Chapter 44 -Rabid
934 Words
“I don’t have the healing power!” Rabid shrieked, her hands warm with Stone’s blood. “I wasn’t lying, I am not the natuna they thought I was!”
Even before her failure, before her inability to awaken the powers and become who they all claimed she was meant to be, Rabid had not really believed the Reanni story of her origin. Of course it was false. She had never been anything: not royalty, not a warrior, not even accepted. Now, more than ever, she knew of what a failure she was.
“If you don’t heal him, he will die.” The voice was calm, too calm for the panic he had created. Rabid could hardly hear him over her own gasping sobs. She was trying to press her hands into the gaping wound in his side, watching in panic as Stone’s eyes rolled back in his head.
“Stone.” She whispered. “Stone, wake up!”
An intake of breath above her finally drew her eyes. The green-eyed man gazed at her with some deep, ferocious need.
“Heal him.” He ordered. His eyes were wide and waiting. Hot tears marked Rabid’s cheeks as she slowly shook her head.
“I don’t have the power, I can’t save him!” she choked out. “Please, please, I’ll do anything else. Please don’t let him die.”
The man squinted slightly, trying to decide if she was truly hiding her nature so well. Then, he calmly looked down at the blade in his hands, methodically wiping it against the black cloth of his forearm.
“Shame.” He muttered.
Rough hands grabbed Rabid’s shoulder, ripping her from Stone’s side. As she was pulled away, she saw Stone slump motionless to the floor. The man above him peered down, and nudged him slightly with his boot. When there was no response, he shrugged.
“I guess you weren’t lying.”
“No!” Rabid shrieked, fighting against the hands that pulled her back to the door, her eyes glued to Stone’s body. “Please!”
“If you aren’t the natuna,” the man said, not even bothering to look up, “then you are useless to me.”
As she stared at Stone’s body, felt the tightening hand around her bicep, and smelled the acrid scent of blood between them, Rabid felt time slow. Stone’s face had turned slightly grey, and she could no longer see his chest moving with his shallow breaths. She felt the Ravener rage flickering deep beneath her skin. She tried to lean into it, to let the strength build in her flesh, but her own panic was like a wet blanket dampening it.
“Stone!” Rabid whimpered, willing his life to stay inside his body. For once, she thought. For once, be who you need to be. She squeezed her eyes shut and reached for the flaming snake inside her. She will up images of her parents, the ash of her homeland. She opened her eyes to Stone’s body, lying motionless on the cold floor. But it wasn’t the sight of him that sent her flying into action. It was the flash of metal that sent her insides exploding with power—the glint of a sword moving toward her body, ready to plunge into her own flesh.
It was then, with a hungry roar, the bloodlust exploded in her veins. Her muscles screamed with the power of it. With all the power she had, she wrenched her arms free, sending the man who held her flying to the floor. In a matter of seconds, she had disarmed a man to her right and run him through with his own sword.
Chaos erupted around her as panicked men sprinted toward her. Her eyes were blood red, and though it clouded her vision, she moved with the perfect execution of a life-long warrior. Her body knew exactly how to save her. It sent bodies flying back, men flung to their death over the edge of the low partition. It sent sword to flesh, over and over. The Ravener had so consumed her that she didn’t even recognize the two familiar faces that appeared over the wall, wearing the pale brown of the Omari.
She ignored them, instinctively knowing they were no threat to her, and continued slaughtering the men in black. Finally she reached the man that stood above Stone’s motionless body, his eyes wide with awe and wonder. No fear were in those eyes: and she could tell that beneath his mask, he was grinning like a madman, even as Rabid ran him through with the same knife that he used on Stone.
The emotions she had felt seeing Stone fall before her seemed distant, cold. As though they themselves had been far removed. She looked at his body, laying in a pool of blood on the floor, and in an instant did a hundred calculations. Blood loss, knife positioning, current lack of movement, greying skin and lifeless eyes: he was surely dead, there was no point in taking the body. Instead, her power pulled at her body, sensing her chance for freedom and willing her legs to move. Away from Stone’s corpse, way from the mass of bodies, away from her own demise.
Run. Run. Run! So she did.
- Writer
