“Not yet!” I yelled, raising my arms and calling up thousands of tiny stones as Zeph twisted and moved, fighting hard.
“Shalia, Calix!” Galen yelled, pointing to where Calix was approaching the stairs.
Taking one of the larger stones, I launched it at his head. It hit him square in the temple, and Calix fell to the ground.
Stretching my fingers, with a shout I sent the brute force of the rocks flying into the faces of the men around Zeph. It wasn’t very precise or fatal, but it earned a moment of distraction.
“Run!” Galen shouted at him.
Zeph ran hard for us, barreling over the edge and hitting first Galen, then me, knocking us back.
Rather than falling onto the stairs, I fell off the side.
For long seconds, I fell through the air. Galen shrank in the air above me and I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe.
Was this what Kairos felt?
Suddenly, without my intention, a rock came up beneath me, cradling me and easing my fall before stopping it completely.
With a gasp of relief, I got to my feet, holding my hand to my belly as the rock began to rise. I looked down—I couldn’t see Kairos, or where he might have fallen.
A shout from above drew my attention. Other soldiers had jumped across the rock, and Galen and Zeph were fighting them off, struggling to keep their foothold. Zeph drove his fist into a man’s jaw, and the man careened off the rock.
“Down!” I shouted, pointing at the tunnel.
Galen pushed Zeph, and the two men started running down the stairs. I started collapsing it behind them as another soldier jumped and fell into air.
My heart seized, and I sent a rock out to catch him and send him back to the edge of the cliff.
Flying the rock back up to the tunnel, I saw Rian talking to Kata, pale and sitting, clutching her side as blood came through her fingers. “Go into the tunnel and get Kata to the water so she’s stronger. I have to go look for Kairos!” I yelled.
I started to turn away when Galen leaped off the edge, landing on my rock and tilting it hard. I grabbed him, and he wrapped his arms around me. “Whoa,” he said, steadying.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Coming with you,” he said.
“Galen—”
His hands rubbed my arms a tiny bit. “No matter what you find, I don’t want you doing it alone.”
“Duck!” Rian shouted, pointing as an arrow flew, falling short and dropping into the crevasse.
“Go,” I told him. “I’ll be up as soon as I find him.”
He nodded, fixing his stare on Galen. “Keep her safe.”
Galen’s throat bobbed, and his arm wrapped around my waist. “Always.”
Galen brushed a kiss on my cheek, and I nodded at Rian, letting the rock drift downward. I curled my arms around him, leaning my head on his shoulder so I could look one way and he could look the other. I brought us all the way to the churning water in the bottom of the canyon, the wind blowing at my skirt and face and hair, cold where the rest of my body was warm against Galen.
I slowed the rock as it skimmed along the river.
“I didn’t even know there was a river here,” Galen whispered in my ear.
I nodded. “My father took me here once, when I was a child and we hadn’t found food for a long while. We came to hunt.” I pointed behind his back. “Far over that way, there’s an old staircase. It took us hours to climb it.” My fingers curled against him. “Maybe Kairos would go toward it.”
“Shalia,” he said softly. “Do you think he would have survived the fall?”
I shuddered against him. “I don’t know. I tried to catch him,” I said, my voice going so rough it barely escaped my throat. “But I couldn’t see him. I could have—I could have hurt him.”
“Or you could have caught him,” he said.
“Keep looking,” I said.
He nodded against my head.
We floated west first, going to where the mountains began to fold together, the river just emerging between the rocky crags. My eyes caught on rocks, and sticks, the movement of a fish, and every time, my heart leaped.
We turned east, going slower, looking at every inch of the riverbed. As we grew closer to the ocean, Galen pulled away from me to tug his jacket off his shoulders, putting it around me. I frowned up at him.
“You’re shaking,” he said, holding me tight again.
I looked up at his face and saw a sadness etched there. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “That you had to fight your brother.”
“I should have killed him,” he said, but the words lacked fire and instead sounded defeated.
“He’s your brother,” I reminded him.
His throat worked. “Someday, I’ll have to be the one to kill him, Shalia. I need to make peace with that.”
I held his hand tight. “Maybe so. But it’s all right if you haven’t just yet.”
He nodded, kissing my head, and I focused on the river again.
When we reached the ocean, the stone halted, faltering a little. “He’s not here,” I breathed.
“Not finding his body—that could be a good thing,” he told me softly.
“ ‘Body,’ ” I repeated. “I can’t—I can’t lose him, Galen.”
His arms tightened around me. “Let’s check again.”
“Rian will worry.”
“He’s safe. Worrying won’t hurt him.”
I nodded, moving the rock down the river again.
Legend
I didn’t know how much time had passed when I finally gave up. The light was dimming in the sky and I couldn’t feel anymore. I didn’t feel cold, or tired. I couldn’t look at anything anymore. Kairos was gone, and I had lost one more beloved thing, one more piece of me removed that I didn’t know how to survive without.
Galen tucked me deep in his arms as I let the rock rise up.
I didn’t trust myself to walk, so we stayed on the rock and floated into the tunnel. Within moments, the light behind us died and I shut my eyes. My power could feel the rock around me better than I could see it, and I just moved us along.
Rian wasn’t in the tunnel. No one was.
“They’re not here,” I murmured.
Galen brushed my hair back. “They would have gone ahead. We’ve been gone a long while.”
I nodded and kept the rock floating down the passage.
Soon we saw torchlight, and I slowed down. I saw Zeph first, his big body looming even larger in the flickering light.
“Something’s wrong,” Galen murmured, holding my hand as he jumped off the rock. I followed him.
“Zeph?” I called.
Zeph turned, and I saw blood cascading down his arm. “What happened?”
Kata came forward. She looked paler and weak. “He’s wounded. It’s bad. I couldn’t heal it completely.”
Zeph’s uninjured shoulder lifted. “I can’t really move my hand,” he huffed.
“How are you standing?” Galen asked.
He pointed to himself. “Legend,” he said with a heavy sigh, before instantly slumping against the wall. Kata sighed and caught him with her power, lowering him to the ground.
“He’s fine,” Kata told me. “Or he will be.”
“Where’s Kai?” Rian asked, walking around Zeph with a torch in his hand. He let it fall to the ground where it still burned, coming to me, looking around me. “Where is he?”