Sapphire (37 page)

Her parents had turned to fight the oncoming deluge
with no last words, no farewells, no reassuring gestures. All she
had been given was a last look and smile of pride from her mother
before they too were erased from view. Everyone she cared about was
gone and she was running; running from everything. It felt like
Orin’s arms, wrapped around her body, and Lula’s tiny weight on her
shoulder, were the only things keeping her from falling apart. They
had all said they would be there for her, and she had left
them.

Sparks flew from Mira’s silver hooves as she
clambered through narrow passages of boulders and leapt up and down
walls of rock, and still the hordes of molochs thundered after
them, ever closer. A layer of thick cloud still clung to the
mountain’s crown, obscuring their destination. Ava tried not to
look back. Instead, she tried to remember the confident belief in
herself, in their purpose, she had once held. Her fingers clutched
the sapphires and she focused on feeling the same electric flow
through her veins, but all she could feel was the weight of
watching everyone disappear behind her. All she knew was the fear
of losing them, and the fear of failing after all they had done for
her, after all they had sacrificed. Her face went slack and her
eyes grew wide. Sacrifice. Sirrush had said,
the unicorn’s
sacrifice must now be yours
. Is that what he had meant? Or were
they just more meaningless words meant to twist things to his
whim?

She ground her teeth and her eyes flared in rage at
the thought of him and his arrogance until a flash of realization
almost made her let go of Mira’s mane. She
wasn’t
angry at
Sirrush or his lies. She was angry with herself. She was angry that
she had so blindly believed all she had been told. Never once did
she feel in control. Never once did she blame herself for her
predicament. She
had
chosen this, but not to embrace it. She
had chosen to fear it. Always, her whole life, she had felt
helpless, weak, a victim, and she loathed herself for it.

But It didn’t matter what Sirrush said, what anyone
said, every action, every feeling, had always been her choice. Like
a demon waiting to be discovered, her anger collapsed in on itself,
tore from her, and lifted. All at once she felt light and free from
a weight she hadn’t even been aware of. At the same moment of Ava’s
sudden clarity, Lula, who had been clinging to her shoulder the
entire time, flew up and zipped alongside.

“Keep going! You can make it. I’ll make sure of
it.”

“Lula?” She tried to twist in Orin’s arms to see
Lula. “What are you doing?!”

The mist below them was fading, and as far as she
could see the land was a black tsunami, seething like waves of tar.
She could see nothing of her parents, of Sirrush, Capella, or
Antares. They were truly gone. And there was Lula, the most
unlikely best friend she had ever had, ready to fight off millions
in order to give them the last precious minutes they needed to
reach the top.

“Don’t you dare,” snapped Ava, flinging out a hand
to catch her, but Lula flew above her reach. “Not you too! You
can’t stop them all!
We
can make it, don’t lea—”

“I’m not leaving,” said Lula, hovering where she
was, letting the space between them stretch as Mira pranced a few
paces away. “Why would I leave?” she shouted above the rising
maelstrom. “Since we met, this has been the best time of my life.”
She winked, smiled, and waved as Mira broke into a trot, then a
run.

“Lula!” Ava shouted as molochs climbed the boulders
and leapt with snapping jaws at the tiny fairy. “Come with me!
Please!”

“No.”

Ava could barely hear her now.

Lula dodged a moloch. Fangs snapped on thin air.
“Don’t worry about me. It’ll be okay…” She was becoming a tiny
golden speck.

Ava half gasped half sobbed, still calling for her
to follow. She tried to look away. She should have looked away.
Lula flew like a tiny comet, trailing gold dust, and created a
thick wall of rose-crystal stone from the muddy earth. The narrow
passage between the high wall of boulders was blocked for now, but
a shadow crept from a hidden crevice beneath.

Lula didn’t see the glowing red eyes, didn’t hear
Ava’s distant scream as she yanked so roughly on the mane between
her fingers that Mira skidded to a stop and reared. The beast
lunged, a dark silhouette against the pale-rose wall. Lula was
waving, so happy and proud at helping her friends, but her smile
fell away as she turned her head. The moloch snapped her between
its teeth.

Ava couldn’t stop screaming. Lula was gone.

Antares was gone. Her parents. Everyone had been
taken by the molochs, had become the very thing trying to destroy
them. Except for Orin and Mira…she was now utterly alone. She fell
silent with shock, with such heartbreak, that even the molochs
could feel it, and their eyes burned brighter at her distress.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. She did not feel Orin’s comforting
hand or hear his words. She didn’t even notice the sapphires
glowing and evaporating the clouds around them as Mira galloped
into the belly of the next thunder storm rolling towards them.

A moloch appeared from the mist at Mira’s heels. She
kicked at it and dashed away. She galloped with renewed strength,
given by the demonic jaws of Hell behind them. Ava blinked through
her grief at the ground rushing by below. Tiny veins of light were
glowing between the rocks. The earth’s skin was glowing just as her
mother’s skin, her father’s, and her own had. She stared through
blurred vision at this interesting phenomenon, not
comprehending.

“There!”

She looked up at Orin’s shout and felt her heart
race with the pounding of Mira’s hooves. The doorway was there. The
massive arch, built of stone crackling with light, towered into the
clouds. It was open. The storm swirled like a tornado around it.
Yet, there was no storm within its huge opening, instead she could
see beautiful light dancing with blues and violets. She felt Mira’s
powerful muscles beneath her shaking, fighting to stay alive. She
gripped the silky mane and closed her eyes, willing Mira to keep
running.

