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I’m bigger than the men of Yuan. I won’t be able to fit unless I make
the opening larger. I dig my fingers into the stone, until they bruise. I
wrench at the rocks until my muscles scream with effort. I curse myself for
allowing my body to grow thi
wild. I dig in and dig down and give everything I have and more, but the last
colossal stone refuses to move. Not a centimeter, not a fraction of a
centimeter.
I grit my teeth and howl with effort, refusing to fail now. Above me,
the city howls more loudly, twisted metal and crumbling glass wailing a
miserable, selfish cry for blood and suffering and death. But beneath it all is
the rush of the clean wind and, finally, a wondrous smatter-patter, the
sound of raindrops on desperately dry earth, the remarkable rhythm of rain
falling harder and harder until the drumbeat of hope pounds all around me.
The drops kiss my bare shoulders, soak into my skin, bringing me to
life like a seed waiting for a miracle.
The stone gives beneath my fingers, rolling away, falling to the
ground with a thud. Heart racing, I shove my shoulders through the
opening and tumble into Yuan. I roll back to my feet and run, around the
granaries, through the barren fields, past fallen trees and massive shards of
glass, cresting the final hill in time to see the tower fall.
And fall … and fall, loose stones scattering like bones thrown from a
medicine man’s cup, foretelling the death of anyone still left inside.
ISRA
BY the time we reach the base of the tower, my childhood home is
crumbling all around me. With barely a moment to spare, I fling myself
through the door to the outside world and out onto the path, with Bo close
behind me. As I dash for the barren sunflower patch, my bare feet crunch
through the clods of dirt that are all that remain of the cabbage field.
My breath comes fast and my arms pump at my sides; my lungs are
raw, but the salty taste in my throat only makes me feel more alive. I’m
alive. Still alive!
We’re going to make it out. We’re going to make it!
It’s my last thought before a stone fist punches me between my
shoulders, knocking me through the air. I fly—a bird with broken wings and
a belly full of pain—only to fall to the earth with a pitiful moan. My breath
rushes out, but I can wheeze only a little air back in. It hurts to breathe
deeply. There are too many sharp things inside me, fighting for a place to
exist in this soft, bleeding body. My vision swims with red, my fingers flinch
at my sides, instinctively grasping for things I’ll never touch.
I blink, pulling the world into focus, to see Bo standing a few feet
away, staring back at me, hunks of rocks falling to the ground all around
him. I try to tell him to run, but I can’t speak. Even if I could have made
words, it would have been too late.
It’s a stone no bigger than a child’s ball that hits him, but it makes
contact in the worst of places, colliding with his skull, shattering him in the
blink of an eye. I see more red, and then Bo is facedown on the earth. Not
moving. Not breathing.
My chest burns, and I know I would cry for him if my body weren’t
full of knives made of broken bones. He’s gone. As gone as I will be soon.
Soon I will not be Isra anymore.
I could find peace with it, I think, some kind of peace, enough to
close my eyes and move away from the pain, at least, but a moment after
the last stone hits the ground, he’s there. He comes ru
wreckage, his expression as fearful and hopeful as I imagine mine was a few
minutes ago.
Gem. Gem. Every part of my being screams his name.
I know it’s him and not some vision created by my dying mind. He’s
the same as he always was, but also very different. Altered from the boy I
knew. He’s leaner, with sharper cheekbones and shadows smudging the
skin beneath his eyes. Eyes that are hollow and haunted, but charged with
energy that reaches through the air between us, electrifying my body the
second his gaze meets mine. He loves me. I see it. I know it the way I know
the darkness from the light.
My heart pumps desperately against my broken ribs, heedless of the
pain it causes as it celebrates seeing our beloved, too i
understand how terrible this meeting is. But I understand. I’m dying. And all
Gem can do is watch.
Gem’s gaze travels down my body and back up again, and his steps
falter. His lips part, and the hope drains from his face, replaced by
understanding and agony and regret so sharp that I see it twist inside him,
making his desert-ta
the time he falls to his knees beside me.
“Not again,” he says, his voice the rawest thing I’ve ever heard. “I
can’t lose you. Please, Isra. Please. Stay with me.”
I suck in a breath, but all that comes out is a whimper too soft and
pitiful to be called a sound at all. I can’t speak. I can’t even tell him I love
him.
“Isra?” Gem brushes my hair from my face. “Can you hear me?”
I blink and blink again, before slowly, deliberately lifting my eyes to
his and forcing my mouth to curve at the edges, hoping he can see that his
being here makes everything hurt a little less.
Gem presses his lips together, but doesn’t speak. Or move. Or seem
to notice when a piece of the dome plummets from the sky, crashing into
what’s left of the tower. I twitch my fingers, trying to point away from me,
to let him know he has to leave me and get out, but he isn’t looking at my
hands. He’s watching my face with eyes that shimmer in the murky gray
light.
“You can’t die,” he says, the shimmer becoming a shine. “You have to
see it. Needle is waiting for you. The desert is alive. Grass is growing; the
trees are budding. It’s raining. There … there’s so much. You have to see it
with me.”
I smile so big, it hurts, but I don’t try to stop it from taking me over.
Then we did it. Gem and I. We loved enough. The planet will be made
whole. There will be no more domed cities, and our people will have a
second chance. I hope they will choose peace, forgiveness.
“Needle can speak. She’s the one who told me to come find you,”
Gem says, breaking through the fog settling over my mind. “When she
stepped into the desert, she was made whole.”
As soon as the words leave his lips, I see the dream form behind his
eyes. A part of me wants to dream with him, but I know better. I won’t live
to see the desert again. I know it even before he scoops me into his arms
and one of the sharps inside me shifts and lifts and punctures, and suddenly
I can’t breathe at all. Not a whisper, not a sip.
The pressure builds in my chest, and my eyes slide closed, but for a
few moments I can still feel my body bouncing in Gem’s arms as he races
for the gate, hear him begging me to stay, telling me it’s not too late.
And then there is nothing but the slowing of my heart and the quiet
in my head and blessed numbness and separateness and softness, pierced
only by one regret. I wish I could know that Gem is safe before I go. I wish I
could tell him to lay my body down and go and be a champion for the world
the way he was a champion for me. I wish …
I wish …
I …
stop …
wishing.