Chapter 29 Mance, Whole
Mance, Whole
It’s the worst merge yet.
Months of pain and rage hit me all at once, and I am brought to my knees.
A seeming lifetime of memories, all the ones that I’ve tried to ignore, barrage me until I am gasping for breath.
Even ones Livid wasn’t involved in, like Heart’s death in the Outskirts, take on new meaning and new emotion when relived through Livid’s view.
It’s like being ripped apart and smashed together over and over until I am a completely different shape. A completely different person.
Yet, somehow, I feel more myself than I have in a long time. The pain isn’t pleasant, but it’s honest. Letting it in is almost like the aching relief of unclenching a fist. The stitch in your side when you finally stop running.
When I come to, I’m lying on the ground. Silver is holding me half in his lap, looking like he’s doing his best to pretend he’s not panicked.
“You okay?” he asks, voice hoarse.
I nod slowly and prop myself up. “I think so.”
I expect him to relax at my words, but he doesn’t.
“Great. Well. No pressure,” he says, “but the armies have breached the walls. They’re almost here.
I give it, like . . . I don’t know, three minutes before they’re on us?
” He twitches, as though flinching at his own words.
“You didn’t happen to come up with any ideas while you were writhing on the ground in pain, did you? ”
I purse my lips in thought, feeling eerily calm. Strangely . . . ready. “Actually, I think I did.”
His face lights up in relief. “Really? Because I would absolutely love to hear it.”
“Right,” I say, sitting up. “I think . . . I am going to have to die.”
His face falls immediately, and he shoots to his feet and away from me, running his hands through his hair and pacing in angry, stilted strides. “No!” he says forcefully. “That’s the plan you had before you merged, Mance! I hated it then, and I hate it now. I can’t just let you—”
“No, stop,” I cut him off, grabbing him by the shoulders to halt him in place as a desperate plan comes together in my mind. “We don’t have time. Just . . . trust me, okay? Trust me.”
Silver’s muscles stay tense beneath my fingers, his eyes sweeping across my face in worry. But he must see something in the intensity of my gaze that reassures him. Finally, he blows out a breath. “I . . . do trust you.”
“Good.” I look over the wall and swallow. “Then let’s do this.”
“Okay . . . ,” he says, still hesitant. “How can I help?”
I swallow again, my throat suddenly incredibly dry. “Actually, can you . . . Um, can you just—” My gaze drifts to the door.
Silver closes his eyes in pain and puts his forehead against mine. “Don’t ask me to leave, Mance. I won’t be able to stand it. Please.” The anguish in his voice nearly undoes me.
I lean into his touch, cupping his face and pressing the pads of my fingers into the angles of his cheekbones. “I was actually just going to ask if you could hold me through it.”
He covers my hands with his, then pulls his head back, meets my eyes, and nods. “That I can do.”
I get up and lock the door, one final tiny barricade for anyone who makes it that far.
Then, side by side, we stand at the parapet and look out on the destruction unfolding beneath us.
The glass forest is completely destroyed now: shattered, disintegrated, melted, and upturned.
And the hasty fortifications my soldiers erected are, too.
The Primes are in my courtyard, almost at my feet.
I steel myself.
Then I send out all four parts at once, one in front of each Prime, and I immediately feel sick and empty with them gone, knowing what I sent them to.
“Oh,” Silver whispers, as he understands. “Oh, Mance . . .”
He wraps his arms around me and pulls me down, tucking my head into his chest. We sink against the wall until we’re sitting, me between his legs and the stone at his back.
Then we brace for it.
The first to fall is Asset, and the memory slams into me, harsh enough to take my breath away.
“You deserve this,” Tibits snarls at me. “This is what comes from trying to take on someone more powerful than you. From trying to throw flowers before giants.”
There’s no point in arguing with him, not now.
I can feel the blaze of the heat rock on his spear from here, as grass withers beneath it, a vibrant orange and then a burnt black.
Sweat beads on my forehead. I wonder if there’s a way to stand that will make it hurt less.
Most likely, what I want is to make the event as quick as possible.
So when he thrusts his spear through my chest, I fight my body’s urge to flinch away. I lean into it, into the furnace consuming me from the inside out. And it’s so much hotter than I thought, so much more consuming.
So much more . . . terrifying.
Death just doesn’t feel rational, and neither does the scream that wrenches itself out of my mouth.
I gasp, clutching my chest, as Silver tightens his arms around me.
“It’s okay,” he whispers. “You’re okay.” But I can still feel the heat, even though it isn’t there. I start to sweat as though it is.
And the next to fall is Poise, all too soon.
I stand before my aunt, back straight and chin high, refusing to bow to the discordant notes playing around her.
“What evil have you brought to our realm?” she spits at me. “Why couldn’t you have just gotten married as I advised? You could have contained all this. But instead you’re displaying the whole mess for everyone to see. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“I used to think that the path you walked was easy,” I muse aloud, even though I know it isn’t the time for speeches.
