48. Kiera
Chapter 48
Kiera
T he mountain quakes as Tryphone stumbles off the platform. I roll, sliding off the platform with shocking ease and when I’m standing, I glance down to find that my wound is gone. No sign of the open, gaping, blood-gushing lesion from before remains and in its place is smooth, perfectly healed skin.
My bones vibrate within my body, full of the power that had previously been stolen from me. Unwilling to let a second more pass without taking action against Tryphone and his horrors, I hold my hands out, letting the shadows within explode from me. They surround us all as the tips of the mountain that encircles the island break with loud cracking sounds. Boulders roll, crashing into the outside of the Academy. The ground shifts beneath our feet.
“Kiera!” Ruen’s shout is full of strength, giving me some relief. At least he’s not hurt. Then his call is quickly followed by Theos’ own call.
“ Dea! ”
Here! I want to call out. I’m here! I can’t. My voice is gone and all that’s left is the power as it reaches into my soul and carves out a place for itself. With a gasp, I arch up onto my toes as the shadows swirl around me, clinging to me and form a gown of darkness.
A large tear opens up in the sky above, lightning crackling through the cloudless atmosphere. It’s not just Theos, this time. It’s me.
I lift my hands and point as the fissure grows wider and wider, separating the dark purple of the midnight vault over our heads.
“No!” Tryphone's shout is ignored as the sight of what lies beyond the tear in the seam of the world is revealed. Oceans of the purest blue. Snowcapped mountains far prettier than our own on Anatol. Vast green fields and a … strange structure of black and silver stone juts out from a cliffside.
“No!”
I hold the fissure open, sweat collecting on my brow as I gasp for breath.
“You have it,” a familiar voice says.
I nearly collapse at the shock of Ariadne’s voice as she hobbles past me, obviously wounded from her own fight as blood slips over one leg that drags against the ground. I gape at her. Had she really stabbed me for a plan to make me do this?
The opening in the world draws nearer.
Tryphone crawls over the still sleeping Mortal Gods as he tries to escape it. A gurgling noise draws my attention backwards and I watch as Theos sinks a dagger into Azai’s throat and tears it out. The God of Strength falls to his knees in an ironic parody of prostration as he cups his open throat.
Like a series of connected events, Azai’s collapse is followed by the release of snakes from Danai and Makeda and … Kalix.
Kalix erupts from his position, flinging himself towards me with all the rage of a wounded bear.
“Don’t!” Ariadne’s voice barks sharply, cutting off his ascension to the platform and Kalix comes to an abrupt halt. “She must finish it.”
“Finish what?” I ask. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Ariadne looks at me. “You’re doing what you were born for, daughter mine,” she tells me. “You’re sending us home.”
Home? Back to Atlantis? I frown. “But I thought Atlantis fell?”
Her smile is sad. “Our Kingdom fell,” she says, “but not our world.”
I stare back at her and then slowly I look to Kalix. “Go get Tryphone.” Kalix doesn’t immediately move to follow my bidding, but instead glares at me, the barely restrained need of a beast unleashed writhing under his skin—unsure of what to do.
Leaning forward, I go on my toes and press a kiss to his jaw. “Go,” I whisper. “Let’s end this.”
Kalix stares at me a moment more, the sharpness of his gaze easing marginally before he turns and heads to the God King.
“Why isn’t he using his powers?” I ask, turning back to Ariadne.
“Because I stole them,” she says, gesturing to a fallen sword—the very same one that had pierced me.
I flinch away from the sight and the reminder of the pain that had sucked the air from my lungs. “You stabbed me?” The silence of my question hangs between us, a quiet demand for an answer.
Ariadne tilts her head to the side and shuffles around until she stands in front of me. The opening into their old world—the world the Gods came from—hovers just above our heads as she cups my cheek.
“I’m sorry for all of the pain I’ve caused you, daughter mine,” she says, bowing her head so that our foreheads brush together. “I’m so sorry for all that you’ve lost because of my choices, and I’m sorry that I had to stab you to save you.”
“Save me?
She cups her hand over my lips, stopping my question before I can say it. “Henric’s power was always quieter than my own,” she says, answering the unspoken desire nonetheless. “He only ever truly found his sunder in battle when he was wounded, when there was more on the line than life and death. Sunder is what allowed him to tear the fabric of reality.”
And I’d had it all along. “That was why I saw the Mortal Gods even when they’d been transformed into animals,” I guess.
She nods. “Before Tryphone stole his abilities, your father had the ability to sunder . That’s why he was taken before Makeda could stop them. It was too strong even for Tryphone.”
Before I can reply, she continues, her own storm gray eyes glittering with unshed tears. Mine are all gone. I feel no tears, only a deep need for answers, for this whole fight to be over. “This is what happens, my darling,” Ariadne whispers, bending closer so that only the two of us hear her words, “when you become responsible for a life born of your soul; you do what you must to protect it. I will always protect you.”
She pulls back, and in her eyes I see a storm of pain and love. My next words turn into shards of glass. They stab at my insides, blood trickling down the back of my throat.
Tryphone isn’t the only one that needs to be gone from this world. “You’re leaving too.” The statement is both a command and goodbye.
