Chapter 18 #5
She had spent her whole life believing, only for it to… end this way. Because she surely knew if Lucien died, she wouldn’t live. She wouldn’t survive it.
"In trying to stop it, I made it… happen," Lucien forced out.
Lucien released her hand, raising it in the air between them and flipping it slowly to reveal his palm. His fingers trembled violently. He made a low sound, and before her eyes, a soft blue flower bloomed in his palm. A forget-me-not. The petals curled, fluttering.
Her eyes watered, tears spilling freely down her lash line, cutting damp, crystalline tracks through the ash on her skin. She shook her head.
Lucien’s fingers pressed against her chest as he tried to give the flower to her. "For you," he breathed.
"No, I don’t want it." She tried to shove his hand away. She tried to tell him she’d rather have him than a stupid flower. But words escaped her.
"I saw this in… in my dreams. For months," Lucien swore.
"It is finally happening. I tried to stop it.
I did—" Blood bubbled over his lips. Lips she’d kissed countless times.
She could barely see through the tears obscuring her vision.
"I did everything to keep you from it. The world—it’s ending.
I dreamed of it. I will find you again." His voice was a thin whisper.
"I promise." His head dropped to the side. The warmth left his green eyes.
He did not blink.
"Lucien?" Vesperin touched his jaw. "Lucien?
Lucien, please wake up? Please… please. Please.
For me? Wake—wake up?" She was sobbing. Violently.
Her throat was raw. Her head pounded. Blood fell steadily from her sore nostrils, crawling up the back of her throat.
She coughed and tasted iron. Her blood dropped from her lips, getting on his skin. It slid down over his unmoving chest.
"No," she hiccupped. "No, no. Don’t do this to me. Lucien, please—I cannot live without you. Not without you. I can’t do this." Her words were incoherent, broken with grief.
She folded forward, unable to remain upright beneath the weight of such pain. She fell on Lucien’s chest, the edge of the metal unforgiving and sharp on her cheek as she bowed over him.
The ground rumbled beneath them. Let it take them. She didn’t care anymore.
"What Lucien said…" Auren’s voice pierced through her wails, making her push herself off Lucien’s chest, heaving and sick.
The Soul Searcher knelt by her side, reaching for Lucien’s face.
His touch was gentle as he forced Lucien’s lids to close.
She didn’t like it—not at all. "He spoke the truth," Auren said in a rush, then sighed.
His head fell back as if in relief. "He spoke the truth. " The words were slower this time.
"What do you mean?" Cyrus asked, breath hitching. He scrubbed at his eyes, the tip of his nose red like his hair—or blood.
"I—" Auren gritted his teeth, then met each of their eyes, ending on hers. "Lucien spoke the truth," he enunciated.
Vesperin swallowed, whispering, "The world?"
Auren did not nod, but his eyes—they were so unyielding.
Another violent tremor rocked through the ruined house. Other dilapidated houses collapsed, one after the other. The sound rushed over them all as heat swelled in blistering waves.
The broken foundation of the house groaned, dust falling anew. She gave a hitched gasp, gripping Lucien’s chest so firmly that her nails dug in. He didn’t groan in pain because he was—
"Vesperin, we have to go," Rhyden roared.
And time felt strange, like she’d just lost some of it. Whatever bits she’d had left evaporated in grief.
The air was hot and thick, and she heard the distant screeches of Rogues, their heavy, retreating footfalls. With their predatory instincts, they knew when it was time to go.
Rhyden was tugging her upright. "Now!"
She wouldn’t go. She stayed rooted to her spot because if the sky fell, what use was crying? If the end was near, why should they try to get away?
"No," Vesperin said, the words scraping against her raw throat. She looked up at them. Cyrus was still kneeling by her side. Kit was frozen, staring at Lucien. Auren… he stared at the sky, scythe discarded, useless. "I will not—leave him."
She saw no way to escape this. It was imminent—death. It was the one thing there was no escaping from.
Rhyden’s lip curled as he took them all in.
Their defeat was a palpable thing. He cursed, then smiled bitterly, running his hand over his jaw.
"Right. Fuck, okay." He dropped down, sitting beside her.
Stared at the gun he still held, then tossed it away where it hit bricks with a clatter.
"I guess we’re going to fucking die then," he groaned out, the words tapering off when a loud preternatural groan filled the air, as if Earth was mourning itself and all the Souls trapped on it.
