Lucy #2
I reach inside myself and pull at the entwined threads of their souls, and I pour power into them. My runes flare to life and we’re surrounded by light. Cocooned in our potential. The three of us always destined to end this together.
I throw a bright white lasso of magic around them and drag them towards me. Closer and closer.
Both of them are bloodied and bruised, Architecti has blood spilling from her mouth, Interitus’s nose is broken and her eye swelling purple.
I am done. “This is over,” I snarl.
“And what the hell are you going to do? You’re nothing,” Architecti says. “You’re exactly what I tell you you are.”
I crack a smile, because for the first time in my life, a realisation settles in my bones. It’s so strong and so resolute I stand a little taller.
“What the hell are you smiling about?” she sneers.
Interitus glances as me, her expression softening. She stands a little taller, her chin held high.
“You’ve both failed because I was never meant to be the power you wield.”
Architecti’s eyes widen, her body, despite being pressed against her sister’s, trembles.
“You may have created me for your own goals. But in the end, even you don’t control my fate.”
Interitus’s eyes gleam with delight, whether from her sister’s anguish or because she’s realised where this is going, I’m not sure.
“I’m going to give you both what you want. For Interitus, a new system of fate will be born before the dawn rises. And for you, Architecti, I will destroy Interitus.”
This time, Architecti’s eyes are the ones that glimmer. But my face hardens.
“But not in the way that you want…”
Her expression falls.
“Your punishment for the pain you’ve caused and the lives you’ve taken is to spend the rest of eternity as the single entity you were always meant to be. And I will spend eternity deciding my own fate and doing to you what you have spent my life doing to me.”
Architecti shakes her head, frowning. “You can’t.”
“I can and I will. I will spend eternity wielding your new form as the force for a new system of free will.”
Interitus laughs silently, tears fall from her cheeks as she throws her head back and shrieks out a hysterical bark.
“Oh, I knew you were brilliant,” she says, and this time, it’s the words of Thalia, my old mentor. “Well played, my friend. Very well played.”
Interitus’s features darken, her eyes go black, her skin shivers and vibrates and she starts to dissolve.
“NO,” Architecti shrieks. But it’s too late.
The merged moth flutters to my chest, as if it is ready to accept its fate.
I close my eyes and reach for my runes one last time. I dig deeper than I’ve ever dug, gathering all the power I can muster.
I reach for Interitus, the gift of self-destruction she gives me willingly, and I let my power merge with her essence.
Architecti I will have to take by force.
My light meets her destruction, swirling and shimmering. Architecti shrieks and kicks, but it’s far, far too late.
The light now flecked with darkness descends on Architecti, disassembling her cell by cell. Breaking her down the way she broke me. The way she controlled me and made me the way she saw fit.
Tonight, I remake her.
The air fills with the scent of oceans and summer breeze, a little smidge of cold coffee and decay and beneath it all the faintest hint of woodsmoke. Gellara.
The last part of them to dissolve is the merged moth.
Perhaps I have always known what they will be, what I will reform them into, but as the creature forms, I know without doubt this was the right thing to do.
The wings form first, one a little like the frayed, skeletal moth I used to resurrect and a little angry like the Severed Moth.
The markings appear almost serrated, though the actual composition is soft and feathery.
On the other side, the wing is like starlight, dark and speckled with glimmering dots like the constellations of the Crowned Moth.
The ground trembles, the air around us shivers but instead of tearing, it settles like it’s releasing a sigh.
The atmosphere expands and releases like the city can finally breathe again. There are no more screams. No more crunches of bone and squelching blood. It is silent now.
I strain to see over the edge of the parapet. The remaining Veil tears are resealing themselves; the wraiths being sucked back to where they belong.
It’s over.
I examine what’s left of the angels. My fingers brush my chest, realising there is a small sliver of each still inside me. Perhaps it’s the soul I need to keep me in this realm. Or perhaps, in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to part with all of them.
I examine the insect fluttering before me.
It is not a moth exactly. But ever so similar. It’s bright and colourful like the butterflies I’ve seen in other realms. She’s magnificent. This little creature holds more power than any angel, fallen or otherwise.
They are finally complete.
And now, in the words of the elder angel, it is the bearer of free will.
I slump against the statue, the butterfly coming to rest on my hand. She’s connected to me. I can sense her deep in my chest where the pieces of the sisters sit, cocooned in the space my crystalline heart once occupied.
The butterfly is everywhere, in my mind and cells, we are part of each other the same way the angels were with their moths.
Midnight’s head pokes above the parapet.
“Hey—” I start and buckle over as a shooting pain washes through my entire body.
My skin prickles, the celestial runes shift and morph, darkening. I hold my arms up.
“What the fuck?” I breathe as all the runes shift into far more recognisable shapes.
Demonic runes?
My body arches back as searing pain rushes across my skin and plunges through my muscles.
“Lucy!” Midnight shouts.
But I can’t respond. My jaw is locked, gritting through the pain. The butterfly lands on my chest, trembling as though it too is in pain.
I’m on my knees, crumbling. This is worse than Architecti pulling power out of me.
I reach for my power, but I’m locked out.
“Ignatius,” I spit out and then I curl in on myself, writhing in agony.