Chapter Seventeen #2
Grabbing a tablecloth hooked on a shattered table, he wrapped it around his mouth and vanished into the smoke.
For a second, Peter and I didn’t move.
The sounds of war faded a little as opponents slowly became fewer.
All around us scattered the bodies of jewels, Masters, and guards.
Every part of my soul begged to check on the jewels. To drag them to Dr Belford and have her bring them back to life.
Only...the war wasn’t finished.
Not yet.
Giving me an exhausted smile, Peter shrugged. “Together?”
I grinned.
Spying Travis—the Master who’d been the reason we’d had to play Topaz Torment all those months ago—dead with his legs on fire, I staggered toward him and grabbed the pistol still clutched in his hand.
Trading it for the dagger Peter gave me, I wasn’t prepared for the metallic weight.
The toxic coldness that felt far more sinister than I could handle.
I shoved that weakness away.
“Together.” I nodded.
Peter smiled. “Okay then.”
I wished I felt stronger. Wished I was skilled at this.
But I wouldn’t give up until every last jewel was free.
“Stay behind me. We’ll do a sweep for the jewels and then take them to the south gardens.” Peter stepped around the blazing deck, flicking me a look as I fell into position behind him.
The heat pouring off the bonfire of decking, tables, and chairs, ought to warm the frost in my bones.
It only made me aware how terribly cold I was.
How this cold was different to a usual chill brought on by weather or lack of clothing.
This was internal, insidious, creeping through me at an alarming rate...almost as if pieces of me had started shutting down.
Don’t...
You’re fine.
Keep going.
Breathing hard, I followed Peter as we headed toward the less damaged wing of the fortress. Everywhere we went, stonework had been blasted off and pieces of carved angels scattered the grass in lichen-covered rubble.
Ducking to grab a gun from a dead guard, Peter traded it for his sword. Turning to face me, he went to take my hand. His eyes met mine before skittering over my shoulder.
His smile dropped to terror.
I went to look.
To stare into the calm black gardens where Henri had run off to.
Only...
A gun fired—
Peter snatched me by the shoulders and spun me around, guarding me with his body.
“Argh!” He shuddered as a bullet tore into him.
“Peter—!”
He went stiff with agony.
His legs gave out.
Together, we fell.
Him on top of me, slamming us to the ground.
Sweet scents of grass enveloped us, erasing the hot ashy flavour of fire.
Caishen screamed and charged out of the smoke, letting a volley of bullets fly at whoever had shot us.
I couldn’t see who’d fired.
Couldn’t see apart from the stars above and Peter’s face as he panted and gasped.
“Ily...” He coughed and choked, blood frothing at the corner of his lips as he failed to catch his breath.
“No. No, no, no!” I pressed my palms against his shoulders.
I tried to push him off me.
To see what’d happened.
To help him.
Only...that coldness within me spread from a different wound.
Pain radiated in my chest.
A tiny circle of discomfort, throbbing with newness before going numb like everything else.
Nothing.
It’s nothing.
All I cared about was Peter as he choked and spewed up another trickle of blood. It landed on my cheek, rolling toward my ear.
“Paavak. Please. Don’t. Don’t do this.”
He squirmed above me.
He tried to roll off me.
He coughed and gagged and made a heart-wrenching noise of surprise. “I...I can’t move.”
The blizzard inside me built into a snow drift, burying me in thick white nothingness.
“Peter...”
“I—” He coughed again, blood pink and bubbly on his lips.
Tears seeped from my eyes as I touched his cheek. Just that tiny motion cost everything I had left. My vision grew hazy, grey...
I brought his rich brown gaze to mine. “You’re okay. We’re okay. Just—”
Caishen landed beside us. “Oh fuck. Oh fuck.” Planting his hands on Peter’s back, he pressed down hard enough to squish me into the dirt beneath Peter. “Someone help me!” He looked back at the jewels and guards, Masters and war. “He’s bleeding bad!”
But no one came.
Everything faded.
A sunburst of light appeared in the night sky. A circle of pinks and golds, whites and starshine. It glowed brighter and brighter, building and building until everything was gilded and glittering.
My heart kept beating, slower now, turning into a winter sculpture made of icicles.
I looked at Peter above me.
Peter haloed in white bright light.
And my heart no longer fought the glacial creep. It went quiet inside me. Calm inside me. The coldness that’d plagued me for so long went wonderfully warm.
“Ily...” Peter’s eyes welled with tears, his chest heaving, lips dripping in blood. “I’m—”
“I know.” The bright light above grew ever more brilliant, luminescent and iridescent, pure and home.
His hot blood seeped onto my chest.
His essence soaked into mine, stinging the matching hole within me.
The hole where everything faded, quieted, slowed...
We stopped fighting the fear, the instinct, the pain.
We looked at each other one last time.
I wished I could’ve said goodbye to Henri.
To tell him not to worry.
To promise him this wasn’t the end.
But as more jewels crashed around us and hands tried to staunch Peter’s bleeding, I sighed with acceptance that this was always the way it was meant to be.
I’d come here to save them.
I’d done my very best.
This life was not in vain.
It was blessed.
I sighed as I floated into a warm, cloaking comfort.
Death was so warm and soft and happy.
Death was goodbye and hello, an ending and a new beginning. A changing of garments from one form to the next...
And as that white light claimed everything and the tangible world shattered into diamond dust, Peter pressed his bloody lips to mine, and together...
...we were finally free.