Chapter 44 #2
And a woman, her Earthvein abilities being torn away, yet focusing her final moments on a single wish. “Let something good grow from this.”
“Instead of having their abilities ripped from them, they chose to give them freely, not knowing where they would go, but hoping they would serve something greater than the Authority’s vision.”
My hand covers my mouth, and my fingertips touch wetness. I’m crying. Tears falling as I watch each Veinblood die horribly, yet smiling and full of peace, and the truth I’m being shown almost drives me to my knees.
Each power I carry represents someone’s final act of hope, their refusal to let their death be meaningless. I’m not just a vessel, I’m a living memorial to everyone who chose hope over despair. I hold their last wishes, their dreams for a better world.
The threads of light shine brighter, and I can feel as well as see them now.
The echoes of all those who came before.
The power inside me carries their purpose, their courage, their refusal to surrender even in death.
Each ability thrums with the personality of its original owner, and it all flows through me.
“Sereven created a vessel he would never be able to control. You were meant to be temporary, disposable, another small corpse to add to the Authority’s collection.
Instead, the power bonded with you permanently, the prayers sent with it finding connection within you.
You became everything he tried to prevent. ”
The frozen scene around me flickers, and for a moment Sacha falls again, blood spreading across his chest from where Sereven’s power hit him. The sight sends panic clawing through me.
“Can you save him? Can you stop what’s happening?”
“No child. That is beyond my remaining strength. I am here simply to show you the truth of what you are. What you do with that …” The voice begins to fade.
“Every storm you’ve called, every bolt of lightning you’ve wielded, the healing you have already performed.
That was your will, your strength. We only gave you the tools. You built everything else yourself.”
The threads of light contract, drawing closer to my heart. As they do, something shifts inside me. The abilities I’ve always thought of as foreign, stolen, something that might be taken away at any moment, become extensions of my body. Natural as breathing, inevitable as my heartbeat.
The power doesn’t come through me anymore, it is me. Lightning doesn’t answer my call because I command it, but because it recognizes me as its home, its source.
Each thread of light that enters my heart carries a whisper of memory.
A mother's lullaby sung while healing a sick child.
A father's steady hands guiding crops through drought.
A young woman calling down rain to save her village.
An old man whose touch could mend broken bones.
All of them live on in me, their love transformed into power.
The presence is almost gone now, but it sends one final whisper. “Trust in what you have become. In what those that came before you gave into your care.”
It fades to complete silence, leaving behind the knowledge of what I truly am.
I am not just Ellie Bennett, the girl from Chicago who never belonged anywhere.
I am the keeper of their legacy. The fulfillment of their dying wishes. And I won’t let them down.
My arms lift, I throw back my head, and I scream.
Time lurches back into motion.
Sacha crashes to the floor at my feet on his back.
The sound of flesh and bone meeting rock sends nausea rolling through me.
Blood spreads beneath his head in a rapidly expanding pool, dark and thick against the stone, reflecting in the flashes of fire that still clings to him.
Around us, debris rains down in delayed completion, chunks of rock striking the ground with thunderous crashes that shake dust from the ceiling.
I remember my terror, my fear before everything stopped. But I am no longer the same person who watched him fall.
Power rips through me. Lightning dances between my fingers.
I drop to my knees beside Sacha, and press my hands against the worst of his wounds. Blood still seeps from a gash at the back of his head where his skull struck stone, his breathing comes in shallow, irregular gasps.
The healing power that flows from my touch is warm, familiar, mine. It carries the echo of dozens of Veinblood healers who chose to preserve rather than destroy, but it is mine alone to use.
I pour everything into it. Not just the healing abilities, but the love that came with them.
The desperate hope of parents trying to save their children.
The gentle touch of healers who spent their lives tending the wounded.
The fierce determination of those who refused to let death have the final word.
His flesh knits together beneath my touch, bone healing, blood vessels reconnecting, bruised tissue returning to healthy pink. His breathing steadies, becomes deeper. Color returns to his face, chasing away the gray pallor that spoke of approaching death.
The healing takes an eternity. It takes less than a second.
When I lift my hands from his body, his eyes snap open.