Chapter 25 #2
I catch him. I don't know how. One second he's in front of me.
The next, I am on my knees, holding his body against mine as blood spreads warm and impossible across my hands.
His face is pale. His eyes search mine. The archive disappears.
The war fades. The screaming gate, the Remnants, Voss, the Masters, even Valerius bound to the stone— All of it becomes distant.
There's only my father dying in my arms.
"No." My voice breaks. "No, no, no."
His hand lifts weakly. Shaking. It touches my cheek. I freeze. I can't remember the last time my father touched me gently.
"My daughter," he whispers.
The words break me. Tears spill down my face. "Why did you do that?"
His mouth trembles. A terrible attempt at a smile. "I should have... stood in front of you... sooner."
A sob tears from my throat. "No."
His fingers slip against my cheek, leaving blood there. "I was afraid," he whispers. "I let fear make me cruel."
"Stop talking." I sob.
"I need you to know." He fights.
"No, you need to stay alive." I say.
His eyes shine. "I love you."
The words destroy me. I shake my head, sobbing. "No. You don't get to say that now and leave. You don't get to finally say it and leave me with it."
His breath rattles. Behind me, Remnants shift. Voss is silent. My father's gaze flicks past me. Toward Valerius. "Protect her."
Valerius's chains tremble.
His face twists with fury. "I will."
My father looks back at me. His hand falls from my cheek. "Valentina..."
"I'm here," I sob. "I'm here."
His eyes soften. For one heartbeat, I see the father he might have been. The one fear stole. The one I needed. The one I will never have.
His breath leaves and doesn' t return. Something inside me dies with it. I stare at him, at his open eyes, at the blood on my hands, at the man who failed me, feared me, hurt me, doubted me and still stepped in front of the blade. My scream starts as a sob. Small and broken. Human.
Voss says, softly, "How touching."
The sound inside me changes. Valerius feels it before anyone else. Through the bond, his voice comes sharp with terror.
Valentina.
I lift my head. Voss is watching my father's body with faint impatience.
Like his sacrifice is an inconvenience. Like his death is a page turning.
Like my grief is useful only if it makes me easier to control.
The Ancient Masters stand behind her, masks still, silent, observing.
The Remnants wait. Seren sobs somewhere behind the black sigil.
Thorne still isn't moving. Valerius strains against the old law chains and my father is dead in my arms.
The scream leaves me. Not human anymore. A roar. A sound made of grief, rage, love, betrayal, and every year I was told I was nothing. It tears out of my chest, and the sovereign mark over my heart answers.
White-gold light explodes from me. Not from my hands, from my chest. From the place the seal key branded itself. From the place where grief has nowhere else to go. The blast hits the archive like a newborn sun. Everything burns except the people I love.
Everything else. Every Remnant in the first ring turns to ash instantly. The old law chains around Valerius flare, crack, and snap. Voss screams, thrown backward by the force.
The Ancient Masters lift their hands, and for the first time, their magic shakes.
Starfire floods the floor in a circle around me and my father's body. It races beneath Valerius. The chains binding him dissolve. He breaks free with a roar of Shadowflame, black fire exploding around him as he rises. He reaches me through the storm and takes my hand.
The second his fingers close around mine, Shadowflame joins the Starfire. The light turns unbearable. White-gold and black-red. A sun with a shadow heart. The archive ceiling cracks. The gate screams. Remnants burn midair as they fall.
Voss crawls backward, eyes wide now, truly afraid. Valerius's voice reaches me through the roar.
Valentina.
I can't answer. There's only the fire. Only my father's blood. Only the scream still tearing through me. Valerius wraps an arm around my waist, holding me upright as my power erupts again and again.
"I have you," he says.
The words reach some tiny surviving piece of me. I turn into him, sobbing and burning at the same time. The Starfire doesn't stop. It expands. It strikes the Remnants and erases them. It hits the gate and forces it backward. The tear in the air begins to close, edges burning white.
The Ancient Masters finally move. Not forward. Back.
One of them lifts his masked face toward me. "The heart remembers." His voice is no longer calm. It is wary.
Valerius snarls, "Run while you can."
The Master's mask turns toward him. "You will be her ruin."
Valerius's arm tightens around me. "Then come test that theory."
The Starfire surges again. The Masters retreat into the narrowing gate, black robes whipping in the storm. Voss screams something, reaching toward them, but they don't reach back. They leave her.
The gate snaps shut with a thunderclap. Silence crashes down.
For one impossible second, the archive is only light and ash.
Then my body gives out. The Starfire vanishes.
My knees buckle. Valerius catches me before I hit the floor, lowering with me, one arm around my back, the other hand pressed to my face.
"Valentina. Look at me." He says.
I try but I can't. My vision is blurred by tears and light and grief too big for my body. "My father," I whisper.
His face breaks. "I know."
"He died." I sob.
"I know." He passes his hand through my hair.
"He finally called me his daughter." I break apart.
Valerius closes his eyes for half a second, pain cutting across his face.
Then he pulls me against him. I collapse into his chest.
I break with my father's blood on my hands and ash falling like snow around us.
I break for the little girl who waited years for him to look at her.
I break for the woman who got the words too late.
I break for the father who feared me, failed me, and still found one final moment of courage when death came for me.