Destined

Chapter 18

Tamani half threw the unconscious faerie out of the hole in front of him and staggered over the stone lip, gasping for air. The gash in his side was seeping again and it was all he could do not to curl up in a ball and clutch at it. He had never put his body through so much torture before and wasn’t entirely sure how he was still standing.

What doesn’t kill you…

Shocked, Tamani stood up straighter and looked around him. The greenhouse was enormous, at least five times bigger than Laurel’s entire house back in California. And through the glass walls he saw more, a long row of them just like the Mixer boy had said. Tamani vaguely remembered the greenhouses from his childhood days of roving the Academy with Laurel and his mother, but he had assumed they had only seemed gigantic in comparison to his tiny sprout self. This was a perfect place to harbour the survivors.

The parade of faeries had stopped emerging from the smoke and Yeardley and some of the older fae were crouched at the hole, calling to the few who must still be in there. Where was Laurel?

His eyes found David, working with several faeries to raise the piece of stone wall upright, ready to push it back where it had been. Chelsea was kneeling beside someone who was on the floor coughing — probably a faerie who had breathed in too much smoke.

But no Laurel. Tamani scanned the crowd, then again, and a third time, but he couldn’t find her.

Fear clutched him as he realised she must still be inside. All thoughts of weariness left him and he ran to the hole David had carved, elbowing through the crowd.

“No more,” an older faerie said, laying a firm hand on his chest.

“I just have to see,” Tamani said, pushing him away. “I have to…” But no one was listening. He stopped talking and focused on worming his way closer when he managed to get a quick look over a shorter female’s head.

There she was! Just three metres away from the exit, struggling to save one last faerie, her back to them as she pulled him toward the opening.

“Leave him!” Yeardley was yelling, but that blonde head was shaking furiously.

Tamani cursed Laurel’s stubbornness and tried to push forwards again. “I’ll go get her,” he said. But no one seemed to hear him, the hands pushing back at him growing stronger as they all began to panic.

Why won’t she leave him?

“I have to… I have to.” Tamani continued struggling against the faeries, his words no longer coherent, only one thought in his mind. I have to get to her.

Tamani’s breath caught as Laurel stumbled backwards, the bulk of the faerie she’d been dragging dropping on to her legs, pinning her. She was kicking the weight away, but somehow Tamani knew those few precious seconds had tipped the balance against her.

“No!” he screamed, launching himself forwards making little progress in the crowded greenhouse.

She heard him — he could tell; she was scrambling to her hands and knees, turning her face toward his voice. But then she convulsed, silently, as the poisonous tendrils overtook her, her pink shirt seeming to glow in the darkness as the wispy red smoke enveloped it.

Everything inside Tamani shattered, razor-sharp edges that cut every inch of his body from the inside.

“That’s everyone,” Yeardley said mournfully, gesturing David and the faeries forwards with the stone square. “We can save no more. Block it.”

Tamani’s feet seemed to have taken root in the ground. “No!” he screamed again. “Good Goddess, no!”

David heaved against the stone with all his might.

He must not realise; he would never let them leave Laurel like that. Tamani opened his mouth to warn David but his throat closed around his desperate words, blocking off the last rays of hope.

He couldn’t say the words.

Couldn’t say anything.

Couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t see.

Blackness descended around him. He had to get to her — he couldn’t live without her, didn’t know how. Didn’t know how to breathe in and out in a world she wasn’t a part of.

Strong hands slammed him against the wall, the pain of his head hitting the stone bringing back the tiniest modicum of reason. Enough that he was able to blink and clear his vision — to see the face centimetres away from his nose. He didn’t know the faerie — it was just another Mixer — but the pain in his eyes reflected Tamani’s own.

“You have to let her go,” he said. And Tamani knew this faerie had been forced to let someone he loved go too. “This fight isn’t over yet,” the faerie pinning him said. “That rebel faerie’s still out there, and we’re going to need you.”

Klea.

She had taken everything — everything — from him.

She was going to the Winter Palace next. It was the only logical step.

