Chapter twenty-four
It’s late.
We sit next to each other on the beach, watching the bonfire. Set ablaze with a flick of his wrist and fed with driftwood, the colors of the flames change from the sea salt. Intentional on neither of our parts, having forgotten the science myself, we were both equally startled and fascinated when the blaze flared green instead of red.
“Did you do that?” I asked, and he shook his head.
Intrigued, we’ve sat in silence for some time now, staring at our own creation. Words he won’t speak hang in the air: I must rest. He’s right; we both know it. I’ve been awake for some time now, long enough that I feel half insane.
I’ve been fighting it for as long as I can, but with the warmth of the fire, the sound of the ocean, and Aris’ presence, my eyelids grow heavier by the second. I’ll sleep soon, whether I want to or not.
I’ll succumb.
My head is on his shoulder, our fingers locked together as he murmurs, “I can’t stand to see you like this.”
I don’t have the energy to look at him, but the crack in his voice twists my heart. How peculiar: I am suffering and he is suffering because of it.
“I know,” I say.
“You can’t keep going this way.”
“I know.”
He tenses. “What will we do?”
I don’t answer. He won’t like what I have to say, which is that I have absolutely no idea. I don’t know how to fix whatever has broken in me. If I’ve lost my mind, it’s beyond my ability to retrieve it.
Aris goes quiet for some time, long enough that I am drowsy when he speaks once more. “I would do anything for you, Mary.”
He’s said things like this before—so many times that it doesn’t feel particularly important to gather my remaining energy to respond.
Then, Aris adds the damning, “I love you.”
Suddenly, I am wide awake, as if I’ve escaped a nightmare or entered into one. My body locks in its position. I don’t dare move.
I love you.
I need time to compose my face; I’ve no idea how to respond.
Strangely, most of my thoughts don’t have to do with whether I love him back but whether I am capable of being loved at all.
“What is it?” he asks, quietly.
“I’m just wondering. Love…” I drift off, unsure how to say it without sounding pathetic. With some dissatisfaction, I find no better alternative. Sighing, I finish, “Do I deserve it?”
“Irrelevant,” he says immediately. “Do you want it?”
I pause again. The last time I cared for someone this way, I got burned, bad. Embracing love is the riskiest thing a person can do, and I don’t know if I should invite that into my life.
But the question isn’t whether I want love; it’s whether I want his love. And… Do I?
Do I want to put that word to what Aris and I share?
We fit like we were made for each other. He cares about me; he listens to me. He adores me. And I adore him. I find myself thinking of him and smiling to myself like I’ve remembered a joke. His eyes make me soft. His touch makes me melt.
But it wasn’t always this way. He was someone else once. A very different someone else.
It’s as I’m mulling over this, struggling to find a way to respond, that the moment is shattered. That everything is shattered.
A hand—large and unfamiliar—grabs me by the back of the neck and pulls me away. By the time my attacker drags me a few meters off, Aris is on his feet and starting toward us with wrath that would terrify me if aimed my way.
“Come any closer, and she is dead.”
Aris halts immediately. I still as well, but it isn’t the message that makes me tense; it’s the voice conveying it.
Jaegen .
Suddenly, without looking back, the identity of my attacker is obvious—the way he is so tall that I’ve been pulled to the tips of my toes, the firm, muscular body I’m pressed against. The slick heat of his skin.
“Let me go,” I hiss, only to go stiller when Jaegen’s hand covers my throat, reminding me who, exactly, is in charge.
He isn’t even applying pressure, but I already feel like I’m choking. Maybe it’s panic, or maybe he is just that strong and his hand is just that heavy.
I spiral, knowing how easily he could kill me. There have been moments where I’ve clung to life and moments where I’ve stared over the edge of a bell tower, wanting nothing more than to tumble to the cobblestone below. I’ve been plagued with nightmares and lived a dream life on my own island.
Now, I know with certainty that I want to live.
I want to touch Aris again. To swim. To see the rest of the island. I want to do those things. Even if I never have a restful night’s sleep again. Even if.
