Epilogue
SERAPHIEL
“Are you there, Little Sacrifice?”
The Abyss consumed my cry, swallowed up every sound.
Little Sacrifice! I called again with my mind, spinning out a narrow thread of thought to her, waiting for an answer. Listening, as I held the writhing mass of shadows away from the weakened place that I knew lay at the bottom of Sanctuary.
I was beyond weary. The shadows had grown too strong for me to hold. Too evil for me to drain their corruption into my own soul’s vessel, which was now as tainted and stained as the Abyss itself. I was dying, dissolving under the weight, and all I could do was allow the shadows to tear at my being.
I had to lay down this burden before the Abyss owned the last vestiges of my once-great soul. Before it could use me to corrupt the realm where my love was safe. Where she had found her home, her family, at last.
To protect her, I would unmake myself; no other being besides the Mother was strong enough to do so now. I could not allow the shadows I had restrained with my own soulfire to touch her.
All I wanted was to hear my love’s gentle laughter one more time. To feel her soft hand on my eyelids. To close my eyes so I could sleep and never wake.
So the pain would end.
Little Sacrifice! I called once more, mustering the strength to listen for her. The small fragments of my own being that had been muddled with hers when I remade her should have made it possible for her to hear me.
I hadn’t meant to do it, but the only way to create a being—or recreate one—was to give part of a soul to it. And the only soul that I trusted in the Abyss not to harm her was mine. Though it had been ruined.
Had I ruined her as well?
Suddenly, I felt her pain, felt her panic and fear. I followed the thread of our bond and focused intently as something in my love’s soul... changed.
Mother, help her! What had happened to her? She was almost as burdened with shadows as I was, though her heart was still light, her emotions a riot of wonder, worry, pleasure, and remorse.
I reached for her, painfully, slowly following the trail of emotions into her spiritual core. Gavriel was there, though I couldn’t see him. I felt her connection to him. The undeniable, unchangeable connection of her spirit and his. Their soulmate bond.
And then… the bond dissolved. Her soul cried out for his, and he did not answer.
It was gone. She was gone, from Sanctuary and every realm that my shadowed presence could sense.
Winked out of existence.
All that was left was lingering agony, and the subliminal echo of her heart crying out for the very one who had broken it.
Gavriel.
Gavriel had destroyed my love. Somehow, he had extinguished her soul’s light. Unmade it.
No.
No!
NO!
The shadows around me were flung away by my rage, my sudden, incandescent fury. Her soul, the one constant that kept me from rampaging through the Abyss, was now utterly absent.
Unmade. It was the only answer.
For the space of a breath, I allowed myself to mourn all that was lost.
All that would be lost.
And then I lifted my claws to the underbelly of Sanctuary, tearing through it to seek revenge. To kill my best friend.
My betrayer.