There was no time to wait for the others. He had to go now.

She would kill him this time; he knew that. There would be no Shar to save him.

Maybe he could slow her down. Then she could kill him.

And, Goddess willing, then he would be with Laurel.

He forced himself to nod, to breathe evenly. To stop fighting against this faerie who held him back. He didn’t want to wait for Chelsea to discover Laurel was gone — to see David realise what he’d done. Didn’t think he could stand to share his pain with them.

The faerie in front of him said something — Tamani may as well have been deaf — and Tamani nodded, settling his forehead against the glass wall as if defeated. But his eyes roved the land outside, still just visible in the fading light. The steeply pitched roof of the greenhouse made the red gas slough off to the sides. This left the front door, just under the apex of the ceiling, safe. It wasn’t guarded — who would think to guard it?

Only a crazy fool would want to leave right now.

Tamani edged closer to the door, trying not to draw attention to himself, putting more and more rows of plants between himself and the crowd of Mixers. He was almost there when the one who had spoken to him earlier glanced back. He met Tamani’s eye, but he was too far away. Tamani slipped out the door, the glass frame closing and cutting off the protest.

Then he was running. He felt light, weightless, almost like he could fly as his feet pounded against the mud and grass and he ran for the Academy’s living wall, heedless of any of Klea’s minions who might still be watching.

He was going to kill Klea.

Or Klea was going to kill him.

In that moment, it didn’t matter which.

Laurel’s body ached and she hugged her arms to her chest. She’d barely gotten Mara out before collapsing on the floor in a fit of coughing. Then Chelsea was there, bending over her with concern on her face.

“It’s OK,” Chelsea was saying softly. “You’re all right.”

Several more faeries gathered round her as Laurel drew in a deep breath that filled her chest. “I’m good now,” she said after a couple more coughs. “I’m good.” But she didn’t get up. For a few seconds she needed to just lie there, focusing on breathing in and out. Just for a second.

She heard screaming and shouts from the wall of the Academy, but she clenched her eyes shut and blocked it out. She didn’t want to see them put the cut section of wall back in, or know how many they’d left to die. It was too much to even consider, so she lay with her eyes closed, trying to force her tears back until the commotion died down. Taking one more breath, she braced herself and opened her eyes, letting reality come crashing back.

“Where are David and Tamani?” Laurel said, pushing her sore body up and sweeping her hair out of her face.

“David’s over by the wall,” Chelsea said, pointing. “And I don’t see Tamani right now, but he made it out a couple seconds before you did, I promise,” Chelsea added. She must have seen the panic start to shine in Laurel’s eyes.

“OK,” Laurel said carefully. He’s here — I’ll find him.

At the wall between the dining hall and the greenhouse, they were stuffing thick mud from the planter boxes into the cracks around the cut-out square to seal in the poisonous mist. A couple of faeries had taken off their shirts and were using them to fan the stone, not only to dry the mud, but to dissipate any tendrils of the toxic smoke that might make their way out.

Laurel looked around the garden at the surviving faeries, more than half of them wounded or unconscious and all coated in soot. She should have felt pride that there were probably about a hundred survivors but all she could think about were the hundreds inside. The hundreds dead. Sprouts, professors, classmates, friends. All gone.

Friends.

“Chelsea, where’s Katya?” Laurel’s eyes darted around the garden, looking for the blonde hair and pink shirt that matched hers. “Where is she?” Laurel climbed to her feet, sure if she could just get a better look, she would find her friend.

“I–I haven’t seen her,” Chelsea said.

“Katya!” Laurel yelled, spinning about. “Katya!”

“Laurel.” Hands were on her arms and Yeardley’s voice was in her ear. “She didn’t make it. I’m sorry.”

Katya. Dead. Laurel vaguely heard David arrive at her side and felt his hand gentle on her arm. “No.” She whispered the word. Saying it too loud would make it true.

“I’m sorry,” Yeardley said again. “I tried… I tried to get to her to save herself. But you know Katya; she wouldn’t.”

