Page 116 of The Lost Reliquary
I catch the pleading note in Nolan’s tone, along with something else. Fear? But he’s right; it’s time to run.
The Caerula may still be in pursuit, but our way forward is clear. We reach the city and dive into the maze of it. When Nolan turns, I follow. When I bolt down an alley, Nolan is on my heels. We are a pack of two, moving as one, running until even our lungs begin to burn. And then, finally, we stop, in the shadowed courtyard of an empty, crumbling warehouse, moon peeking over its ragged roof. For several minutes, we listen, backs pressed to the cold brick. But there are no sounds of pursuit, nor anything else. We are alone.
Nolan turns to me, streaks of drying blood across his pale skin, eyes alight with the glow of battle. I want to laugh again, or howl, a primal sensation tearing through me. But I can barely catch my breath. My gaze locks with Nolan’s, both of us still treading the consuming, velvet darkness.
Then, in a wordless, mutual agreement, we drop to the ground.
I press my forehead to my knees as victory recedes and the pain comes crashing back. “Ghmmmm.”
Nolan shifts closer. “You’re hurt.”
“S’nothing. Scratches, a rib or two that’s been better. Back there, I—”I thought you were dead.“You almost died.”
“Almost but didn’t. You’rehurt.” More insistent this time. Hands unfold me, straightening my wounded leg.
“I’m—OW!”
“No, you’re not.” Methodically, he examines the cuts, then slips off his belt and removes the scabbard from it before tightening it around my thigh. “We need to take care of this.”
“Sure.” The night air is cool, but I’m hot all over. Burning, even. Simmering in my own blood loss. “Just need a minute.”
I expect an argument. Instead, Nolan takes a deep breath and sits back, drawing his own knees up. For a moment, he looks strange. Looks…
Small.
“It’s over,” he says quietly. “The reliquary… we’ll never get to it now.”
Small… and broken.
Something settles around us, weightier than our bare survival, yet gossamer thin. Nolan stares at me over his knees with a piercing, brittle intensity. It sinks deeper as my breath slows, heartbeat returning to normal, flesh redoubling its efforts to remind me thatdivinely gifteddoes not meantotally invincible. But those corporeal discomforts slip into the background, pushed back by Nolan’s words and the recollection of those few torn-apart heartbeats where a hole had suddenly opened up in the world, in the place where he had been. They’d passed quickly, that empty space refilled, but left something behind. A truth, deep as the wound inflicted by Ramiro and twice as dangerous. A truth I can’t find a name for.
Nolan and I aren’t family. We aren’t friends. We’re—
“It should be you.” The words rupture out of him, blunt as a confession.
“What?”
“It should be you,” he says again, and this time, it soundsexactlylike a confession. Like a secret that can’t be kept anymore. “Executrix. The Goddess’s hand. If there is anyone in the Devoted Lands that can carry that honor… Lys, it’s you.”
I try to laugh, but my busted ribs don’t get the joke. “I told you, I’m not—”
“You could have escaped Ramiro. Retreated to safety. Instead you stayed. Saved me.”
“Barely.”
“But you did, though you didn’t need to. Like you did at the Cathedral, when Emmaus attacked, and when the Renderers…” He looks away suddenly, as if embarrassed by that memory. “You play the fool, but you’re not. You were willing to partner with me even after I tried to kill you, because it meant a better chance at finding the reliquary and that mattered more. You’re one of the finest fighters I’ve ever seen, even if you don’t need a blade to get under someone’s skin. You improvise. You cross lines when you need to. I… I thought I was in control in Lumeris, Belspire, Novena. That there was no challenge I couldn’t conquer.” He takes a deep breath. “But I’ve failed, over and over. Made every wrong decision. And since coming here… all I’ve felt is the constantcracking, as if… as if I’m flaking away bit by bit. I… I don’t trust my own instincts anymore.”
“I’ve felt it too—”
“Not like I have.” He tenses further, shrinking into himself. Withering. “We both know that. Even if you are only staying afloat, it’s better than drowning. The Executrix needs to be ready for anything. You bend. You flex. You’re unbridled and unconventional, and…” He pauses, still staring at the worn-down cobblestones. “And that is exactly what our blood mother needs more than anything right now.”
Too warm a minute ago, now a perplexed chilliness trickles over my skin.
His eyes find mine again. “That’s what I’m going to tell Tempestra-Innara, if we make it back to Lumeris. If… if they’ll hear me. That even though we failed to find the reliquary,youshould be Executrix, and that it would be an honor to see you at the Goddess’s side.”
And just like that, I win.
Nolan is conceding. But not surrendering.Competitor, adversary, rival… those words no longer matter, held up against whatever we are now. Nolan is not Jeziah, a companion of convenience and necessity. And he’s not my blood brethren, that forced distinction that has always been as much challenge as collective.
