Dust to Dust | ✓

13 || The Door Opens Wide

Aiko shrieked and dove out of Zehra's way. Her chin slammed into the rocks and her teeth clamped down on her tongue. Sharp pain burst to life in her jaw, throbbing with shame and fear and rage. The metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth and her vision swam, but she had evaded the bite of Zehra's knife. Aiko flipped over and shoved to her feet. Crimson dripped from her chin and splattered the ground at her feet. She steeled herself and faced Zehra with a hardened glare.

The portal hummed at her back and, with a jolt, she realized she now stood between Zehra and the door. The same thought was clear as crystal in Zehra's glowing eyes. White had almost entirely overtaken her coal-black hair. She hunched over like a beast, a snarl curling at her lips. Humanity was lost on her and instead replaced with magic that crackled like a storm at her fingertips. "Don't resist," she snapped. "I will carry out your mission. I will rescue your friend and my sister. You will die here for your sins, the sins of all the Core-bound."

"I've never done anything to you!" Aiko cried. Fire blazed to life around her but was quickly suffocated by the icy air that whipped past her. Panic squeezed her chest and blackened the edges of her sight. "We can rescue them together. Why do I have to die for them?"

"If you knew anything about the nature of the Core, of the Primordials, you wouldn't have to ask!" Zehra attacked her again, her knife missing Aiko's face by a mere breath. "Your ignorance is sickening." Another swing—this time, the blade nicked Aiko's cheek. "You know nothing, yet you hold the power of gods!" Zehra kicked Aiko's legs out from under her, throwing her to the ground. "You don't deserve the satisfaction of playing a good person." Her foot crushed Aiko's ribs, heel digging into Aiko's lungs. "You'll stay here and bleed to death. You'll give your life to hold this door open."

A scream rose in Aiko's throat, pulling with it the choking emptiness of tears, but she clenched her teeth against it all. She fought for a breath, lungs seizing painfully under Zehra's weight. Helplessness blurred into her dizzying pain. As tears seeped through the cracks in her resolve and slithered down her cheeks, she stretched her hand toward the swirling black portal. Felix. The barest tips of her fingers brushed the icy depths. I need you, Felix.

He could not answer her call, no matter how many tears she shed, how desperate the sound of her screams were, how much of her blood pooled in front of the portal. Despite it all, she was still selfish, clinging to him when he was the one that needed her. Zehra dug her heel deeper into Aiko's middle until she feared something would break. She bit down on her tongue to keep from screaming, blinking away the wetness of her vision. Gritting her teeth, she jerked her gaze to Zehra, who was boring down at her with simmering malice. This time, the fire that roared around Aiko's hands burned brighter, hotter—its tenacity was one that could not be doused by the ice. It crawled over her and licked at Zehra. The huntress shoved away with a curse.

Body screaming in pain, mind spinning with it, Aiko pushed to her feet. "Felix needs me!" she shouted, the words scraping her throat as they fled her lips. Heat pulsed within her chest as the flame of her soul climbed higher. Her hand was sticky against the metal settled firmly within it, the staff he had gifted her, but she held fast to it anyway, swiveling its blunt tip to point at Zehra. "I will not die here without having seen him. I will be the one to set him free from his chains!"'

For the first time, shock lit up Zehra's crystal blue eyes like lightning. Her expression shifted for a moment from a snarl to a pained, wide-eyed look, something that ached with familiarity. Loneliness curled beneath the surface, smoke that couldn't escape a glass dome. It was only a moment before it shattered and the glow of the Pure wiped her face clean, painting it with the look of hatred once more. "So be it," she hissed.