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Quote by Craig D. Lounsbrough

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Craig D. Lounsbrough

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“"Ry-Rylan?" Ivy's voice is faint. I crawl over to her side, my eyes never once straying from hers. "Rylan?" "I'm here," I whisper, stroking her forehead with tenderness. "I'm here, and I'm not leaving you." She grins weakly. The light in her eyes is starting to slowly fade. "Thank you. I wish I could say the same...for me." "Don't say that," I beg. "You're not going to die. I'll get some water, out the fire out, and everything will be fine—" Ivy places her hand on mine. "Water will not stop it. Once it starts, the fire will keep going. See how it spreads?" She's right. In these few moments the flames have spread up to her waist, licking her body with searing tongues. Something glows. Glancing down, I see Ivy healing my burned palms. Once she's done, she places her hand on my bloody shoulder and heals that too. "There," she murmurs, letting her hand drop. "You are all healed. My last gift to you." "You can't leave," I whisper, more to myself than anyone else. Tears prick my eyes. "You can't leave." "We all have to leave sometimes," Ivy muses, so calm in the face of death. "Even swamp angels."”

“When we were in New York, you cried for two days and passed out. You said a word in your sleep, over and over. Akinli.” Elizabeth stared down at the drawing. “At first I thought it was gibberish. And then I thought it was the name of a town or a building. . . . I didn’t figure out it belonged to a person until you made that.” Elizabeth pointed down to the paper, worn from being folded and unfolded who knew how many times. “When Elizabeth came to me, I had to tell her the truth, and we decided to find him. You gave us the name of the town. We went there looking for someone answering to that name, fitting this image.” Miaka smiled ruefully. “Very small town. It wasn’t hard.” Tears pooled in my eyes. “You’ve really seen him?” They both nodded. I thought about all those trips they had taken, making up ridiculous stories so they could get to him without me knowing. “How is he?” I asked, unable to contain my curiosity. “Is he okay? Has he gone back to school? Is he still with Ben and Julie? Is he happy? Could you tell? Is he happy?” The questions tumbled out without me being able to hold them in. I was desperate to know. I felt a single word would put my soul at ease. Elizabeth swallowed hard. “That’s the thing, Kahlen. We’re afraid he’s dying.”

“The survivor spoke to us though, or tried to. Mumbling through that matted brown beard of his, pale as death itself. I can’t say now if it was weakness from his wounds or what it was – but we struggled to understand him. In fact we got nothing intelligible from him at all then. He seemed afraid, like any dying man probably would be, but he did seem more terrified than any dying man I’ve seen before – and I’ve seen a few in my time. Let me tell you, Corsair or not, he grabbed whatever hand would hold his, and clenched it so tight his knuckles turned white! He kept fading out as we carried him on the stretcher board the medics brought with them. Looking back, I think he tried to warn us, poor bastard. He tried to tell us to leave him behind and go, but we wouldn’t listen. We thought we were better than the Corsairs, remember? We thought we would be all moral and upright and try to help him. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ were the last words he said before losing consciousness. At least, those that we could make out. At the end of it all, he was right – as it turned out, we couldn’t even help ourselves.”

“Hunter woke suddenly. A noise. It was a noise unlike anything he’d ever heard before. Close! Very close. Like it was on him. Like it was . . . Just in one ear. He twisted his head. It was full night. Black as black in the woods far from the starlight. He couldn’t see anything. But with his hands he could feel. The thing on his shoulder. His ear . . . gone! A terrible fear wrung a cry of horror from Hunter. He couldn’t feel it, his ear, or his shoulder, couldn’t feel with anything but his fingers and he felt, reached beneath his shirt, felt the flesh of his belly pulse and heave. Like something inside him. No, no, no, it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair! He was Hunter. The hunter. He was doing his best. He cried. Tears rolled down his cheeks. Who would bring meat for all the kids? It wasn’t fair. The sound of munching, crunching started again. Just in one ear. Hunter had only one weapon: the heat-causing power in his hands. He had used it many, many times to take the life of prey. He had fed the kids with that power. And in a moment of fear and rage he had accidentally taken the life of his friend, Harry. Maybe he could kill the thing that was eating his ear. But it was too late for that to help. Could he kill himself? He saw Old Lion’s head, eyes closed, hanging where he’d hung him for skinning. If Old Lion could die, so could Hunter. Maybe they would meet again, up in the sky. Hunter pressed both palms against his head.”