Chapter 33
Magnificent
I gasp as Alden is engulfed, a roar ripping from his throat.
It’s not even a decision, not even a choice as I watch the man I love disappear in a cloud of flame and death.
I wrench myself up, launching my body through a bed of twisting, snaking vines, willing my legs to pump harder, faster, desperate to reach him before the thing that I refuse to imagine happens.
‘Sophia, no!’ His arm shoots out and the vines leaping for me blast outwards, leaving a path directly to him. The seconds slow to treacle as I catch his eyes, his features, contorting with pain.
I reach for him, knowing I’m calling his name, knowing I won’t get there in time.
Not again. Not this, not another life I cannot save.
Not another person I care for, who I love unravelling before me.
I take all I have, this molten power in my veins, and throw out my right hand, into the flame and shadow surrounding him.
It’s clumsy and I stumble, willing the nightmares to reshape, to become something other, to become nothing more than smoke.
And suddenly, he’s shrouded in ash. I careen into the smog, coughing and searching for him, not wanting to think that I’m too late or that it didn’t work.
But I find him. Collapsed to his knees, shirt burned away up one arm to the shoulder, revealing charred flesh, twisting with glints of magic. I choke again, falling to my knees before him as his body slumps against mine.
‘You … should have … gone through … I waited to make sure you found … a portal,’ he manages, voice like shards of glass.
A small sob builds in my throat as I pull him into my arms, dipping my face to his.
Our argument, my need to be strong, to not be his weakness, to not weaken him …
it feels so redundant now. Swept away by the horrors of the Ordeal.
He waited for me to find a portal, and yet when I saw him engulfed, when I was sure he wouldn’t make it …
it was barely a thought. I leaped for him.
To save him. His face creases in concern as I lean into him, all that rush of energy and magic seeping away, leaving me shaking and cold.
‘You should have gone. You shouldn’t have waited for me. ’
My breath hitches as he presses a final kiss to my lips, and it feels like an ending. Like he’s saying goodbye. But I’m not ready to give him up.
‘I love you,’ I whisper. ‘When we make it to the other side, which we will … you can have my entire heart.’ Then I pull in a breath, drawing on the strength I didn’t know I had left. The very last of it. ‘Now get up on your feet, Alden Locke. We’ve got a portal to get to.’
I clutch his good arm, swinging it around my shoulders and grunt as I lift, feeling the burn in my thighs. He sways, but stays upright and I look around.
Chaos.
Flame and dark and vine and ice …
But no hopefuls. Only us, only me and Alden left.
And as I glance up, finding the platform Alden was aiming for, there’s only one portal remaining.
I release a breath, then gather myself. Gather all my strength, all this power inside me, every stubborn fibre of my being and I shove him towards the platform.
I’m not leaving here without him. I refuse.
At every step he’s been there with me, in the Crucible, in the Ordeals, and now we’re at the final moment, I will not see him consumed by death.
After Dolly I believe it would break me.
To be loved by someone so wholly and completely is too precious to ever leave behind.
The only hopefuls I can see are corpses. Unmoving, charred or twisted in vines. Blood spatters the ground, the smoke so thick, I can no longer see to the ocean, or on the other side, to the gathered crowd on the seating cut into the cliff face. It’s just me and Alden, alone at the very end.
‘You’re infuriating …’ I push up on his leg as he scrambles up the granite, hissing as his charred arm catches and scrapes.
‘Stubborn …’ I clasp my hands together and force his foot inside my hands, levering him up so he can get his knees on the platform.
‘Cocky …’ I jump up behind him, shoving him forward.
‘And for all those reasons and many more, I am in love with you. I cannot let you go.’
He turns his face to mine, features still pained, arm hanging limp and useless at his side. He’s spent. He’s done. I see it in him, like he’s teetering on that precipice of giving up. ‘And you’re … magnificent.’
‘I know. I know I’m fucking magnificent. And I’m furious that you waited for me,’ I say and surge forward, pushing him into the portal. Too late, he realises what I’m doing, trying to twist, to grip my arm and pull me ahead of him.
His eyes widen in horror, his mouth forming my name as he falls through the portal and it seals up behind him.
I huff a breath, placing my hands on my knees and feel the edges of myself fraying, the power inside me growing dim.