Laurel had managed to hold back until now, but with Katya’s face still so fresh in her mind — her smile, her determination on the balcony — it was too much. She collapsed against Yeardley and let the tears come raining down on his shoulder as he held her.

“She will be sorely missed,” Yeardley murmured in her ear.

Laurel raised her face from Yeardley’s shirt. “I’m going to kill her,” she said, the bitterness in the voice that escaped her mouth not even sounding like her own. A spark of rage ignited within her and Laurel let it smoulder, growing hotter. First Shar, now Katya… for the first time in her life, Laurel realised she genuinely wanted someone to die; wanted it so badly that she would strangle Klea with her bare hands, if necessary—

“Laurel.”

Yeardley’s soft, penetrating voice brought Laurel back to herself. She looked over at the fundamentals instructor.

“Laurel, you are not a warrior.”

That was true. But did it matter? The Academy grounds were practically littered with guns just now — all she had to do was pick one up and shoot Klea in the back. It would be as easy as chasing her down.

“I have seen your work. You’re no destroyer. You’re stronger than that.”

What’s stronger than destruction? Laurel had seen strength. Tamani was practically built of it. Yuki was so strong she had almost killed them all. Klea was even stronger — she’d beaten Shar, who Laurel had imagined undefeatable. Even Chelsea and David had helped repel an invasion of thousands of trolls in one afternoon. So far today, Laurel had done nothing but run away.

“You’re a healer, Laurel, you always have been. And even though you’re angry right now, you don’t have it in you.”

“I could,” Laurel insisted. “I could do it!”

“No, you couldn’t,” Yeardley said calmly. “Not like this. And that’s not a weakness, Laurel. It is its own kind of power — the same power that makes you such a great Mixer, the kind of Mixer Callista could never quite be. Anyone can pluck a flower, Laurel. True strength is knowing how to give it life.”

He pressed something into her hand. Laurel looked down at the bright red flower — castilleja. Her mom called it Indian paintbrush; common both here and in the human world. But, when cured correctly, it was one of the most powerful healing flowers in Avalon.

Laurel’s anger melted away, leaving behind a deep, hollow grief. But sadness was familiar; sadness was manageable. It didn’t transform her, the way the raging anger did. She could remain herself and still feel this aching grief.

With Chelsea and David flanking her, their arms around her shoulders, Laurel built up the courage to look at the Academy — her Avalon home. From the back she couldn’t see any flames, but Klea’s red poison was flowing over the dining hall roof and cloaking the entire greenhouse. Thick black smoke was still rolling off the stone, joining a murk as dark as heavy rain clouds that circled above her head. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to look at the Academy again without remembering this devastation.

“Your friend Tam was quite broken up himself,” Yeardley said, breaking the silence. “Tried to keep us from closing the wall, but we couldn’t do anything else. They were all gone.”

Laurel nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks again as she looked away from the building. “He hates giving up,” she said. “Where is he?”

As if in answer to her question, a handful of faeries came running up to Yeardley. “The Spring faerie, he’s gone!” one faerie panted.

“Gone?” Yeardley asked, sounding truly panicked for the first time.

“When you were closing the wall, he went crazy,” one of them said. “I’ve never seen anyone like that. I thought I had calmed him down, but the second I took my eyes off of him he ran. Slipped out the door and about took the fence in one jump.” He paused. “I think he lost someone in there.”

“But why would he…?” Laurel looked down at her sodden pink shirt and the realisation hit her with breath-stealing force. “He thinks Katya was me,” she whispered.

“Oh no,” Chelsea said, her hands gripping Laurel’s arms. “He’s gone for Klea.”

“He’s going to kill her,” Laurel said.

“Or she’s gonna kill him,” Chelsea said, her face pale.

“Is there a gate?” Laurel said, spinning to look around the enclosure.

“Down in that corner,” Yeardley said, pointing. “But, Laurel, I advise you not to go. What do you think you are going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Laurel said. “Something.” She turned to David. “Come with me?” She had no right to ask, but she needed him. “The front door is still safe… after that, I–I don’t know.”