“You make it look that way. I thought I was the only one who struggled to keep smiling. Who had so much ugliness hidden behind the mask. But now I think we all have darkness, whether it’s out in the open or not.
You doomed my mother by marrying her to my father.
Then you tried to sell me off in the same way.
But I’m not going to dance to your tune any longer.
I know this doesn’t feel like a better choice right now .
. .” I take in the destruction around me, the once-perfect trees ruined forever.
“But I have hope that after pain there can be healing. And I know that will only happen if we acknowledge the pain first.”
She opens her mouth, and at first I think it is to scream at me. But no, it is to hold a note. An awful, jarring note that slices through the melody around us and causes a splitting, awful pain in my head.
Blood leaks out my ears.
“I hope you find healing, too,” I say.
And then everything goes searingly white.
I clutch my head in my hands, moaning. The tower seems to swim. Silver presses a kiss to my temple, and it reminds me of my mother, kissing away my pain when I was a child.
I lean into him, comforted.
Until Livid’s death slams into me next.
“You thought hiding away in your net of ropes would protect you forever, didn’t you?” I scream. “Your safety mattered most, even if it hurt others. Well, look at you now!”
Even as I speak, his ropes wind themselves around my body, pulling tight.
“I don’t want to do this!” Prime Artro growls.
“But you’re going to, because when it comes down to it, you can never build walls high enough to keep out every threat. And you’re a coward for trying! Some fights are worth it!”
Then the ropes go taut and I can no longer form words.
I keep struggling, thrashing and straining, and it takes several minutes for unconsciousness to claim me.
To his credit, Prime Artro doesn’t look away.
I cry out, almost startled to hear noise finally escaping my throat. Silver inhales sharply, rubbing slow circles on my back. He looks like he’s going to be sick, but he only holds me closer.
And then it’s Heart’s turn.
“It’s not your fault,” I say as soon as I manifest.
“Mancella,” Azele cries, clearly struggling with herself. “Please run!”
“It won’t do any good,” I tell her, shaking my head sadly.
Rift stands, as always, at her side, trying to restrain her. His gloved hands are wrapped around her long sleeves, none of their skin touching.
“At least we can find out now,” I say. “Whether your touch will really kill a person.”
“I don’t want to learn like this!” Tears flow down her cheeks and Rift flinches as though they cause him physical pain.
“I know,” I tell her. “I know. But you were right. Idealism can only get us so far. Sometimes hard things are unavoidable. For what it’s worth, I forgive you.”
She makes a choked noise as I ease her gloves off her hands.
“Are you sure?” Rift breathes. I can only nod.
Then he releases her and with a cry of despair she presses her hands to either side of my face.
It feels a lot like splitting myself into two, but instead of every bit of me tearing apart, it all just unravels into nothingness. It hurts, but it’s also quick. Like a handful of snow melting in the sunlight.
“I forgive you,” I repeat, just before the awful disintegration reaches my lips.
The last thing I hear is the broken way she whispers, “No . . .”
“No,” I whisper, too.
My body feels incorporeal, barely stitched together. Like if I move at all, I might just crumple into ash again. My limbs lock up, and even swallowing feels terrifying. I go as still as a statue.
Silver holds me through it all, rubbing life into my limbs, coaxing warmth into my body. He’s relentless in his gentleness.
And it feels so good. I don’t know why I fought this so hard. Yes, I’m a mess. Yes, there are hard things I go through that he may never understand.
But there are hard things he goes through that I can’t understand either.
And it doesn’t mean that we can’t be with each other, comfort each other, while we endure them.
Just like this.
“Is it over?” he whispers finally. “Are they all . . . back?”
I nod against his chest.
He tilts my chin up and kisses me, and I feel the depth of the kiss brushing every part of my soul.
As his hands wander my skin, convincing me that I’m alive by making me feel it, I can sense his acceptance of every bit of me, and I lean into it, craving more of the feeling.
I forget how stiff my arms are, because they’re already wrapped around him.
I forget the burn of the rope on my neck because he’s chasing the sensation away with soft kisses along my throat that make my head spin.
And I respond to his fierce care with a ferocity of my own, desperate to convey my own feelings back to him.
I need him to know, through the pressure of my lips, the lack of space between our chests, the way my fingers tangle in his hair, how grateful I am that he’s here.
I want him to feel, through the way I curl myself around him, the way my heart is pounding, that I accept every part of him, too.
That I’ll never let him go again. That we are an us, together in anything, able to weather any storm as long as we’re doing it together.
In the midst of so much pain, who knew there could be kisses like this?
In the wake of my own destruction, in the halo of devastation that surrounds us, this moment feels so good. So perfect and whole and right.
Right up until the door explodes on top of us.