Page 81 of The Lost Reliquary
I bury my gaze in that silent, motionless form.
“Lys.”
I ignore him.
“Lys,” Nolan says again, more forcefully. “We don’t have time for this.”
I ignore him some more.
When he grabs my uninjured arm, hauling me up, I let him. I take in the irritated anger on his face, the hard line of his mouth.
And then I haul back and punch. Nolan tumbles backward and lands on his butt in the sand.
“We have time,” I yell, not caring if there’s anyone around to hear. If the Caerula are still nearby, I’d welcome them right now. Cut them down like weeds and be happy for it. “We have time because I say we have time.”
Nolan is as pissed off as I’ve ever seen him, bloodied teeth bared as he rises. “Do you not get it? Do you not understand what just happened?”
“Oh, I do.” It bursts up and out of me before enough sense gathers to stop it. “We had the heretic right there. And then, oops,youkilled him.”
“That wasn’t my fault!” Everything that’s been simmering in him since the Renderers’ workshop suddenly rises to the surface. I saw a hint of it when I revealed what I’d saved. Now comes a surge of viciousness—twisting his features, blackening his gaze—frightening enough to make me retreat a few steps, put space between us. For the first time, I feel like I see the truth of Nolan: driven and devoted beyond anyone else I’ve ever known, and left dangerously wounded by failure. “That was our only lead,” he snarls. “We are back tonothing. Nothing but new enemies and the vaguest notion that the reliquary is somewhere on this godsforsaken island. And your concern is for a godsdamneddead horse?”
“Fuck the reliquary!” Despite the threat of him, I throw the empty vial, angry at its uselessness. It bounces off Nolan and disappears into the sand. “Fuck the Caerula and the heretics.” I barely stop short of adding Tempestra-Innara to that list too.
“The reliquary—”
“I don’t care!” It hits all at once. The dragging, drowning,emptyfeeling. The inescapableneedfor the soothing balm of their light. I thought Nolan was the weak one, being so sensitive to the Goddess’s absence, making him impulsive. But it’s been rooted deep in me all along too, kept at a manageable distance by anger and the novelty of the unfamiliar. But this impure freedom was only a distraction. A makeshift bandage for a festering wound. “I don’t care,” I say again, but with less resolve. I want to sink into the sand at my feet, disappear like the vial.
“Of course you do. Even if you’ve lost your mind enough to not realize it.” His voice thins, quiets, as if taken by the same tide that’s washed over me. “We’re… failing Tempestra-Innara. After we already failed to protect them in the Cathedral.” He pauses, as if drained by speaking the words aloud. “But if we even consider giving up now and going back empty-handed, if they are forgiving, do you understand what we’ll be?” He goes tense all over. “Nothing.Nothing in their eyes. In the eyes of our brethren.I’mnot nothing. And I won’t give up on showingourblood mothermypotential just because your horse got killed!”
I damn near punch him again, with the plan to take out a few teeth this time. But my fist hangs at my side, stupidly limp, searing tears leaking over my cheeks. Nolan isn’t simply mad. There’s fear in his face, in his voice, glazing those hazel eyes. Fear of failure. Fear of loss.
Innara is dying.
I take a deep breath and understand.Reallyunderstand. His dread and distress about the Goddess’s vulnerability, and his own. Of their avatar being weak and the need to find the reliquary quickly. Of failing to do so and, therefore, failing to show his strength and capability.
Of being nothing.
All the pieces, broken up and scattered in front of me so I couldn’t see the whole picture.
“This isn’t about becoming Executrix, is it?” It coalesces as I put it into words. “You want to prove you’re as good as that and better. Tempestra needs a new avatar.” A bitter laugh escapes. “You want it to beyou, don’t you?”
He doesn’t answer. But he doesn’t need to. There’re some truths even Nolan’s acting can’t conceal.
Something in me turns brittle, the part that is always honed, alwayswaiting to be challenged. This was never a competition, not really. We both had plans all along—big plans.
I can’t even be mad. I kept my secrets and Nolan kept his. There’s no escaping the games we play, the blades we keep hidden.
It’s too much. I turn back to Mortimer and sink beside him in the sand. Place a hand on his chest. He’s as warm as in life, but still. No rise and fall of breath. No thick, heavy beating of his horse heart. Just meat now, lying on a beach, waiting for the tide to come and claim it, add it to whatever else rots beneath the inky blue. I sit like that, hand on horse, stuck. Stranded. Distantly, I am aware of Nolan taking a few indecisive paces toward me, then away, then toward Buttons. I wait for the sound of him riding away. It would be the smart thing to do, to leave me behind, abandon me to our pursuers.
Instead, his footsteps approach once more.
“Lys,” he says quietly. “Your shoulder.”
I know it’s bleeding. I don’t care.
His hands fall onto my shoulders, remove my cloak, tug my jacket off. I don’t fight, don’t take my eyes from Mortimer and the dark patch of wet sand, not even when pain flares. There’s a rustle of fabric, followed by the scrape of a lid being opened. Only then do I turn, see the small jar of Renderer salve in his hands.
“This isn’t over,” he says by way of explanation. “You need to be able to fight. And as horrific and frankly disgusting as this is, it will help. I… I think the Goddess—and Prior Fedic—would understand.”