I’ve used so much, so quickly, and I have no idea of the depths of it, how to wield it, how to rebuild this magic, and now I’m left here, alone in the brume. And the fucking portal is gone.
I choke out a laugh, squinting up at the slice of sky where it glimmered, only seconds ago.
‘So it really is just one of us through each portal.’ I run a hand down my face and straighten up.
It’s done. The weight on my heart, already dragged down and down by the death of Dolly, would have been too heavy to carry the death of another person I love within it.
Scanning the arena of fire and ice and shadow beneath me, I scramble back down the podium and pick my way through the wreckage of the Ordeal. There are no portals left. No glinting magic renting the sky, no doorways left to step through.
But …
What if I made one? Hess made these. He’s an alchemist, just like I am. It may be impossible, but I’ve done the impossible. My heart is still beating, I’m still standing. And there’s a gargoyle a few feet away, watching me.
‘How do I create a portal?’ I ask it, raising my charred, bloody hands. ‘How?’
It regards me coolly, scraping one of those clawed paws against the top of a podium. A swirl of ice and frost batters my left side and I stagger, pushing it back with my hands, willing it into something else, something warmer until it dissipates. ‘How?’ I cry.
‘Picture the other side, alchemist,’ the gargoyle replies.
The other side …
I draw in a breath, eyeing the shadows stalking through the ruins towards me, the vines already clustering, ready to strike.
As flame erupts at the base of the podium where the gargoyle squats, I throw out my hands.
But instead of imagining it as fire, I picture Killmarth.
I focus on the people I want to return to, the life I’ve carved for myself.
I throw everything into it, the roar of life and death—
And I cut.
I cut a path made of flame, altering it, transforming it into a way through. Alchemy. The transmutation of one thing to another thing. Am I not the very essence of that? Can I not forge my own path? My own choices?
I focus all my will, my intent, my need to be a scholar.
To find my purpose, to hone this magic inside me.
To be more than a shadow. To be more than a creature of misery and longing.
To be the person I choose to be. I allow the flow of power, of magic, of whatever is left to flow into it.
I cut down, like I’m slicing the very air, ripping a hole and creating a walkway into the ether.
I picture Killmarth. I picture them, their faces.
I picture Alden, the man I love. I allow him to anchor me, to guide me.
And then I step through it, leaving the arena, the final Ordeal, leaving all of it behind.
I step out, into nothing, imagining a bridge that will take me from here, to there and fall onto the cold, hard ground.
‘Twenty-one … well I’ll be,’ a voice says in wonder as a hand grabs my shoulder.
I try to shrug off that hand, try to find Alden, the man I walked to, who gave me the strength to push through. I see the towers of Killmarth, the walls, a sea of faces, then I see brown eyes.
His eyes.
‘You’re alive. Gods, you’re alive,’ he says, cradling my face in awe.
I take a jagged breath, moving my own hands to his face, running my fingertips gently over his skin. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t stand the thought of you weakening yourself for me. I couldn’t risk you failing. I need you alive. I need … you. I love you. I love you too much.’
A breath shudders out of him, like he’s been holding it for a lifetime, and he brushes a kiss to my temple, silencing my tumble of words.
‘And I love you. I love every piece of you. I will always wait for you. Even if all other hope is gone … I will love you.’ I choke out a sob at his words, pressing my forehead to his.
He chuckles huskily, his fingers reaching up, tangling with my hair.
‘I’m sorry too, Sophia. But I wouldn’t change a moment of us.
Not one single moment. You truly are magnificent. ’
His lips meet mine and I close my eyes. For that perfect space of a handful of heartbeats, there’s just the two of us.
Just his warmth, his scent, the feel of his mouth against mine.
He pulls back, eyes pinned to mine, the dark oak of them molten, alive and tender.
‘I haven’t kissed you, or held you nearly enough. ’
Another sob tears from my chest, and I try to reach for him again.
But darkness edges in, blotting him out, blotting the world out, and I’m falling.
Further and further, tumbling into a dark, yawning abyss.
I hear him calling my name, but I can’t get there.
I can’t get back to him. The magic, the raw, flowing power in my veins sputters out. Leaving me in nothing.