“Of course,” David said, immediately taking up the sword from where he’d plunged it into the ground.

“Chelsea—”

“Don’t even start,” Chelsea said, raising a hand. “I’m coming.”

There was no time to argue — especially against something Laurel knew she would do — had often done — in Chelsea’s shoes.

“Then let’s go,” Laurel said, nodding. “We have zero time.”

Slowing just enough to dart through the trees on silent feet, Tamani pressed through the forest, catching up quickly. Klea and her entourage had veered onto the path that led to the Winter Palace, but they wouldn’t reach it before he got to them. Ten more seconds and he could attack.

Nine.

Five.

Two.

One.

Tamani burst through the trees, his spear swinging, a primal scream he didn’t recognise tearing itself from his throat. Two black-clad faeries went down beneath the spear’s gleaming diamond blades; another stumbled to the ground. Her nearest bodyguards down, Tamani lashed out at Klea with his spear. With a yelp of surprise she raised a defensive arm; the heavy leather of her black outfit soaked up the brunt of the blow, but he thought he felt a stem crack in her lower arm.

Too bad it wasn’t her right arm.

Klea whipped out a pistol and aimed it at him, but Tamani was ready, and a savage kick sent the gun flying. No cheating; it would be skill against skill this time.

“Tamani!”

In his peripheral vision Tamani caught sight of Yuki, looking almost human in jeans and a halter top that left the small flower on her back exposed to the air. Her cry distracted Tamani long enough for Klea to land a steel-toed kick to his jaw. He leaped back, then swept Klea’s legs out from under her. Raising his spear to strike, Tamani took another kick, this time to the side of his knee. He was numb to her blows, but driving him back had given her time to scramble to her feet.

Several faerie guards were following the fight with the muzzles of their guns; Tamani doubted they would risk firing at him while he remained close to Klea. A few tried to get into the fight with knives, but Tamani lashed out with his spear, connecting with one faerie who didn’t jump back fast enough.

Though Klea favoured her broken arm, she was plenty fast with the other. She managed to pull a knife that snicked against his spear as he aimed for her throat, but she could only deflect the blow and it bit deeply into her shoulder. Sap seeped from the wound, but Klea paid no attention. “Yuki,” she called, her voice hard and sharp. “Make yourself useful!”

Tamani saw Yuki raise her hands. A cluster of tree roots rose out of the ground, the same way Jamison had commanded them in the Gate Garden. The thick, soil-flecked coils shot toward Tamani and he braced himself for their stinging lash — almost welcoming it.

But it never came. The roots stopped inches away. When Tamani spared Yuki a glance, her face was contorted, as though she were trying to prevent the roots from attacking her rather than being the one in charge.

“I–I can’t!” she cried, her words full of apology.

Klea swore and lunged at Tamani with her knife, but she had to leap back as he brought his spear around in a long, sweeping arc. He felt as though he were watching the encounter from outside his body, observing as some greater force took control of his limbs and threw him towards his enemy, blade first. He thirsted for justice; he would make her pay for what she had taken. Fuelled by rage, he was as mighty as any Bender.

Beneath Tamani’s onslaught, Klea gave ground; her knife was no match for his spear. He gave her an opening to his core, one she couldn’t refuse; it cost him a shallow cut along his wounded shoulder, but it also put her neck between Tamani and the haft of his spear. Gripping it with both hands, he pulled Klea bodily against him, pressing the grip of his spear against her throat. Reflexively, she dropped her knife, bringing her hands up to ease the pressure bearing down on her windpipe.

“You,” he gasped, his hands shaking but his mind filled with black clarity — with the hunger to kill. “You have taken everything from me, and you are going to die for it.” Klea made only a strangled sound and his mind barely registered the hint of fear that — for the first time — flashed in Klea’s eyes.

“No!” Yuki’s scream rent the air, and the universe ground to a halt as a second scream followed—

“Tamani!”

He tried to breathe, but his body was numb, paralysed. His mind refused to believe.

“Don’t do it!”

Closer now. He had to move. Had to see.