18. Declan

Chapter eighteen

Declan

I opened my eyes and sucked in the earthy scent of pine, the scent of home.

I sat up. órla must've wandered off because I was alone on the mountain.

The mountain.

Pine?

This is the wrong mountain! Where am I?

I leaped to my feet and searched for the Keeper's cabin, or the Path, or anything that looked familiar.

There was nothing.

An arrow whizzed by my head, followed by a loud whack as it embedded in a tree nearby. I threw myself to the ground and crawled to hide behind a large boulder.

Men shouted in the distance, and the crunching of leaves and twigs grew louder.

Another arrow zipped overhead.

Whack!

I scrambled to my knees, then to my feet.

I bent behind the boulder's protection.

My mind raced. My breath quickened.

Run or die . . . run or die . . . run!

I bolted from my hiding place and ran in a snaking pattern through the trees.

More shouts sounded.

I ran faster.

Shouts rang out to my right—heading toward me—then an arrow fired from that direction.

Whack!

The forest opened into a clearing by a bubbling stream. Atikus, Keelan, and Sil sat chatting quietly on a log, eating and drinking, as if on a picnic in the woods. They glanced up as I broke through the trees.

"Declan? What's wrong?" Keelan asked. "You look—"

I was baffled and out of breath. How could I be back in the mountains with Keelan?

None of this made any sense, but my Ranger instincts took control.

"Men shooting arrows. Run! " I shouted.

Keelan and Sil jumped to their feet and raced across the stream. Atikus gaped at me, unmoving.

"Atikus, get up! We have to go. They're right behind me." Another arrow flew by, as if called by my statement.

Whack !

Atikus sat frozen, staring into the woods as three men in Kingdom cloaks broke into the clearing, two with bows nocked and aimed at him.

Time crawled as the arrows loosed from the men's grips and took flight in a perfect line toward the Mage's chest. The missiles moved as though slicing through syrup, slowly, but never flinching from their deadly path. The third man drew a sword and stalked toward me, his steps exaggerated by the strangely warped time.

I screamed, " No !"

Without thinking, I threw my arms forward, palms outward, facing the men. A shimmering wall of light formed in front of Atikus as the Mage turned. His eyes found mine.

The first arrow struck the wall, and the barrier flared.

The arrow sizzled and fell to the ground in a pile of ash.

The third soldier swung his sword in a wide arc toward my neck, forcing me to dive as the blade passed only a hair's breadth overhead.

With my focus lost, the wall protecting Atikus vanished, and the second arrow slammed into the Mage's chest. Blood bloomed across his robe. He swayed, then fell to the ground with a pained wheeze.

I rolled away to distance myself from the swordsman and looked back, expecting a deadly blow, but gaped at the empty forest. Atikus lay bleeding, but the soldiers had vanished, and there were no sounds of pursuit. In fact, there were no sounds at all, save the old Mage's moaning.

I flung myself to Atikus's side and tore open his robe. The arrow had caught in his chest without exiting through the other side, making it nearly impossible to remove short of tearing flesh or vital organs.

I had no idea what to do.

Panic set in.

"Declan, go. Leave me." The Mage's voice was a rasp. He was trembling, the color already having drained from his skin.

"I can't leave you, Atikus. I won't! Stay with me!" Tears blurred my vision as I gripped my adopted father's shoulder.

Terror and grief ripped through me.

Sil burst back into the clearing, breathing hard. "Declan, come quick. Keelan's down. You have to Heal him!"

I looked from Sil to Atikus.

Blood consumed the ground beneath the Mage, spreading in every direction. "Atikus, I don't know how to Heal. What do I do?"

Atikus stared up with glassy, unseeing eyes.

Panic shot through me.

I shook him, screaming his name, but the Mage didn't stir.

Tears flowed, and pain's talons tore into my heart.

"Declan!" Sil shouted .

The present slammed back into my mind, and I leaped up from beside the Mage's now-empty shell. "Take me to Keelan!"

We ran a short distance before reaching Keelan's prone body. He rested atop a river of blood, with two arrows jutting from his chest and one from his leg.

His face was ash.

His chest was still.

I fell to the ground and searched for a pulse that refused to be found.

I grabbed my brother by the shoulders, screaming again, no longer caring if the enemy found us.

A flood of tears flowed down my cheeks as I craned my head upward and screamed curses at the Spirits.

"Keelan, NO! Not you, Kee."

My last words escaped as a childlike whisper.

The world spun again.

Keelan and Sil disappeared.

The forest disappeared.

The tears remained.

I found myself in the midst of a battlefield.

A sea of soldiers in emerald and navy lay broken and bleeding in every direction, hundreds, no thousands , probably more. No one moved, save those near death who crawled and clawed at the ground, moaning for mercy, for an end to their suffering and pain .

Massive vultures held court in this graveyard, feasting like kings of the underworld. Blood and mud mingled for leagues, smearing the once-lustrous landscape with a putrid, inescapable bile.

My stomach revolted as Death's scent gripped my mind.

I scanned the field, recognizing the familiar outline of Saltstone only a few hundred paces away. An orange glow blazed from behind the walls as thick smoke billowed into the sky.

I staggered toward the capital.

Dazed, I stumbled over one corpse, then the next.

The East Gate stood open, its massive doors splintered by a metal-tipped ram that still lay on the ground nearby. My breath caught as I entered the once-grand city, my home, now a shell of its former glory. Flame and ash clung to everything once good and just. Half a million souls called Saltstone home, yet I couldn't find a single building spared by wanton destruction.