My mother’s face softens, and all at once, I recall the man from so many months ago. The man whose child had died from Talmatia’s carriage and how he had clutched his dead son to his back as he and his wife had been led to freedom by Regis and me.
My wife carried my son for nine months to bring him into this world … it’s only fair that I carry him out of this world.
I get it now. The decisions that she’d made. The abandonment. The words she’d spoken. She’d sacrificed for me, killed for me, would kill me to save me. Ariadne brought me to Anatol in her soul, and though I’m casting her and the rest of the Atlanteans back into their world, she’ll leave me here when she goes. Because as much curiosity as I have for their world, the truth is that we—the Mortal Gods—belong here.
“It’s time to say goodbye.” Caedmon appears at our side.
I glance at him. “You knew this would be the end, didn’t you?” I ask.
He blinks and then shrugs, the shoulders of his tunic rising and falling with the movement. I’ve never seen him so dressed down aside from when he’d been in the prison—he almost looks … mortal. “I’m the God of Prophecy, Kiera,” is his only answer and I want to roll my eyes.
Tryphone is shoved past us by Kalix as Theos and Ruen drag a spitting and screaming Gygaea. I swallow at the sight and turn my gaze upward.
“What do I do?”
Ariadne touches my shoulder. “Call them,” she whispers. “That sword stole the God King’s powers, but it never stole yours. You are now the strongest of us—call them all to the opening and send them through.”
Closing my eyes, I inhale sharply. I let go of all of the distractions around me. Sight. Sound. Scent. Sensation. I release it all and become the very fabric that holds the worlds together. Finding the fissure I’ve created, I stick phantom hands inside and widen it a bit more. Somewhere in the near distance, Tryphone’s shrieks and demands rise up.
Ignoring them, I cast my mind further. Little lights begin to pop up—some brighter than others, some barely bright at all—but all of them have one thing in common. None of them belong in this world. Tugging against those lights, I drag them from their homes, from their beds, from their pleasures and pains. When I next open my eyes, it’s to see the sky full of silver strings, each of them slowly reaching for the opening to the world.
“This power of yours is what allowed you to reach into others’ hearts,” Ariadne murmurs thoughtfully. “Like your father reached into mine. This power is that of a true savior.”
I shake my head as string after string of the Gods—Atlanteans—disappear through the crack in the sky. The second they draw near, the wind catches and sucks them all in.
“I’m not a savior,” I tell her. A glance to the side reveals that Caedmon is gone. Was he already sucked in? I turn back to my mother. “I’ve killed.”
“Not all killers are monsters,” she says. “Not all monsters are killers.”
“What will happen to you in your old world?” I ask.
She shrugs. “We’ll rebuild, I suppose. I think it’s time for us to stop destroying and start repairing.”
“You’ll never come back here again.” It’s not a question, but she treats it as one. My head pounds with a deep ache. My arms begin to tremble with the effort it takes to hold them up.
“No.”
Fresh pain lances through my chest. I close my eyes as much to block out the sight of her as to check Anatol and beyond for any more of them. All of the lights are gone now. Every single Atlantean has been sucked through—save for the ones remaining here.
I lift my lids as Caedmon’s light re-appears next to me with a familiar book in his hand. I blow out a breath. “Are you taking it with you?” I ask.
To my surprise, the God of Prophecy shakes his head and sets the volume that was born of his flesh on the stone table. “It is yours, child.”
“Come, Caedmon.” Ariadne steps around the table and holds her hand out. “We’re the last ones.”
I look back and realize she’s right, Gygaea is gone from Ruen and Theos’ grip. Tryphone’s screams have ceased. Both Danai and Makeda are gone as well. All of the Gods have returned to their world, banished forever more from ours.
Caedmon hesitates before taking my mother’s hand. “Do you forgive me, Ari?” I’ve never heard him so frightened and my heart seizes for him.
I see it now, in the way he looks at her, in our past interactions, in remembering the woman in the stained glass of his office—Caedmon always loved her. He still loves her. But much like my own personality, Ariadne glares at him over her shoulder.
“No, I don’t,” she snaps. “But it’s time for us to leave my daughter to reclaim this world. We shouldn’t tarry here any longer.”
“You could stay,” Caedmon insists. “You never got the time you wanted with her.”
“No,” Ariadne replies. “We need to leave this world and let our children heal it from the scars we created. It’s time.”
With a sigh, Caedmon glances at the three Darkhavens, all of whom stand several paces in front of us now, their heads tilted back staring up as the fissure slowly shrinks. The edges draw closer together.
“They love you too,” I say, offering him the last kindness that I can before I send them off to their own fates—whatever it may be. As if sensing our discussion, Kalix, Ruen, and Theos glance back at us. “In their own way.” I smile.
Caedmon takes Ariadne’s hand and looks one last time over us. “Be well, Kiera Nezerac, daughter of Ariadne.”
I nod and lock my elbows holding the opening even as it stretches, trying to snap shut. Caedmon looks to the three Darkhavens and bows slightly. “Be well … my sons.”
Then he’s gone.
They both are. Ariadne and Caedmon burst into silver strings and are yanked up through the opening just before it closes, sending the rest of the world into a darkness that is only interrupted by the thin light of the moon hanging over all of us.