Aris’ eyes zero in on Jaegen’s hold on me, his jaw feathering. “What is this?” he demands. In the colorful firelight, he is half-illuminated and looks more shadow than person. Though Jaegen is the one with a hand on my throat, I am unnerved by Aris—his face is just that vicious. “Why are you here?”
“Why do you think?” asks Jaegen, my scalp burning as he lifts me higher, closer to his mouth. My feet shake from the weight of my body put entirely on my toes.
"I wonder…” I hear a smile in his voice. “Shall I melt the skin from her bones, or send her more dreams—until she loses her mind entirely?"
The nightmares.
It was him?
I try to crane my neck to look at Jaegen, but his grip is unrelenting and I can’t tell if the tears in my eyes are from rage or pain. I should’ve expected a response—a punishment—to us running away, but I still feel betrayed.
I helped him. I gave him what he wanted. Even when he degraded me and choked me. Even when he made my nose bleed and stopped my heart, I helped him! And so, yes, I didn’t want to stay locked in a house forever. Yes, I disobeyed him—so what? Aris hasn’t acted against him, and neither have I. We kept to ourselves. We’ve hurt no one.
And still, he tortured me.
A terrible thought occurs to me: Has he been sending these dreams from the beginning—from when we were just forming our bargain?
Why ? To spin webs? To watch the ant on the hill?
The shock nearly undoes me. Did he know where Aris and I have been this whole time? Has he been watching, listening?
“I will destroy you,” says Aris, simply.
Once more, a smile in Jaegen’s voice: “ Try .”
Aris does not like that.
He hasn’t been practicing his powers, which are so strong and absolute that, if he released them on Jaegen, he’d lack accuracy; in trying to hit Jaegen, he would kill me. Yet, leashed, destructive energy gathers; the waves crash hard and angry, the fire pulses, flames rising larger than I am tall, nearly enveloping Aris in a swirling inferno. He has never seemed more inhuman, trembling as he barely clings to this form.
He looks like death incarnate, surrounded by the flames of Hell.
“Let. Her. Go.”
Jaegen scoffs. His hands tighten on my scalp, and tears leak out the corners of my eyes. Aris’ nostrils flare at the proof of my pain, and he takes a step forward.
The ground below us shakes, a testament to the slight power he’s releasing. A show of his restraint.
“You are not taking her from me.”
He takes another step but freezes with a click of Jaegen’s tongue—a quiet noise that echoes around the empty beach.
“No closer,” says Jaegen, again tugging on my hair. It feels like it’s being ripped out of my head.
Aris watches, eyes narrowed, stuck on every tear I cry. The inferno rages behind him, so big now that I can feel it from fifty feet away, and spits of heat lightning sprawl in the distance. Shell-shocked, and enraged, Aris knows that he can’t win; he has no idea how to fight. Jaegen may kill me, or just take me away, and no matter how angrily Aris says that Jaegen can’t do that, the truth of the matter is that Jaegen, of course, can .
Aris is at his mercy.
The ground is becoming more unstable—either because my legs are weak and about to go out from under me or because Aris is causing an actual earthquake.
Lightning strikes several meters off with a boom, close enough that I’m unharmed but that, if Jaegen weren’t gripping it tight, my hair would be floating from static. The bolt has dissipated, but the air still feels charged, and, where it struck, the heat of the lightning turned the sand to glass.
“Compose yourself,” snaps Jaegen, his knuckle curling against the back of my head.
Aris takes a long breath, but the spindly, outstretched lightning and roaring bonfire betray his failure to calm. “Just… stop hurting her,” he grits out.
Jaegen is silent for a moment, and then, when he speaks, I hear a new smile in his voice. “What would you give me in return?”
Black eyes flick to my own, then back to his brother’s face. “What do you want?” Aris says through his teeth. “I’ll give you anything.”
“Anything?”
“Yes.” Aris does not hesitate. He repeats, “Just stop hurting her.”
Jaegen’s hand stills, then he pulls my hair taut, fisting it until more tears come to my eyes. Aris goes to take another step forward but manages to stop himself, his body trembling from effort.
