Chapter 56
Petra
White light erupted and Cal was tossed backwards as if his body were nothing but crumpled parchment thrown into the wind.
And standing above him, impossibly alive, was Malosym. The imbued blade hadn’t worked.
Malosym reached for the sword protruding from his skull, sliding it from the wound as if it were nothing but an inconvenience as blood streamed down the sides of his face. His features had morphed from that maddening smirk to hard lines of unbridled fury, outlined in crimson.
With a war cry forged in the depths of Hell itself, I lunged for him.
I thought I’d expended all my power, but watching Cal fall…
My flames reignited with an all-consuming vengeance, meeting Malosym’s blue fire as I burned from the inside out.
My teeth gritted, eyes watering as I pushed with everything I had, everything I was.
Lightning tore the sky in half as thunder me rcilessly rattled the earth below me.
Everything in me was breaking, splintering, burning away anything that wasn’t raw power.
Just weeks ago in the Taithan throne room, I thought I was going to burn myself out. I thought I’d been made for that moment.
No. This was the moment I was made for. I was made to break the chains that had for so long been tightening around the realm. I was made to die within these flames. I was made to take Malosym and his darkness with me.
Red blurred my vision and as I blinked it away, I realized it was blood cascading down my cheeks from my eyes.
The unrelenting pain gripped me and I gripped it right back, channeling it into more fury, more force, more wrath.
I didn’t hear Katia speaking to me this time.
Her calming, emboldening voice had been silenced.
And through the blood and the terror and pain, my life began to unravel in my mind.
My earliest memories, running along the waterfront in Eserene, following behind Larka as Ma and Da laughed and the sun shone down.
Dreaming of seeing the world alongside my sister, laying side by side in our too cramped, uncomfortable bed.
Meeting Cal, falling in love with the man I thought he was then feeling him being ripped away.
My entire body burned as the past twisted itself into something new, into what could’ve been.
What could’ve been if Malosym hadn’t entered my life.
If I’d never found out I was the prophesied Daughter of Katia.
Maybe I would never have left Inkwell. Maybe I wouldn’t have met Cal.
But what if I had? Cal and I could’ve stayed in Inkwell or left Eserene altogether.
He could’ve built that house he promised he would.
Maybe Larka and I could’ve traveled to Edenna. Fuck, we could’ve been happy.
The could’ve hurt more than I could fathom.
I opened my mouth to scream. I wanted to ask Cal why he’d fucking done this, why he’d been so foolish once again and tried to kill Malosym. But Cal was dead. He was with the Sanguilite. He’d never go on to live in the light of a new world rid of this darkness.
And I hoped this fucking worked, that Heaven would be restored.
That the Saints’ Realm would be rebuilt.
That everyone ended up where they needed to be, happy and whole.
I hoped the Human Realm would never know an evil like this again.
I hoped in a generation or two, when this whole thing was nothing but a cautionary tale and people had forgotten the details, the people I loved would spend eternity together.
Maybe they’d remember me. But I hoped one day, so much time will have passed with peace that they’d forget me entirely.
“Last chance, Petra,” Malosym’s voice echoed through the flames, muffled by the fury eating me alive. “Join me.”
“ Fuck you !” I snarled, and with one final roar, I ignited. White flashed through my vision. Then red. Golden. Black. Nothingness. Flying? No, falling. Thud. Solid ground. Screaming. Terror? No. Not terror.
It was all abstract before I opened my eyes. My ears rang. My head pounded. I tried to speak, but my mouth didn’t seem to be connected to the rest of me. Something trickled down my cheek. Tears? Blood.
And as the world lost its focus, my eyes landed on the blurry form of a lifeless body made of nothing but shadow and ash, and I knew in the deepest part of my soul, I’d done it.
Malosym was dead. And so was I.
◆ ◆ ◆
The sky was blue. But it was different. It was lighter, wider. The air held a familiar sweetness. I wasn’t waking up in the Darkness Beyond. Not this time.
Heaven ?
My head spun as I stood and took in the palatial structure towering over me. No. The Gates were nowhere to be found. This wasn’t Heaven. This was…
I didn’t know where I was.
My hand hit my forehead as my mind spun. I’d killed Malosym. He was dead. But so was I. Was I?
Cal.
A wave of dizziness almost took me back to the ground as I scrambled to my feet. He was dead. He tried to kill Malosym with the imbued blade and it didn't work. He was dead.
“Petra?” a smooth voice chimed from somewhere behind me, and I whirled to see Onera’s warm face, a look of concern pulling at her features as she walked through the garden I was somehow in.
“I… I-I need to g-go back,” I stuttered.
And suddenly, Onera was gone, and I was on the ground.
In the sand. On the beach. Someone was screaming.
Someone was weeping. Someone was cheering.
Someone was jostling me. I forced my eyes open to see blue sky surrounding a figure, and though this sky was the one I was used to, it was marred by wisps of black smoke.
The Human Realm. Cal.
I shot up, my head protesting the movement by sending a bolt of pain ricocheting down my spine.
I…wasn’t dead. I must not have slept long enough to heal myself this time, but I was back.
I’d crossed realms again. I willed myself to focus on Cal.
He was the one jostling me. I’d been mistaken.
He hadn’t died. My shoulders were in his hands, and he was shouting in my face as he shook me.
But those brown eyes weren’t Cal’s eyes. That wasn’t Cal’s face. That was…
“Whit?” I whispered, my voice crackly and hoarse.
The edges of his face were blurry, but I could see the dark slashes of his brows over his eyes.
