Chapter 48 #2
I’m strong, upright, my hands outstretched as I show the others, as they follow my command. And there’s another stream of light. And another. And another.
And then, beyond all the light, I see the silhouettes of my four strong, brave mates, rising to their feet, their shadows too, soaring forward, seeking my power, my light, combining with everything else.
There’s an almighty explosion of light that throws every single person backward off their feet.
When I open my eyes again, the sky – the world – seems darker, even in the bright sunshine.
And the Empress is gone.
The scorched earth, her discarded sword, her melted armor – the only things that remain.
I scramble up onto my feet and run that way, the silence heavy, everybody watching me.
“She’s gone,” I shout out to everyone when I reach the place she was. “She’s gone. Defeated.”
I wait for the Shadow Army to start attacking us again, to throw their shadows our way. But there’s fear on their faces. No, more than that, terror.
What they’ve just seen is like nothing they could ever have imagined, and it petrifies them.
Suddenly, they’re displacing, one at a time, the air bristling around us as they disappear.
“Stop them!” someone cries out.
But it’s too late. They’re all gone.
And I’m racing over to my four mates instead as they pick themselves up from the ground, Thorne scuttling over the tower of rubble, and the four of them come to meet me together.
“Are you okay?” I ask anxiously, scanning their faces for signs of damage, for traces of that pain still there, reaching out to touch their faces, their hearts, their hands.
All of them are injured in some way – blood on their faces, their clothes ripped, their hands and knuckles scuffed up, their knees too. But they’re all smiling at me.
“Fine,” Beaufort says, taking a grip of my arm. “But are you? Are you okay, Briony?”
“Am I okay?” I say, almost spinning around in delight. “We did it! She’s gone. Or… she is, isn’t she?”
I peer over my shoulder back at the place where the Empress had stood only moments ago. I can’t help but grin.
And then I remember, she wasn’t just any enemy. She wasn’t just the killer of my sister. She’s Beaufort’s mother too.
The smile falls from my face, and I turn my head back to him.
“I’m sorry, Beaufort,” I whisper. “I wish there could have been another way.”
“There wasn’t,” he says. “She made that choice.”
“I know, but still—”
“No, Briony. It had to be this way.”
“I’m still sorry for it,” I say.
“I know,” he says. “Because you’re a good person, Briony. And only a good person could have done all this.”
“So it’s over?” I ask all four of them.
“It’s the beginning of the end,” Fox says. “There will be work to do. It’s the beginning, really. The beginning of something different.”
I can’t help smiling again, the grin stretching across my face. A laugh breaks free. Tears fall from my eyes, and I pull all four men toward me, attempting to wrap my arms around each of them.
They laugh in return, although Beaufort’s eyes are wet too, and Dray’s.
We hold each other like this for several moments, none of us wanting to be the first to let go.
The Professor is right. This is only the beginning, really. But for a moment, I just want this – us – and no one else.
But it has to end eventually.
Someone’s calling my name, running my way.
Fly.
I pull myself away from the others, swing around to find my best friend hurtling toward me. He almost knocks me over, flinging his arms around my torso and lifting me high into the air.
“Cupcake!” he says. “What the hell was that? All that magic, all that light. Where the fuck did it come from?”
“I don’t know,” I laugh. “Ask the people it came from.” I peer into his face. “You?”
He rolls his eyes. “If I had light-wielding abilities, Cupcake, I think we’d know about it by now.”
“Who, then?” I say.
“Damien,” he tells me. “Esme’s girlfriend, Mark, Janette, and Piers. So many people.”
“But how did it happen?”
“Cornelius said that this is what the Empress always feared,” Fox says. “That a lumomancer would come and be the spark to light the revolution. The beacon that would awaken the others. That’s you, sweetheart.”
And that’s when the emotion hits me all at once – like a train. I laugh, I sob, I erupt into a mess of hiccups. Tears race down my cheeks but I’m grinning my head off and my heart is over spilling with joy and elation, and over-brimming with hurt and devastation too.
We did it. We brought down the Empress. Most of her closest allies were killed in this battle too, buried beneath the rubble of that tower or killed in the battle. This is it – a chance for a new beginning. A new way. A better one.
But it’s come at a cost – such a high cost. So many people killed, slaughtered, lost before their time – Clare, Professor Cornelius, the Titan twins, Dray’s brother. My sister.
I close my eyes and imagine her voice in my ear.
I don’t know if I really do hear it or in my messed-up state I imagine it, but I swear I hear her whisper, that voice that still makes me feel safe and warm, a voice that breaks my heart every time.
She whispers how proud she is of me. How much she loves me.
How much she wants me to be happy. She tells me it’s time to bury the dead and the past, to look to the future.
Time to let her go.
I screw my eyes shut. My head is light, I’m overwhelmed by exhaustion and everything that’s happened.
But then I’m once again enveloped in the arms of my fated mate and all that fades away.
Anything is possible now. Especially with these four men by my side.