At first there was only the roar of a million beasts
howling for her, the sharp crack of thunder, the awful silence of
her lost loved ones. Then those sounds began to fade, and all she
heard were the deep breaths of Mira. She heard the clatter of
hooves and explosive exhales as if they were her own. Her mind
tried to take her far away from it all. Nothing existed but the
feeling of wind on her closed eyes, cooling the tears on her
face.

Memories swam in the darkness under her eyelids:
Lula twirling in her dress of sunset kisses, Sparkle snoring
happily from the rafters, Antares playing with Mia, the first time
she saw Orin and the first time they kissed. She screwed her eyes
up even tighter against the pain welling up within. She saw her
parents joy in seeing her again, and she heard Capella’s cackling
laughter over the troll-tea. Even her friends and family from
another world, another life time it seemed, their faces flashed one
after the other before her. What had she done? Everything was
turning out so wrong.

“Now.”

The echoing voice sounded so far away, a
whisper.

“Now!”

Her eyes slowly opened. Reluctantly, she came back
to the present moment.

“Ava, you must go!” Mira yelled in her mind.

Mira was stumbling, and there was the giant arch,
only steps away. The light was so intense she couldn’t look at it,
but she could feel it sparking off her hair and skin like little
electric finger flicks. Mira fell to her knees and Ava and Orin
were nearly thrown from her back. They both jumped to the ground
that was splintered with blue-light, and unsheathed their weapons.
Orin shouted and Mira leapt up to kick viciously with her back
legs, crushing a moloch’s skull, but another was right behind
it.

“Run!” Mira turned her wild eyes on them,
rearing.

They began to turn away, but Ava faltered and looked
back.

Without having to ask, Mira answered her. “My realm
is cursed. If I enter I am lost as well. Now,
run!
”

They turned and ran. She didn’t look back. She
didn’t need to see Mira desperately kicking, goring, thrashing,
with all her might. She didn’t need to see the molochs beginning to
overwhelm her. However, nor did she see them begin to flow past
Mira as if she no longer existed.

The light from the archway was so brilliant she
thought she would also burst into ash before she could reach it.
The sapphires pulsed with her heartbeat. When she reached the
blinding opening, she finally turned her head to risk a glance. The
gleaming tusks and fangs of a moloch were sailing through the air
straight for her. She threw her sword up just as Orin shoved her
aside and rammed into the moloch.

She only had time to let her eyes widen in silent
horror, stumble backwards, and as the moloch clamped its jaws on
Orin’s shoulder, she was pulled into the unknown.

She was completely alone. The darkness, the fear,
the isolation was smothering her. She was choking, suffocating. She
didn’t know how long she lay curled, sobbing for her friends, her
family, for Orin, anyone, but finally she was exhausted. Her
shuddering breaths slowed. She painfully opened her eyes, her
lashes glued together with tears. The doorway was gone.

A sweltering world surrounded her. The earth was
charred with fire. Forests of burned lifeless trees twisted and
curled their branches as if frozen in pain. Dried stream beds cut
across the landscape like claw marks. There was an eerie warm glow
on her skin. She craned her neck back and nearly fell to the ashen
ground. There was no sky. A canopy of seething roiling magma-like
clouds stretched high above as far as she could see. A noise tore
her away from the incomprehensible sky.

Something was moving through the dead forest.
Branches snapped like brittle ribs as something large broke
through. She raised her sword in front of her, ready to face this
new fear. The creature broke through the last of the skeletal
forest, and turned its grotesque head towards her. Something that
had once also been a black unicorn was now a monstrosity of itself.
Taller than Mira, the stallion stood staring at her with what was
left of its face. Half of its skull grinned at her, pointed teeth
reflecting the gilded sky. On one side of its decaying face a red
eye glared, on the other half of its decimated skull a dark socket
stared.

It’s part moloch!

She felt faint. She glanced around again for the
doorway, any doorway, any possible escape. Only the desolate
landscape leered back. The creature continued to watch her, as
still as the lifeless trees behind it. She noticed bone protruded
from other various parts of its cadaverous body, and then she saw
its horn. Its tip had been shorn off. Nothing but dark jagged ends
pierced skyward. It raised its head and pulled back what lips it
had from fangs, hideously grinning. A voice echoed in her head,
deep and abrasive.

“Welcome to my realm,” said Lesath, the unicorn
lord.

Ava didn’t respond. She couldn’t. She felt her dry
skin cracking between her fingers as she gripped the sword’s
hilt.

“Is it not…lovely?” Lesath took a step towards her
and she finally found her voice.

“Stop!”

He halted, turning his head to peer at her with his
one blazing eye. “Stop? No. You have something I want. I can
feel
it.” He began striding towards her again but she stood
strong, the crystal blade aflame with the molten light.

“You came here for me, remember, little guardian? To
redeem your race. To undo your wrongs. To
give
me those
fragments you carry.”

He stopped a hands width from the point of her
sword. It barely reached the underside of his jaw. She let go of
her sword with one hand and reached up to touch the sapphires. He
threw his head back, baring his sharp predatory teeth.

“Give them to me.” He reared up over her head, black
hooves beating the air, and a piercing-scream erupting from his
cursed form.

She stumbled back, still gripping the necklace.
Spears of light escaped between her fingers.

She fell to her knees. “Of course,” she suddenly
heard herself say, her voice calm.

The chain of light dissolved, yet the sapphires
hovered around her neck as she let them go. It was easier to just
let them go, to finally be released of her enormous responsibility.
She was so tired. Her sword clattered to the burnt stones. Lesath’s
body quivered. His broken horn began to glow from within like the
shards now coalescing into a point. He bent his head as the broken
horn sought to reform its shattered self. Ava could barely lift her
eyes to watch. She was so very tired, so numb. There was something
she should be caring about, something she should be doing,
something—