Salty sweat slicked her skin, making the blood that now ran freely from her nose burn her upper lip and tender flesh.
"At least we’re together," Cyrus choked out, and she felt his arms wrap around her tightly.
The sparks on Kit’s arm traveled up to his chest. His head kept jerking strangely.
"Kit?" Vesperin prodded, just wanting it to be over. When he looked at her silently, she added, "I’m sorry."
His throat bobbed hard. Devastation hollowed out his face. Broken beyond repair.
She didn’t realize how desperate she’d been to see emotion on his face. Now that she saw it, she wanted his coldness again.
It did not matter.
She returned to lying atop Lucien’s chest, not wanting to leave him—and she didn’t have the strength left to stay upright. She was so tired.
"I don’t want to fight anymore," she whispered, her cheek against Lucien’s chest, her lips hot on his flesh. Tears fell, wetting him. She rubbed at them. "I’m sorry. I’m sorry."
Cyrus still held her from the side, then Rhyden’s cool hand joined, touching her ankles.
Auren covered her back, falling against her as though he had given up, too. "You do not have to. It is okay to give up. Just this once."
Nothing felt real. "Just this once?" she echoed.
She felt Auren nod from how closely he was pressed against her.
Her hand stretched out, fingers shaking.
Kit stared at her outstretched hand, then with his left, he reached for it, his real fingers brushing hers.
No longer holding his ribs, blood gushed from the deep wound on his side. It didn’t matter.
Vesperin turned her head softly as best as she could, feeling too much, yet too little. Blue light raced inside her veins, making her skin glow from within. She took care to meet each of their eyes. As she did so, she remembered everything, and she knew…
"This is not the end," she told them quietly.
She touched her heart, felt its slow, sluggish beats.
Even if Earth were not going to die here, she would.
Time slipped through her fingertips, dwindling in the numbered beats of her heart.
She gasped at the squeeze in her chest. Her eyes grew unfocused.
She felt a small, soft smile touch her lips as she stared up at the half-collapsed roof of her childhood room.
So many nights spent here, staring at the ceiling, dreaming.
Now, it was the place her eyes would see last. Beyond the broken roof, she saw the shooting Stars, fiery and angry.
She drew in a quiet, labored breath and felt Lucien’s still chest beneath her palm.
"Not for us," Vesperin whispered.
And the Earth rocked and trembled as the Stars fell screaming from the sky. She grew so hot she thought she might burn alive. But far before that could happen, far before she felt the pain of Earth’s end, it all went dark.
Earth turned to ashes.
Darkness.
Then shapes began to take form.
Slow at first, like a shimmering mirage, everything came into focus around her.
First, the smell. It was like bottled Stardust, something effervescent, indescribable. It made her nose tickle... She had a nose? She must if she could smell such things.
Next was not a sense, but a state of being. She felt her limbs, down to her fingers and the tips of each toe. It was as though her body were filling out, her Soul being poured into flesh, shimmering liquid of herself tipped from a glass decanter into a spiral of bone and blood.
Then she felt. The air around her—pleasantly warm.
Something tickled the bottom of her bare feet, growing around her like roots.
When her ears—if she had them—granted her sound, peace unlike any she had ever felt before threatened to make her unseeing eyes fill with tears.
Water rippled faintly, a soft gurgle that made her homesick.
So too was the sound of long leaves brushing against each other in a phantom’s wind.
At long last, came sight. After she had existed for so long, time was meaningless to her.
What was time? The word was nothing. Words themselves held no meaning, only the meaning prescribed to them. And here, wherever here was, the meaning behind the word time was inconsequential. Nothing.
When she opened her eyes, she was greeted by a serene body of water.
Flowers grew thick on the verdant bed of grass.
Their petals were blue. She knew what they were called, but the word escaped her.
Tree branches hung low over the water and all around her.
It was a grand winding river, she realized, staring at it.
It was wide, and she had a sense it was vast in depth. But the most shocking thing of all:
The water was not blue. It was pure black.
And the surface rippled like the very galaxy itself.
Glowing specks of light filled the air, soft and warm in her palm as she reached for them curiously.
Vesperin did not realize how long, how much, she had hurt, until the pain left her entirely.
So this was death.
It was quieter than she had imagined.
And just as dark.
She felt nothing.
There was no blood in her throat, no heat, no fear, or exhaustion.
Just peaceful understanding.