16. Chapter 16

Ilet my head fall back, sobbing a laugh.

"Yes, I'm here! Depression is dead, I killed them. We're safe for now. Are you alright?"

Cyn whistled in admiration, the shrill tone briefly startling my fading headache. "Well done, little sister! Yeah, we're fine. Just fucking drowsy. But Eli's being a lazy ass, taking forever to wake up."

Elias cursed, and I giggled, wiping away the tears brimming at my lashes. We weren't out of the woods yet, but one step closer to freedom. The quiet sound of their voices led me to the bottom of the cadaver hill, and there they were, mere feet from the entrance.

My brothers sat back-to-back on the blood-encrusted floor, holding hands. They turned to me and smiled—Cyn wide and cocky, Eli's mouth pulling up in a sluggish effort.

"Come, little one," Elias rasped, straining to speak. "Sit with us for a while. I need to get my bearings."

Their hands parted, reaching for me, inviting me to join them. I took off my bow and quiver and slumped down, leaning my back against their sides. We sat in weary silence, Cyn's hand on my thigh and the side of Eli's head against mine. I thought I was alright, but a bout of exhaustion hit me like running into a brick wall. Only now I felt the aftereffects of the fight within my mind.

That's what Malachar's riddle meant. And the wings of night—he'd been hinting at the raven.

I looked around the square room, finally free from the fog. Stone walls. No furniture. No houses or plants or props. A single torch on each wall. And in the middle, that massive pile of corpses.

It seemed like Depression's subversive methods had claimed the most victims—more than cleavers, whips, ghouls, and even cursed healing spells combined. I couldn't help wondering what sick assholes must have enjoyed watching people fall prey to terrors of their own making, turning their weapons against themselves.

"What did you see?" Elias asked out of the blue. "This being, it must have read our thoughts, our memories and fears like an open book, every insecurity a tool to use against us." He paused, then asked again. "What did you see?"

I shuddered, yet I was grateful Eli asked. The hallucinations had re-opened old wounds, and these memories were now poisoned thorns in my soul. I needed someone to talk to, needed to extract the venom of relived sorrow, widen the wound to let it drain freely from my veins.

"At first, the orphanage," I said, my dry lips trembling. "That time Matron Blackthorn made me clean the foyer just to stomp all over with her muddy shoes."

"Back then, we thought she'd never let you out of the basement again," Eli said, stiffening against me. "We were sick with worry. Every day, we tried to break you out, but the keys were always on her."

"I was fucking ready to kill the bitch." Cyn slammed his fist onto the floor. "One more day, and I would have slit her throat while she slept, whether or not her savings would've been enough yet."

Oh, the torment we'd endured, waiting for Matron Blackthorn's nest egg to swell. We'd agreed to wait until there was enough to tide us and the other kids over for the first few months in Hedonfel, though Cyn was never the patient type.

"Next, I saw the night you were taken. My ill-fated search for you. It was all exactly as I remembered, from the cold air to the hollowness in my chest. So vivid. So incredibly realistic. The last scene wasn't a memory, but my worst fears shaped into one horrific moment. I had finally found you two, twenty years later. You had a beautiful house, and—"

I clicked my tongue, heat pinching my cheeks as I fidgeted with a loose thread on my tunic.

"And an even more beautiful wife. You told me you left because you had enough of me, because I was boring and useless. Then you said to do us all a favor and kill myself."

"Shit!" Cyn shouted and jumped up, stumbling before he found his footing. "I've never heard such horseshit! As if we'd ever fucking do that! How dare that miserable little cur even imply—" He kicked the nearest corpse, the body shattering into glittering dust. "Fuck this! Fuck all of this! I don't care if you've already killed them. I'm going to turn their body into mincemeat!" He yanked his cleaver free and stomped up the corpse mound.

"Ah yes, Cynthian's famously terrible way of handling negative emotions," Eli said, letting out a snicker. "Hacking at something instead of talking it out."

I giggled, turning toward him with my legs crossed. "You know he will share when he's ready. Probably at the worst, most inappropriate time, as always."

Melancholy wrapped around my ribs, choking the laughter from me.

What if we'd been apart for too long? Had I missed too much?

"He still does that, right?" I asked.

"He does." Eli's smile turned gentle. "You'll see not much at all has changed, Myna. You needn't worry."

I exhaled, nodding. My brother wouldn't lie to me.

"All my visions had one thing in common: A raven kept approaching me," I said. "At first I thought nothing of it. Even when I made it meet the sharp end of my dagger during the final illusion, I admit it was a wild guess to hope the bird's death would free me. Thinking back, the animal almost seemed like it wanted to be noticed."

Perhaps Depression wanted to die, I thought. After all, they had thanked me.

"I saw the raven as well, but failed to make the connection. I was too preoccupied with my suffering," Elias said, a tinge of embarrassment in his tone.

"What about you then, Eli? What did you see?"

