After the Walls

Chapter 36

I arm myself to the teeth with blades. My sword on my back. The daggers strapped to my waist. I step into my tattered boots – the same boots that have carried me through many battles and war – and pull my father's coat on, drawing in his fading scent. My heart twists.

What would he make of all this? What would he make of Ruben and Edward? Of me?

I catch the tear trailing down my cheek. This is not a time for weeping. This is a time for the fire that makes people afraid of me.

I take in my pale, translucent reflection in the mirror and gulp. Would he be proud?

The wind swirls and whistles outside, and a cluster of Mercurees dive and soar in the current. Even if they are slaves. Not entirely free.

With a deep breath, I scrunch Theseus' letter and toss it into the crackling flames in the hearth. Then I flee into the hallway, keeping my head bowed, eyes down, praying to the gods that no one will bother me.

But a voice draws me up short. Two voices. "She should be waking up today," Ajax says from around the corner, and I press myself flat against the wall. A maid, carrying a bundle of sheets quirks her brow at me and I wish I could melt out of existence.

"She's going to lose it when she learns that he's taking Ruben and Edward," Aston says, his voice low and threaded with concern.

Their footsteps echo, making their way toward me. I flinch. They can't catch me leaving. They wouldn't let me go alone if they knew what I was up to. I turn and speed walk the other way, tossing the maid a pained smirk, hoping she doesn't dob me in.

Finally, I burst outside, having dodged Aston and Ajax for now. The sky is coated in a layer of smoky clouds, and I squint against the bright glare. I cross the garden, making my way through the hedges, small courtyards, and make my way to the forest. Past the fountain of the day and night goddesses, along the wide, tawny path, and into the first, airy shadows of the forest welcome me into their cool, wild arms. Where I belong.

I make my way through the trees, as my heartbeat picks up. Thrumming against my rib cage, reminding me that I am, in fact, not fire. But a girl. A human. How did trying... and failing to save my sister thrust me into this, into a day where I must save the two men I love from the wrath of a sick half-siren. Birds crisscross the canopy above my head. Tiny fuzzy creatures scatter under the brush at the realisation of my presence. Phantom nails rake up and down my spine, driving into my flesh, wrenching the wind from my lungs.

Not fire. Only a girl.

In the distance, a pitchy cackle dances in the wind. Up. It's coming from up. Ice steeps into my blood, and I break into a run, crashing through the trees, and leaping over the streams that slice and wriggle throughout the earth. A whimper tears from my mouth as instinct plunges deep into my gut, tangles, and knots.

Don't hurt them. I want to beg. Please. Take me instead.

But I keep running.

Until, finally, the tight-knit trees, shadows, and ripples of green give way to a clearing at the northernmost point of the forest and the stone northern section of the Walls rises into the sky, seeming to scrape the clouds.

"Ruben! Edward!" I bellow, my voice riddled with pathetic fissures.

That incessant, creepy cackle whips around me in the wind that batters the stone. My hair, a flaming mess, dances around my face.

"Up here, Elle!" that voice says.

My legs are suddenly carved from stone and a scream, a wail, festers, and swells in my chest, in my soul. I brace myself and look up, craning my neck.