A SECOND BEFORE THE blast, Aldrik turned his body so that his back was toward the explosion. His hand was buried in Vhalla’s hair as he pressed her protectively to his chest. She clung to him, trembling. Her ears had not yet stopped buzzing when the second explosion shook the mountainside, and Aldrik’s arms pulled her tighter. She cried her fear into his chest at the mind-numbing sound. For a moment there was silence, and she tried to catch her breath. However, the stillness was short-lived as slow-growing noise began to float up from the city below.
Screams, cries, and wails carried up the mountainside, and Vhalla pressed her hands over her ears. Aldrik continued to hold her tightly while she regained a shaky control.
“Wh-what?” she asked frantically, all words and thoughts falling to the rising panic. His grip loosened as he looked over his shoulder. Vhalla shifted her body so her eyes could follow his.
A fire was already beginning to sweep through the city, jumping from house to house. Smoke began to blot out the stars and cover the city in a foul, orange haze.
Vhalla took a step away from him, toward the scene.
“Where—” she stammered, “—where is that?” Her brain felt scrambled from noise and shock.
“Vhalla, you need to return to the palace. Now.” Aldrik’s tone was sharp and he grabbed her forearms, refusing to let her wander from him.
She resisted his tugs, glued to the scene. Something fitted into place in her mind.
“Vhalla,” Aldrik moved in front of her, a hand on her cheek. “The guards will be mobilized. I’ll go help myself,” he said, trying to be assuring, but his voice sounded strained and panicked. “But I need you to go back in the palace where it’s safe.”
Vhalla stepped to the side of him and looked back at the scene. Her eyes widened as her brain returned to life. She inhaled sharply, her breathing rough.
“R-Roan, Sareem.”
“What?” She barely heard Aldrik ask, he sounded far away.
Vhalla pointed. “That’s where the square of the sun and moon is, isn’t it?” her voice raised in fear.
“I don’t know, Vhalla.” Aldrik shook his head trying to take her hand again.
“It is.” She looked back, and there was no doubt. “Roan, Sareem! Aldrik, my friends are there!” She turned back to the scene.
“So were half the commoners in the city. Now, back in the palace,” he snapped and grabbed her wrist with force.
“No!” she cried, wrenching her hand back. “No! They need my help.” Vhalla turned and felt a hot wind rise up to the sky, carrying the smell of fire. She remembered her confrontation with Roan, telling her of Sareem’s plans to meet her at the bakery near plaza. Vhalla had never told Sareem anything different, and Roan most certainly would have gone to claim the man she loved. Vhalla’s chest tightened. She hadn’t apologized to either of them. She hadn’t even had a chance to explain what was happening to her.
Without any thought, Vhalla was running, ignoring the prince’s cries at her back. Her fancy heeled shoes were soon left behind on the marble, and Vhalla moved quickly in her bare feet. One of the terraces stretched outward to the top of the wall and Vhalla sprinted across the shallow water, her skirts quickly growing water-logged and heavy. She heard a splash and looked behind her—Aldrik had given chase.
“Vhalla! Stop this! You’re not going to be able to help them!” he cried.
But, she wasn’t ready to hear reason. All that filled her ears were the sounds of screams. All that filled her nose was smoke and death. All that filled her eyes was a burning inferno closing upon two people she had known for half her life—friends she had foolishly shut out.
Vhalla reached the wall and hoisted herself up. It was much taller on the other side, taller than even the bookcases of the Imperial Library. She looked down a moment, uncertain.
“Vhalla, they may not even be there.” Aldrik had caught up with her. His breathing was fairly easy where hers was labored.
Vhalla began to rip at the gathering on her skirt, starting a tear between her calves and knees. “They were there,” she insisted.
“You don’t know,” Aldrik insisted.
“Come down.” “Sareem would have waited all night for me!” She choked a sob of guilt as she looked at the sky. It was past their arranged time to meet. If she had just told him the truth, he and Roan may have spent the evening in the palace as the three of them had so many years prior. Burdened with guilt and grief, Vhalla jumped off the other side of the wall.
The air rushed past her ears and around her, blowing the remaining skirt this way and that. Vhalla braced herself but she landed lightly in a crouch.
“Vhalla!” Aldrik called from atop the wall.
She stared up at him, offering an apologetic expression before plunging herself into the chaos of the streets.
While she had lived in the capital all of her adult life, Vhalla had spent most of it in the palace. The alleyways could be tricky and maze-like even on the best of days, but now they seemed like passageways through the horrors of the afterlife for evildoers. People pushed against her from every which way, fleeing from the place she was struggling to reach. Some had burns covering their bodies, their clothing hanging in tattered rags. Others had open wounds with blood flowing from them.
Vhalla stepped in something warm and soft that squished between her toes. She looked down in horror to see the remnants of a man who had been trampled to death by the stampede of people. His skull had been crushed and his bones shattered on the street. Unable to handle the sight a second longer, Vhalla darted down a dead-end ally and vomited, screamed as she stared at her bloody feet, and her stomach heaved again.
A third explosion thundered through the air. Vhalla cried out and dropped to the ground covering her ears. She was much closer this time, and she could hear the houses groan around her as the earth shuddered with the force of the blast.
“Vhalla! Come here!” A man’s voice cried loudly, and she looked up. Aldrik stood atop the palace wall. He had run parallel to her as she descended the city, but the wall was going to make a turn.
She clutched her knees to her chest and trembled, her mind going numb momentarily. A woman’s cry pierced the air, jolting Vhalla back to her senses. Roan and Sareem were still out there. She stood and looked back again at Aldrik with apologetic eyes.
“You stupid girl!” he roared and then jumped from the wall.
First, he landed onto a thatched roof not too far below, ran along it to a single story home that lined Vhalla’s alley and rolled down until he caught the edge of the roof. Releasing himself, he landed fairly easily and stomped over to her. Vhalla could almost feel his palpable anger as he grabbed her arm.
“You—are—completely—mad,” he ground out through grit teeth, shaking her.
“You didn’t have to come!” She shrugged him off with a step back.
“You must think me soulless if you really thought I’d sit back and watch you gallivant to your death!” he shouted, though in the mayhem she could still barely hear him.
“So are you forcing me back into the castle?” Vhalla asked, ready to turn and run once more.
“I should,” he snapped. “But I can see you desire nothing more than to be the martyr, and since no one else is here to prevent that, the task falls to me. So lead on.” She looked at him in shock. “Go!” he snarled.
She ran with him at her back.
Back in the pandemonium no one seemed to notice—or care—that the crown prince was among them. Vhalla saw women clutching babes to their breasts, struggling to escape from the horrors below. She saw an old man simply sitting on a step, waiting for his fate to come.
Slowly the crowd began to thin and the temperature rose.
“Vhalla,” she turned. Aldrik pulled off his coat and handed it to her. She looked at him strangely. “For the heat, and for some protection from the flames.” Vhalla considered the orange glow on path before them and took his coat with a nod. He rolled his eyes and pulled off his shoes and socks.