Chapter 51
Chapter fifty-one
When do you feel full?
Only with her.
It is an undeniable truth of my life. I have lived centuries—traveled through worlds and women and riches and adventure—and nothing has ever come close to how I feel with Willa.
Like my heart has been misshapen my entire life—too jagged, too decayed—but when I met her, I realized it was because only half lived in my chest. It could never beat to its full extent, never love to its full extent, until it found the missing counterpart.
So, when Willa asks me to jump—to bind myself to my pain eternally—there is no hesitation.
Only a soul-deep faith in the dark heart of the woman who has never asked me to be anything but who I am.
The woman who has never shamed me for my ruthless edges and violent cravings, but instead, saw them and wanted them.
The woman who nearly ruined not only the universe to save my life, but who tore herself apart for the sole hope of finding one another again.
And though I would lay myself down on a pyre and sacrifice everything I am for her, this…this is no sacrifice. It is the highest honor, and I would endure every level of agony the universe has to offer for it.
I go gladly to whatever awaits. I hold her hand, and leap into the lake.
The moment we break the surface, the world shatters around us.
A vibration resounds through the water, through my veins, through the universe itself.
So deep and abiding, it feels as if the island is made of glass and our presence in its heart has sent it careening off a cliff, turning it to jagged dust. My muscles lock and my lungs refuse to expand in wake of the icy shock and the brutal vibration of power, and it’s all I can do to grip Willa’s hand harder in mine to keep her from being torn from me.
Because that’s what the universe has always threatened to do, isn’t it? Rip away anything beautiful and stain what remains with rot and decay?
No longer. Our love has brought us together through worlds and pain and plagues. It is enough to keep not only the ties of Letum together, but the ties of all things.
I open my eyes, finding Willa the most brilliant sight in the murky depths.
Her caramel hair floats above her in a soft halo, her olive skin somehow not washed out by the colorless water, but enhanced by it.
Her magic emanates from her heart, threading through her veins and washing over her body until we’re both encased in its ethereal glow.
My death reaches for it, void threading through light, as our blood spirals around us in alternating shades of onyx and crimson.
The reverberation of power ceases, the following silence nearly as deafening.
And then the pain begins.