Chapter 40 #2
Maybe it’s time for me to step into the light and meet my fate. For the stars to fall down to shine through me.
Even if I get burned like Linzi’s ribbon in Lothar’s hand.
My innards turn to ice at the thought of what opening my soul up even farther might do to my tenuous grip on my sanity. But it isn’t going to take much more of this before I’ve torn myself to shreds anyway.
I knew I might end up making my final sacrifice today. I’d better make it a good one.
Closing my eyes again, I pitch my inner voice as loud as I can, up toward the sky where I imagine the godlen might be watching.
Kosmel! You once told me you’d be there for me if I knew what I wanted.
I’ll only ask for one more thing. Send your power through me again, you and whatever other godlen care whether the realm falls into chaos.
Use your divine will to show these people what really matters to the gods—and that it’s not what the murdering scourge sorcerers say.
No voice answers, but a trickle of uncertainty winds through my thoughts that I don’t think is my own. My conviction is holding perfectly steady.
I clench my jaw alongside my answer. I know what it might mean for me. I don’t care as long as we can calm the madness out there. Please. You set me on this journey. I need you now, just once more. Believe me. Believe in me.
It’s been a long time since I heard the overwhelming voice that floods all my senses a moment later. I hear you, my wayward rogue. This isn’t the fate I wanted for you. But maybe I can offer you something better.
Before I can ask what that’s supposed to mean, a torrent of power blares through the center of my body.
It’s not like when I drew magic from the sacrificial accomplices. The boost they offered was a tiny creek compared to this roaring river.
And it shatters straight through me rather than welling up inside.
The divine magic explodes out of me, but not in a hail of fire like the stories of the Great Retribution.
Even with my eyes closed, I see the brilliant glow that streams out across and above the platform, rising higher than the towers and the obstacle course, blazing brighter than the unclouded sky.
I hear it. I taste it. I feel it vibrating through my bones.
Symbols form across the expanding glow—the sigils of each of the godlen, flaring into being one after the other until I count all nine. Distantly, I’m aware of the clamor of the crowd dwindling, the gasps of shock and awe.
We need more than this. More.
Show them!
You are so much more than this, Kosmel replies, in a tone that makes me want to sob, and then the glow shifts.
The divine light spreads even farther, rises higher, forming an image of a castle. Figures flit in and out of the doorways and along the road outside it.
They come together and embrace. They share pieces torn off a loaf of bread and gulps from a bottle of wine. They laugh and dance, nobles in fancy trimmings holding hands with urchins in scruffy clothes.
Peace. Happiness. Compassion. Cooperation.
A wave of emotion sweeps over me and out across the crowd. A collective sigh ripples from all around the platform.
Another figure appears, with a gleaming hole lit right in the middle of her. As if there’s a crack in her soul.
As if it’s been riven through.
The other people don’t recoil. They gather around and embrace her too.
The light shines out of her and whirls away the palace into a farmland scene. Children clamber up trees to pick apples while adults offer food and water to the animals. Everything is bright and joyful.
The farmyard glimmers into a ballroom where lovers entangle themselves in intimate clasps. Then a squad of soldiers marching together, bumping fists and cheering each other on. A library where students huddle together to murmur insights from the books they’re reading.
This is what life could be. This is what we should aim for.
Love and friendship and learning. Kindness and consideration.
The gods have spoken.
The energy leaves me all at once. My legs give; my knees smack the floor. Incoherent words sputter from my mouth.
And then I’m not there at all.
I’m floating in a mass of glowing light that shows no sign of the outside world. But it’s warm, so warm, in the coziest possible way, like snuggling in bed under your favorite blanket.
Nine streaks of starker light materialize in a circle around me. Somehow I know where they all are even though some must be behind me.
Even though they’re nothing more than a blurry glow, I also know the one directly in front of me is Kosmel.
“Hello, wayward rogue,” he says in a voice that’s somehow more here and also more everywhere both at the same time. Every particle of me, however much of me is present, quivers with it. “You served me well, didn’t you?”
“I did my best for the kingdom and the people in it who needed help the most,” I find myself saying.
What’s going on here? Is this some side effect of all the magic I channeled?
Maybe this is the final stage of my riven madness, and he’s not speaking to me at all. Maybe none of this is real.
As if he can hear my thoughts, the trickster godlen chuckles. “Oh, it’s real in the most fundamental possible way. And I wanted to offer you an opportunity within this reality, as a reward for everything you’ve done.”
I give his glowing form a puzzled look. “A reward?”
“Our mistakes left you with more than a lifetime’s worth of guilt and pain.
You’ve protected the realms despite that.
I think you deserve just as much peace as the rest of those you fought so hard to save.
What you’re feeling right now, that can be yours always.
You can linger here in the divine for as long as you wish until you’re ready to release your soul. ”
I grapple with those words for a moment. “You’re saying I’ll be dead.”
“You’ll die eventually either way. I can’t guarantee what awaits you down below, but it will definitely be more difficult and fraught than anything you’ll experience among us.”
My lips part, but no sound comes out.
He said I’d find only peace here. That I’d get to escape all the pain of my past existence. But a tiny ache has already bloomed in my heart.
What about Stavros and Casimir, Alek and Rheave? Am I really going to walk away from them without even a good-bye?
What about seeing Petra finally claim her throne? What about the promise I made to Julita to ensure her old county was in good hands?
What about all that life I’ve only just started really living rather than lurking on the fringes like a shadow?
Kosmel’s voice gentles. “All those desires would quickly melt away in this place. You might not satisfy any of them if you return. Even we don’t know what effect your last act will have on your mind.”
I might be absolutely crazed if he returns me to my body, he means. I might have a few more minutes of agonized existence and then fade away into the nothingness of death.
Do I really want to trade this comforting warmth for that possibility?
Even as I ask the question, my certainty about my answer grows.
There are so many other possibilities ahead of me now. There’s so much else I want to accomplish.
There will be pain and guilt and sadness along the way. It might be all I have left.
But it might not.
Even a slim chance at having more of the loving joy I found is worth all the rest.
I haven’t spoken, but I get the impression of Kosmel nodding. “I see your resolve. I won’t argue with you, and I hope your decision brings you more happiness than anguish.”
I suck in one more breath of the glowing air, contentment rushing through my veins, and then I’m plummeting.
I slam back into my body with a heaved breath and more gibberish tumbling from my mouth.
An arm is wrapped around me, a hand cupping my cheek. A vial tips against my lips with a spill of cool, bitter liquid.
“We’ve got you,” Casimir says tenderly, with a hint of a rasp. “And this is where we’ll stay—right here, with you.”