I had only taken a few steps when the world spun again and I found myself standing before the familiar arch that marked the entrance to the Mages' Guild. The Phoenix that once soared over the arch's capstone lay decapitated and hacked to pieces on the ground. The fist-sized rubies that once flared in greeting had been plucked from their sockets.

I stepped over the rubble into the only place I'd ever called home. Swaths of navy mixed with gray and rivers of scarlet as bodies of Mages and soldiers littered the courtyard, broken and bloody.

My fallen family.

My throat caught as I passed the body of a student who looked to be in his first years of training, a young boy who lay frozen in horror, a silent scream begging to escape widely parted lips.

Hope rose as I spotted the guild's tower looming ahead, protected by the vein of raw power flowing beneath its stones and still unmarred by the chaos.

My heart seized again at the sight of a black pennant snapping in the wind at the tower's peak, an accusing finger to those who had yet to yield to its dark purpose.

I fell to my knees, overwhelmed and overwrought.

My city, my home, my family .

All were gone.

Sobs came in waves, and shut my eyes as my vision blurred.

When my eyes opened again, I was still on my knees, but in the center of town where five roads and a river met. Saltstone's hub had once been filled with life, with the laughter of her people, with the chatter and clatter of hooves on stone. Now, broken bodies lay everywhere—this time of Merchants, Guardsmen, and others.

I couldn't shut out the screams and wails of mothers torn from their children, of fathers broken nearby, unable to rise. As if a distant memory, I watched merciless men on horseback swing swords and axes into heads and necks and backs.

Anguish and anger gripped my soul.

I screamed into the hateful sky.

Suddenly, nothing stirred.

There were no sounds.

Saltstone stood mute.

And then I knew.

There were no people.

The broken and bleeding were gone.

The moaning and crying had ceased.

The streets and fields stood vacant and still.

Where is everyone?

This hadn't been an invasion; it was an annihilation.

A woman in a flowing gown the color of the deepest abyss appeared at the center where the five roads joined. She held aloft a staff of the purest silver etched with ancient symbols that glowed along its length. On her brow rested a crown inlaid with seven bloody jewels that pulsed in an odd, aortic rhythm.

The woman turned.

Her gaze pierced my soul.

She smiled, threw back her head, and her laughter echoed throughout the city-turned-tomb.

Her eyes snapped back to mine, and she called out, "This is your doing, Declan. Your victory! "

Then a man appeared beside me. His hair flowed in the wind, a new blaze among a city of flames. He turned, and my heart lurched.

"Ayden?"

His eyes held only mine as his hand reached for me.

I made to stand, to answer his call, but—

The woman pointed her staff, and its symbols flared as hungry flame streaked from its tip and slammed into Ayden's chest. Vines of energy tore across his body, writhing as their web drew taut around his body.

A heartbeat later, the searing magic blasted into me.

I would die here. This was my end.

But not before I watched Ayden's last breath.

I reached for him, longing to touch his cheek, to feel his warmth one last time.

But as I breathed my last, Ayden's eyes fixed on a point in the sky, and he saw no more.

I woke sometime later to the tickling of órla's feet against my chest.

I began to sob.

órla nuzzled my neck and whirred, as if sharing my grief.

It was just a dream! Keelan and Atikus are alive! It wasn't real .

"It wasn't real," I muttered through sobs, over and over.

I clamped my hands over my face, a child hiding beneath the sheets. "Please tell me it wasn't real."

"No. Not yet." The Keeper's deep voice shook me. "Life and death hinge on the humblest decisions; many we face without knowing the cascade we begin.

"The Phoenix demands honor, wisdom, and truth. You, Declan Rea, stand before the world with the power to shape and mold—and to destroy. Your Path, your choice , will reroute the river of time itself. You now stand before a fork in the Path, and you have seen where each road leads. One will save your people. The other is the end of everything. You alone must choose."

I dropped my hands and peered up through wide, watery eyes. "What do you mean I must choose? Why do I have to do any of this?"

"I am sorry, Declan, but there is no more time. If you cannot choose, or refuse, both visions will come to pass." The Keeper placed a candle no taller than his thumb on the table and lit it with a flick of his wrist. "When the flame dies, the future is fixed. Spirits guide you, son."

The Keeper vanished.

órla vanished.

I stood and looked about, but they were gone.

I was alone with the rapidly melting candle.

How am I supposed to make such a choice? To sacrifice Saltstone . . . or Keelan and Atikus ?

I stared at the tiny flame, so rapidly vanishing.

Atikus had saved us when our parents died.

Keelan was my protector—always my protector—relentless, steady, unflinching. I resented my brother's success, that he was good at everything he tried, but we were brothers, and I loved him with the fierceness only that bond could bestow.

And Ayden.

I barely knew words to describe what he meant to me now, but my heart bled at the thought of even the slightest harm coming to him. To think of losing him—or worse, sacrificing him . . . I couldn't.

Spirits, how long have I been running?

I've been such a fool, so jealous, so . . . childish.

And now I'm told to sacrifice them? To choose between killing the only people who ever loved me and the rest of the world?

What kind of choice is this?

The screams of Saltstone echoed in my mind.

I could see and smell her death.

Then the woman with her angry flame returned to my mind, and Ayden's dying breath.

In one vision, I was surrounded by soldiers who would likely kill me—or worse, capture me. In the other, I died in a magical blaze alongside the only man I had ever loved.

I looked down to find the candle's flame flickering, its wax exhausted .

Anger, fear, and helplessness erupted as I screamed at the ceiling, "I DON'T WANT TO CHOOSE! I WON'T CHOOSE! TAKE MY LIFE INSTEAD!"

My voice fell to a whisper.

"Please, just take me instead."

My eyes closed as my body tumbled to the floor.