. Echoing inside the sewer tunnel.

I yank my armor up after me and slide sideways between the bars, scrambling through dirt until I get my feet under me, then I take off running. A yell shouts above me, sending prickles all down my skin--guards are still watching from the wall.

I sling my armor bundle over my backside, it jostles and bangs my spine, but if they have arrows, if they shoot at me, this is all I have...

Would they even shoot--

A pain stabs me just above my shoulder blade, cutting through the armor strap I'm holding in my hand. The leather breaks, releasing its contents--the armor goes crashing to the ground, and I drop the useless chunk of leather strap left in my fist, more out of pain than logical realization I no longer need it.

An arrow lives in my shoulder. I keep running, the pain pulses with each footstep and my eyes water. Someone shouts from the tunnel, dark swirls flash in my periphery.

"Duck!" a voice cries, and my eyes shoot to the edge of the forest; Michael stands framed by dark tree trunks, his hands glowing, his hair sticking straight up from his forehead.

I do. I duck. I drop face first into the ground, plowing to a stop. An arrow bites the ground above my head, the silver shaft vibrating, dark smoke puffing. I roll to my uninjured side, pressing a hand to the arrow sticking from my body, leaking hot blood. And my gaze goes wild to the sky for the next arrow but magic there just makes me stop and stare.

Beams of sunlight appear out of the air, stabbing toward the ground, shooting out spikes like roots. They form a lattice of light vines, reaching out and strangling the soldiers backed to the sewer tunnel, the grate smashed open.

But a whirlpool of black rises from two of the soldiers in silver armor, pushing back the light, and one of the three figures atop the wall launches an obsidian arrow, larger than life, that stabs into one of the sun vines and makes the whole lattice flicker.

I scramble to my feet and run, gaze fixed on Michael. His eyes blaze, his outstretched hands shake. I run, lungs screaming, pain lurching my shoulder, the wooden arrow shaft stabbed in me keeps knocking against the side of my head, a repetitive thunk-thunk that drowns out my footsteps.

A shudder shakes the earth, and Michael drops like a dead weight. I sprint at him, slowing enough to grab him under the arms and drag him toward the tree line. My left arm screams in agony.

"Feed me," Michael whispers, head lolling.

I stumble closer to the tree line, I don't need to look back because I know they're chasing us, we might be out of arrow range but they'll keep chasing--

"Feed me." Michael's hand flops up and weakly grabs my arm.

"What?" I gasp, stumbling onward.

His grip tightens on my bicep. "Feed me," he says, and it clicks in my head that he means magic but I don't know how--

"Sunlight." His nostrils flare, eyes wide. His hand flops down to his side and his head lolls back.

Footsteps and clinking armor rush across the meadow. But I quit stumbling toward the trees.

"Okay," I say. With my elbows under Michael's armpits, I splay my hands up his shoulder blades, wrinkling the pale fabric of his gown.

My hands hold the warmth of the sun on my skin from inside the sewer tunnel. My breath carries the dawn's rays, the bubble that trapped Regalia. The beacon of light overhead swirls like mist in my body and travels into Michael.

My limbs go shaky. But Michael starts glowing, literally glowing, and his legs go steady under us; he stands, reaching out to catch me when my knees give up. "Haha." He smirks in the direction of the castle.

Behind us, nearly at the edge of the meadow, a dozen swords rasp from their sheaths, and silver boots smash over the dirt. Brevity's voice calls, "Don't try and--"

Light explodes.

***

I blink.

It's like, for the first time, I can see.

I crane my head up.

The sky's baby blue, and cerulean, and royal blue of the deepest dyed cloth. Cotton clouds wisp about the horizon. Black tree trunks of the forest sparkle violet, indigo; their bark shimmers like the chitinous scales of a smooth garter.

The soil holds tens of shades of brown and red and gray; pebbles as rough as the kitchen benches perch atop water-smooth silt, and dance subtly to all our vibrating.

Michael's skin is bold brown, the edges of his palms under my arms a softer pink, etched with grooves, freckles on my olive wrists stand out like solitary fungi.

We are the heart of a glowing bomb.

Screams rip the air and the light pulses outward, a giant bubble dispersing into nothing.

Quiet. I blink and the world loses its shades of vibrancy.

My limbs give up into quivering pasta, but Michael's holding me up, teeth flashing. "You didn't last much longer in there, did you?"

I lose consciousness.