He hummed, the baritone sound swelling in his chest. "That day the other children pushed me down the stairs and I broke my arm. I remember the agony, remember how Matron Blackthorn shoved the bone back in. Creators, how I screamed. And I remember how she refused to spend coin on calling a doctor for a Half-Elf bastard like me."

My stomach twisted. I remembered his screams, too.

"You were in agony for weeks."

"I was, but you made me better. The herbal tinctures you concocted over that precarious arrangement of candles in the attic broke the fever. Your poultices healed the infection after you set the bone. I doubt I would have lived without them. Without you."

I chewed on my lip, the potent scent of sour balsam and amateurishly mixed, half-cooked potions in my nose as if it was yesterday.

"You were my reason for taking up herbalism and alchemy. I hated creeping around the underbrush behind the house, that tattered old alchemy tome in my hands, trying to find the right plants. They all looked the same to me and there were bugs everywhere. I even dragged Cyn along, making him protect me and hold the basket." I laughed wryly. "He was so terribly bored; I could tell from the way he was jumping from foot to foot. But he never complained."

"Chop-chop-chop, you piece of shit!" Cynthian's voice drifted from atop the corpse hill.

"I relived the experiments, too. Months, perhaps years locked in a binding circle while the ritual took hold," Elias continued. "There were rows of them. Too many to count. Youths with anguish in their souls and Demons in their bodies. Cyn's circle was right next to mine. We watched each other and the other test subjects suffer. Cry. Plead. We watched their mortal bodies fail and die. And every day, we promised each other that we wouldn't give up. We would make it. We would be together, free, and we would find you again."

My pulse elevated, my stomach roiling as my brain conjured vivid images of their torment.

"I'm sorry I took so long to find you," I mumbled.

Eli shook his head. "What could you have done, Myna? Worst case, had you come earlier, Malachar might have made you part of his sick experiments. Better us than you."

His trembling, clammy fingers found mine, skin chilly, and my brow furrowed.

"Are you unwell?" I asked.

His hand pulled away, and my frown deepened.

"My last hallucination wasn't a memory either," he said, ignoring my question. "I was all alone. Forsaken. By you. By Cyn. By the Creators. A faithless, unlovable outcast living in the dirty streets of Hedonfel. I was ready to accept my punishment, deserving of death at my own hand. For if I failed you and Cyn, if you no longer wished to be in my presence, and I failed the Creators, too, I had no right to live."

A humorless chuckle escaped him.

"Had you not broken through the illusion and killed Depression … we would have died here, Myna. You saved us—again. Between my wistfulness and Cyn's anger, we never would have escaped the affliction of our minds."

Warmth unfurled in my chest. I adored being praised by my brothers, but no praise could distract me from my growing concern.

"Protecting you both, being there for you … it's all I want to do, Eli. Just like you protect me, like you are there for me. But please, part of loving someone is being worried about them. So let me love you. Let me worry. Don't dodge the question again. Why are you shaking?"

Elias sighed. "The poison is taking effect. I can't stifle the tremble in my hands. It feels like my blood is coagulating, freezing. Rime settling in my veins, slowing me down."

My heart flip-flopped. I couldn't begin to guess how long we had been trapped in Depression's mind games, but it must have been hours if Eli's condition had worsened this much.

"Damn it! We need to hurry." I brushed a hand across his cold forehead. "Can you walk?"

He smiled and pushed himself to his feet, unsteady. I stood, too, offering him my arm.

"What about Cyn? Do you think he's feeling it as well?"

Elias squinted, and I followed his gaze to the hill where our brother stood, panting, hatchet in hand.

"I think we both saw him swaying when he got up, so I dare say yes. But perhaps not yet as intensely as I do. He's always been sturdy and healthy as a horse, less prone to illness and injury."

As if on command, Cyn twisted toward us. He held up a necklace, a key dangling from it.

"Hey, you slowpokes! Look what I found around the asshole's throat, next to his collar. Fuck, this prick had a million layers of damn feathers, I had to dig around!" he yelled, twirling the chain. "I see the exit from here. It's just around this stupid meaty mountain. Come on!"

"We better get going, hm?" I smiled at Elias, who tried to straighten, grinding his teeth. "Is there nothing I can do to make you both feel better?"

"I do not think so, little one. The corpses are crystallized, their flesh inedible, and their blood solidified, which means Cyn and I cannot feast or drink. So unless you have hidden your alchemical supplies and perhaps a sacrificial circle somewhere in the pockets of your trousers …"

"What if Cyn drank from me again and you took a bite out of my—"

"No," Eli interrupted, the corners of his mouth pulling down. "You already lost blood when you sated Cyn before, and you seem to forget that you have mortal limitations. Unless it is an emergency, we must avoid weakening you any further. As for my needs …" He shook his head. "I refuse to make you part of my disgusting urges."

My lip curled. "But—"

"There will be no discussion. I will go on as I am." He sighed, his expression softening as his hand ran over my hair, then down my neck, over my shoulder, and lastly along my arm to my fingers, interlocking them with his. "Thank you for offering yourself, Myna. Now come. Don't forget your bow and quiver. Let's not make our brother wait."