Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
Death feels. . . weird.
That’s what happens with a supernova. An implosion. It’s the death of a star.
I wouldn’t consider myself a star by any means, but it was the last thing I felt. That hitch in my song right before release. I eviscerated everything – including myself. The sun devil was right. I burned for an eternity, and now I’m dead.
Stop being so dramatic, Mavyllora. It’s unbecoming and you have already looked bad as my student these past two months. I had told Thorne you were as good as him, do not make me a liar.
Do not make me a liar.
She would say that whenever I was underperforming.
Do not make me a liar, Mavyllora. I know your potential and I have told people of it so you better become what I know you can be.
I’ve been hearing that phrase since I was fourteen. It was one of the first things Nana –
Nana.
But I’m dead.
There is nothing here and –
I know, I know. I’ve been saying that every day but I just. . . for the goddesses, Mavyllora, please just wake up. You can’t be gone, child, I know you are not gone. Not if your mental shields are still up and most definitely not if your devils cannot get in. So just. . . wake up already.
Wake up.
I need you to wake up.
Ohh, but I do not want to.
There had been so much pain before. I am tired of always feeling pain. I want sleep. I want a solid black abyss of darkness. Nothingness where existence and enduring are not real.
Please.
That was not Nana.
Please, Firecracker.
There’s a tug somewhere further in me. A place I would have to travel to get to. I would have to leave this place of nothing. I would have to feel.
It didn’t work, Esmirra. We do not have a cemented bond. It’s more likely she wouldn’t wake up because of me. She told me once to never enter her mind.
I do not like devils in my mind.
Silence.
Then. . .
Mavyn?
What?
I think someone chokes. Pinpricks of emotions stab through my nothingness and I wish they would stop. I do not want to leave.
Mavyn?
I huff and roll my eyes. I already said what?
You can hear me, Firecracker? Can you wake up for me?
Mavyllora, Nana snaps through. Why can I not feel you? Why is there nothing here? It’s like darkness. Where are you and how are you hiding within your mind?
I curl tighter into myself and glare. I do not like the light.
Yes you do.
No –
Yes, she hisses. You miss the warmth without the burning.
That’s not fair. All I ever do is burn. How can I miss something I don’t remember feeling? I wish I was just dead. That would have been easier. Why am I not dead? I died. I had to have died. I made sure on that field there was nothing left.
Wake. Up. Now.
I feel like when I was fourteen and being scolded about getting up for my lessons. I would stay up too late reading textbooks and grimoires and trying to learn any and everything. I wanted to absorb all the knowledge I could. I wanted to remember.
I wanted to make sure I never forgot.
I always thought it would help so one day I could figure out how not to be forgotten.
We say we’re immortal, but I always viewed life through a very human gaze.
Wanting to remember and be remembered. They say a person dies twice – once when their soul leaves their body, and a second when their name is said for the last time.
Still haven’t figured it out. I’m not a writer or someone famous or anyone of special importance, but I had been accepting of my death.
And they want me to wake up as if this is just a dream.
I do not want to wake up.
You owe me.
A new voice – and yet not. Lazy and drawling. I bare my teeth at the sound.
I do not, demon.
You do. It was my blood you drank on that field that prevented you from dying. Nearly sucked me dry, so you now owe me.
I curl tighter within myself and wrap dagger-like claws into my blood. Sensing my aura and power and rhythm from my heart. Scenting the poison and. . . thunder. Ozone and blood but it is not mine.
I’m calling in my favor now. Wake up.
I want to scream. Clever fucking demon. I want to rip his neck out. This is not fair.
You will regret this.
And I can feel his amusement. Wake up and make me then.
I will.
I can almost feel him smile. Stupid fucking demon. He doesn’t realize how much of a promise I mean that as.