Ilaris
Iwas both afraid and calm at the same time.
Afraid because I didn’t know what came next, and calm because I was on the right path, stepping out in the full confidence that I was doing the right thing.
Killian’s warm hand in mine gave me strength.
I felt his presence, his love, like an aura as we moved through the ruins.
This time not headed for the hole in the ground, the kingdom underneath, the door where the monsters lurked.
We walked toward the volcano.
Smoke billowed out, covering the island in a cloud of darkness.
It moved like a living thing, vapors with wings, a growing intensity behind it as we climbed.
The ground was a crater of heat and at last we came to a ledge, a natural dais close to the summit, and there before us the glowing red mouth of lava opened like the maw of some dreaming god.
The air tasted of iron and sulfur. It coated my tongue and sat heavy in my chest with each breath I drew.
The heat should have been unbearable, but part of me recognized my union with Killian, the ability to withstand fire. I squeezed his hand, my heart thumping like a drum. “This is the place?” I gasped, struck by how the darkness took my voice and squeezed it into a tiny nothingness.
“This is the place,” Killian murmured, his deep voice just as small against the mountain’s indifference.
His bulk shifted as he faced me and snapped his fingers.
A glow appeared, a small flame giving us a pool of light.
Runes crossed the volcanic rock in symbolic circles.
The light gave off just a glimpse of the hallowed walls beyond.
Giant stones reached to the heavens, enormous figures frozen in place as though they’d stood watch for a thousand years, guardians carved from the mountain’s own bones.
And beyond them, something moved.
Crawled.
A dark shape that made my stomach drop. I knew already that I would see those eyes, too many eyes crowded onto one body—
“Look at me,” Killian said, a softness threading through his normally commanding tone. “Only at me.”
Tears brimmed. I blinked them away, my nose burning from sulfur and grief, my body strung tight with the need for release. I wanted to be strong in his presence. I didn’t want him to see me cry because this was a choice. This was sacrifice. I had made my peace with it.
I opened my satchel, took out the gifts before tossing it away. Placing the Stone beneath our feet, I took the Heart in my left hand, the Rod in my right.
Somewhere in the distance came a thrumming, the clop of horse hooves against stone, and that familiar terror wrapped itself around my ribs and squeezed.
“Ilaris,” Killian coaxed.
I lifted my face to his and was undone.
His golden eyes pooled with the edges of hope. Not certainty, not command, but hope, bare and unguarded as I had never seen in him. It was breathtaking. I wanted to give him more of it, more time, more life, more of every ordinary thing he’d been denied.
I stepped closer.
He cupped my face with both hands, his palms warmer than any hearth fire, and my body remembered all of it, his heat, his breath against my temple, the press of his lips against my skin, burning yet not burning, a different kind of fire entirely.
He was beautiful in the way that terrible, true things are beautiful, and it felt like a grief to look at him and know.
“I wanted to give you more,” I lamented. “More time, more life, more everything.”
The crease between his brows softened. “We had time,” he explained.
“It was short, yes, but perhaps that was always the design. We are the catalyst for the second chance, for the rebirth of all that is new. Some secrets are laid to rest and buried because they are not meant to see the light of day. Some evils are too dark and should not be released until the world is ready to end. We glimpsed what the ending would look like. But it is not time for the world to cease. Our time, though, is over. Do not weep. You only cry because this is the only life you’ve known, but there is eternal rest on the other side. ”
The other side. I thought of my grandmother’s bones then, and I realized I didn’t have to worry, not like she did. My actions may have been chaotic, reckless even, but in the end there was redemption. Hope.
“Is that where you were?” I asked. “Enjoying eternal rest when I woke you?”
His arm circled my waist, drawing me against him. I leaned into his embrace, taking deep breaths to calm my fear.
“No,” he said. “I was suffering. But you changed that. You gave me a second chance.” He pressed his lips to the crown of my head.
“Your tears are for the past and also for the future, what might or might not happen. But you’re with me, right here and now in the present.
That’s all that matters. We made a choice, and we will stand by it.
Our sacrifice will give many others the second chance I was given. ”
“Will it hurt?” I whispered.
“All transformation requires pain, but that, too, will pass. Are you ready?”
The clop of the hooves was closer. “I am.”
His arm around my waist tightened, and with his free hand he brushed his fingers up the column of my neck, the touch so light it felt like the ghost of butterfly wings.
A shiver moved through me from the base of my spine to the crown of my skull.
My entire being shifted toward him, and I parted my lips, let my eyes flutter shut, and waited for that euphoric sensation to fizzle through me.
Everything about him was intoxicating, addicting.
Give it years, decades, would I ever tire of these delightful sensations?
“Release,” he coaxed.
I rose on my tiptoes, hungry to taste him.
When his lips met mine, it was all-consuming.
He pressed me closer until our bodies melded together and heat fused through every bone in my body. But the kiss held the pain at bay. A fire ignited somewhere deep, and from the mountain came a roar like thunder, the bellow of rock and magma, the ground shaking beneath us as the Four drew near.
A boom resounded, and I meant to pull away, to look and see if all was crumbling.
But Killian did not release me. He pressed his hand against the small of my back and deepened the kiss.
I surrendered to it, letting my fears and my anxiety uncoil and drift out like smoke.
I focused on the present. Of being here with him.
The Heart pulsed in my hand. Light poured from the Rod, and heat swept from it in rolling waves.
Beyond us the roaring continued, the ground shook as though it would break apart and crumble to dust, but I held onto Killian.
He was sure, steady, his lips against mine coaxing me away from the terror, what would happen, the coming pain. But the world would gain everything.
First came the wind, whipping around us in tightening spirals.
Then came ice, small stinging pellets striking against our skin like whips.
Killian hunched over me, shielding my body with his own.
Then came the fire. It burst from him in a wave, and the moment it touched my skin, I became one with him, part of the fire, the ash, the burning, the destruction, yet underneath all of it was something new.
Beauty. Life. That's all that would be left at the end of this.
And then there was pain, nothing but dizzying, all-encompassing pain, blotting out all thought.
My vision turned white, a roaring brushed over my ears followed by a merciful numbness.
There was no more pain, but I couldn't feel my arms, or the relics in my hands, only my mouth against Killian’s.
Warm.
I opened my eyes and he was already watching me. “You are the most beautiful sight. I would die another death, live and die in an endless cycle, only to be here with you. I'm glad you found me, glad you woke me, even if it led to this.”
“And this. . ?”
“This is the end, Ilaris. Keep your eyes on me and only me.”
I held his gaze. The words that rose were deep and true, welling up inside. “How could I look away when you’ve seen me, understood me?” I pressed closer. “Killian, thank you. I. . .I love you.”
“I know.”
"You made me understand the point of life."
His skin crackled. Embers bled through at his jaw, his throat, his hands, and beneath the surface was pure red fire, living and furious. We were going to erupt.
He leaned his forehead against mine and held me, both arms around me now, solid as the stone we stood on. The world turned red around us, screams began somewhere far below. I saw nothing but his liquid golden eyes.
And the volcano swallowed us whole.