Chapter 30 #2
I stare at the Aeternalis for a long moment, because he is right.
We were both abandoned by the people that were supposed to love us.
We both built protection so that it would not happen again—his in the form of an empire, and mine, an armor.
But inside his empire, Pan’s heart crumbled into dust. Mine has remained preserved inside the armor, no matter that life would be far easier if it wasn’t.
I’ve always said I don’t care about hurting others so long as I saved myself.
But the truth is, I have always cared. And no matter how I tried to hide that fact, it always seems to surface: in saving a siren I didn’t know; in saving a king I had no reason to trust; in saving a dying kingdom of dreams.
I raise my chin. “You don’t know anything about my heart.”
Lurching forward, I plunge my blade into Pan’s eye.
His responding roar of fury is deafening as he falls backward beneath my onslaught.
Blood spurts from the wound in thick ropes, coating my face and chest. I hastily paint a golden shield, throwing it up just as his shadow flies toward me in a rage.
A blast resounds as it crashes against my magic, shaking fragments of stone loose and raining them down from the ceiling.
Without thought, I leap over the edge of the balcony.
My dress flares up around me like an obnoxious kite, and my stomach flips up into my throat as I plummet far too fast toward the stone.
I scramble, twisting to claw at the temple facade in an effort to slow my fall.
Dragging my nails and feet, I find purchase in one of the carved overhangs, slowing my descent enough that when I finally hit the ground, I don’t break every bone in my body.
My feet smart, but I yank at my skirts and sprint toward Zenni, pushing through pixies and city-dwellers and Silva Lucai alike.
“Zenni,” I whisper in horror when I reach her.
Her trance-like stupor is more jarring this close.
Children have a way of carrying themselves—their bodies are limber and unencumbered, not yet stiffened by societal expectations.
But Zenni is entirely still, too still, even as her eyes flick toward me at the sound of her name.
“Zenni, it’s Willa. Do you remember me? Can you hear me?”
There is no recognition in her gaze, nor any of the irreverent humor I’d loved. There is nothing light at all as she stares at me, and suddenly, I realize what the Aeternalis meant when he’d said he saved the last morsel.
Zenni is very nearly a Strayed.
My attention drops to the small flicker of light at her heart. It is no bigger than a droplet of rain, and acute fear grips me that it will be just as easy to lose.
I reach out to pull her to me, but stop myself short, remembering all too well what happened the last time I touched a child in the Aeternalis’ thrall.
I cannot touch her without accidentally taking her magic.
I have to be more intentional both in my touch and in using my power.
This time, I have to paint carefully enough not to steal what creates her magic in the first place: her dreams.
The hesitation costs me.
Screams rent the peaceful ambiance of city.
The Aeternalis has stepped to the edge of the balcony, revealing his presence to the kingdom beneath the glow of the morphellia blooms. He looks horrific, illuminated atop the temple like a monster spawned in the pits of nightmares.
He doesn’t speak, but he doesn’t need to, as his appearance sends the kingdom into a frenzy of fear.
It descends like a poisonous cloud, the crowd around Zenni and me beginning to churn like a merciless wave.
Everyone pushes in their attempt to flee, scrambling over one another with tight screams and gruff panic. The wall of people pulls tight like a rubber band. It wobbles and sways in momentary suspension. Then, it snaps.
A surge of bodies slams into me, knocking Zenni and me sideways. Instinct has me reaching to steady to her. To keep her on her feet, before she is swept beneath the wave of panic and trampled to death.
Zenni’s eyes flash to mine, and I know I will see her expression in my dreams for the rest of eternity. For the moment I touch her, the tiny glow at her heart flutters toward my fingers.
“No, no, NO!” My scream is lost to the roar of panic, as Zenni’s magic skates up my arm and sinks beneath my skin.
I claw at it desperately, blood blooming beneath my nails as bodies careen against us.
But no matter how hard I scratch, it is already too late.
Euphoria slides through me, easing every hurt I’ve ever had.
There is no pain, no regret, no shame. Only pure power.
And in that power, I feel her. Faintly, but there. It settles into the pool of my magic, and for a moment, all I can breathe is her biting humor, her insatiable curiosity.
“Zenni,” I cry, my voice tight with panic as I shake her in my arms. “Zenni, I’m so sorry.”
The crowd careens into me, and I lose my footing. Together, Zenni and I tumble to the ground. I curl myself over her shell of a body as we’re pummeled by fear and bodies.
“Please, please, please,” I plead to everyone and to no one at all. There has never been anyone to hear my cries, and there certainly isn’t now.
My shadow rises above us both, emboldened by the taste of Zenni’s magic. It shudders and writhes, the cast of its darkness growing as I open my eyes to meet Zenni’s stare. Dread and guilt wind around my heart at what’s contained in that stare. Cruelty. Madness.
Emptiness.
She was my only friend at a time I deserved none. She was hope in an endless thrall of darkness.
And now, she’s gone forever.
Zenni snarls and slashes out at me, dragging her nails over my cheek hard enough for blood to pepper her face. She licks at it frenetically, eerie laughter ringing from her mouth. The sound of it—the deranged mania of the Strayed—snaps the last tether of my restraint.
It isn’t fair. None of it is fair.
Not Celie. Not Zenni. Not all the children in between.
Destroy it all, my shadow whispers above me; in me.
It rises in my chest and bleeds from my pores.
It leaks from my tear ducts and bursts forth from my lips.
It seeps into the well of my magic, staining the light of possibility with the inevitability evil.
And it finds no encumbrance, as every barrier I’ve tried to build against it crumbles in the wake of my despair.
Screams, that seemed so distant only a moment before, become intimate, their sonance a deep reverberation through my ruined heart.
My shadow spears for their fear like it is sustenance; it drinks their screams; it writhes in their terror.
Bodies begin to fall around me, the sickening thuds echoing through the malignant hunger ballooning in my chest.
More, it begs. Take what has been stolen from us. Gorge yourself on theirs and we will never be empty again.
“Willa!”
The deep voice is accompanied by tendrils of warm magic. They seek to soothe my rage, my suffering. They do not understand there is nothing left of me to soothe; nothing to temper the vengeance, to cease the harrowing violence.
“Willa, come back to yourself.”
Hands cradle my face, but the touch is so far away. I cannot reach it from where I drown in the darkness, cannot feel anything but the press of shame and hunger. The warm magic tries to slide between my ribs, and the shadow erupts in response.
It will not be mollified. It will not be caged any longer.
It billows from me in wave after wave, drinking in fear and pain and panic. And I am powerless to stop it, because how am I to stop something that is of me?
The evil, the darkness—it is all made of me.
I am the blight on the universe, far worse than any plague.
Sudden, blinding pain shoots through me. It radiates from my back, through my spine and stomach, the agony enough to drag me back into my body. And I am thankful for the pain, following it back from where I’ve broken to find my humanity.
I want to cry as the shadow relents, but neither sound nor tears come. And when I open my eyes, the sight before me only buries my sobs further beneath the horror I’ve unleashed.
For lying in a deep pool of his own blood, eyes wide and unblinking—is Sam.