The blue sky behind him was suddenly gone.
It was night? How did that… No, it wasn’t night.
That was a driva. That was Ventus. Why were they here? Where had they come from?
“Petra!” someone shouted from far away. I turned my head but pain rang through me again, my eyes locked on Whit.
Oh, the shout had come from him. Why was he screaming?
Whit’s eyes moved behind me, a hand raised like he was motioning someone away.
Steam puffed from Ventus’ nostrils. Where was Cal?
Hadn’t I just seen him? He’d had the imbued blade, and he’d…
No. I scrambled backwards, the pain forgotten as I pulled myself from Whit’s grip.
“Petra, no!” Whit yelled after me, but I wasn’t stopping for anything.
I grappled through the sand, crawling toward the limp figure laying beside a pile of ash.
A blast of air hit me, and I craned my aching neck to see Obitus, his slitted eyes hollow and mournful.
Where had he come from? How was he here?
Everyone was screaming. A man knelt, his forehead pressed to his clasped hands and his clasped hands pressed to the sand as he wept. Swords were in the air. And Saints , the screaming was relentless. Not screaming… Cheering. Happy noises of triumph.
“Cal,” I tried to add my voice to the chorus, but it was only a broken whisper.
“Cal.” The imbued blade was still in his grip, Aegrabane at his side.
I grabbed his other hand. It was too fucking cold.
His skin was too fucking cold . Why was it so cold?
I grabbed his shoulders the same way Whit had grabbed mine and shook him violently. “Cal! Calomyr!”
His chest quivered with effort as he fought to take in a breath. He was still alive, somehow . His eyes fluttered open, immediately finding mine.
“I’m here,” I whispered, reaching to the gash on my cheek that was still bleeding and smearing it against his stubbled jaw. He was going to be okay. The strike hadn’t killed him, and I was here now. I was going to heal him and he was going to be okay .
His brows were furrowed, like it took every ounce of concentration to speak. “It’s okay. I’m already gone.”
“No, I’m here. You have my blood, you–” I choked on a sob, waiting for my power to take hold of him and piece him back together from the inside. “You’re going to be okay.”
“I’m…” He fought to suck in a painfully labored breath. “The Sanguilite has me already. She’s…holding the door.”
“What?” I searched his eyes, and I saw it. There, in the sapphire and emerald depths of those beautiful eyes, was the silhouette of a woman. She had no distinguishing features, but I knew it was her. The Sanguilite. Almost as if it were a reflection, like that’s what Cal was seeing now.
No. No, no, no . This wasn’t his time to go. Not yet. Malosym was dead, and I was alive. Cal needed to be alive, too.
“This is a wound you can’t fix,” he breathed, and there was a rattle in his chest.
“You listen to me, Belin Cal Myrin. You will not die. Do you hear me? You tell the Sanguilite she can go fuck herself. You tell her I was powerful enough to kill Malosym and I’ll fucking kill her too!” I shook his shoulders. “Tell her!”
“Petra.”
“Why did you do that?” I demanded, angry tears flooding my eyes. “Why did you try to kill him? I was supposed to kill him!”
“Because I knew it would kill you,” he choked out, dark brows furrowing over his eyes.
“But it didn’t!” I demanded.
“Liara told me it would kill you.” Liara? Saint of Hell?
“You went to Hell?”
“I was trying to get to the Darkness Beyond,” he croaked. Every word was a fight. “I took Keeperslight.”
What the hell was he talking about? “Keeperslight?”
“The imbued blade. I named it. I’m sorry. I was going to kill Malosym myself. But it didn’t work.” Another labored inhale wracked his body, and I shuddered at the sound. “You were strong enough.”
My tears spattered against his cheek, mingling with his own that spilled from the corners of his eyes to his temples. “Why did you do this, Cal?” I repeated. I didn’t dare look at where Malosym’s lifeless body lay behind me.
“I lived a life without you before and I’m too selfish to do it again. I won’t live in this world without you in it.” A smile finally managed to break through the claws of death that were closing around him, his dimple just visible. My heart cracked.
“She’s going to take your soul, Cal! I’ll never see you again!”
His eyes fluttered shut, as if he had to concentrate on speaking. “Then I’ll be grateful for the time I spent by your side.”
“ No !” I shouted. “No, no, no!”
“You did it,” he breathed, and it sounded like there was gravel in his lungs. A rough cough wracked his body, and I gripped his shoulders tighter as if my physical grip could keep him here longer. “I want you to go on and live, Petra.”
The sobs were tearing through my body now, and my voice was shaky. “Not without you. We didn’t have enough time.”
His mouth quivered the slightest bit, and I saw the first flash of fear cross his features. “I love you, you know that? I love you. It’s always been you for me. Unceasingly you.”
Cal’s chest lowered and didn’t rise again. In the sand, surrounded by people weeping and celebrating and mourning, I held Cal’s body to mine. I screamed into his hair, inhaling the smoke and cedar scent that clung to him.
Hands closed around my shoulders and I pulled against them, roaring at whoever had touched me to get the fuck away .
“So fucking stupid, Cal! So fucking stupid! Why would you do this to me?” I was vaguely aware of someone screaming my name, but I couldn’t hear over the sound of blood rushing in my ears.
Whoever it was could fuck off if they thought they had any chance of dragging me away from Cal .
But suddenly Nell’s hands were on my cheeks, and the look of concern on her face was so severe that it broke through my grief. “Petra!” she shouted, her eyes moving back and forth between mine. “Miles is alive!”