“Then I have only one thing to ask, brother of mine: Relinquish yourself. Give yourself to me."
Relinquish himself. Like Sem did.
That’s the closest thing there is to death for Aris and his kind.
"No!" I yell, trying in vain to fight Jaegen’s grip. It only causes more pain, chunks of hair dislodged into his meaty palm, but I don’t care; I can’t stop myself.
Quiet, child, Jaegen hisses in my mind, and his hand on my throat suddenly feels heavier.
He'll die ! You'll kill him!
And the scourge will end. This is what we wanted.
This isn’t what I wanted. You said you were going to trap him!
And, with dread, I finally realize: No. Jaegen was never going to trap Aris.
He wasn't leaving us in a cabin to make some new, arcane amulet. We didn’t escape the cabin, either; he let us leave. He let us leave, so we would spend more time together, so our feelings would develop. He pushed me to sleep with him, to let Aris hold me and want me.
This was his plan. He’d been waiting all along to hear Aris declare his love for me.
You wanted him to care about me, I realize in slow horror. So he would do this. So he would volunteer.
Even when I thought I had power. Even when I believed I was fighting for my dignity…
I was a pawn. Again .
Yes, Mary.
Aris’ eyes shut briefly, his throat bobbing, realizing the truth just as I do. His expression is pained.
All of a sudden, I’m crying for a new reason, my face twisted and ugly. More layers of deception. More betrayal. Why did I think Jaegen was the good guy? How could I have been so stupid?
I don’t get it. I shut my eyes to block out Aris’ expression. The worry there. The love—that I fostered, that I created, all to serve Jaegen. How did you know that he'd... care for me? You took such a risk.
Risk? Jaegen’s amusement is dark, his hold so tight. I welcome the sting. It's almost comical to see how little you've caught on.
Caught onto what?
He doesn’t have time to respond, for Aris is saying, “If I do that, if I give myself to you, will you let her go? Leave her in peace?”
“Yes. You have my word.”
Not that it means anything.
Jaegen ignores me, and Aris glances my way. There’s no fear on his face, only determination, and I know what he is going to do. For him, here is only one choice.
No.
“Aris—” I start.
"I relinquish myself," he says simply.
" No !"
Jaegen shoves me to the ground, and something twists, my wrist smarting, but I don’t care. Hardly feel it. I get to my knees as Aris’ body disappears, becoming black, swirling mist that Jaegen swallows .
No.
No.
He did it. He actually did it.
Aris gave himself up. He’s dying. And, as Jaegen gulps and swallows the mist, his body growing larger, glowing with new power, it’s like I’m dying, too. My life flashes before my eyes: The cell. The Institute. The betrayal. Jaegen, our deal. Deceiving Aris. The cabin with Aris.
The beach with Aris.
The waterfall with Aris.
Aris.
Aris.
Aris .
I crawl toward them one-handed, sobbing, moving closer to the gods and the bonfire. All I can think is Aris’ name and the word no and how he’s dying and how I can’t let him die. He told me that I’m powerful, but I can’t do anything as I watch him be consumed.
Eaten .
I should want it; I know that I should want it. This . His death.
I go through it, again and again. His cruel words. His tricks and lies. If he’s gone, I can be myself again. Free again.
But then: the stroke of his thumb on my hands. How he cleaned the blood from my knuckles and kept me tucked to his side, his hold caring and secure.
Our soft moments shouldn’t absolve his brutality, and they don’t. I do not forgive it, I will not yield to it, and yet…
And yet.
He can’t just leave . He is immortal and all-powerful and he cannot leave me the way that my parents left, how Henry left. Out of all of them, out of everything, he is the constant; he’s what’s supposed to always be here.
My stomach is about to empty, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard and fast that I’m half-convinced that it will stop. I feel like I’m floating and grip the sand desperately, digging my good hand down until it itches. I need to ground myself. I need—I need—
My vision is blurry from panic and tears. All I can make out of the scene is Aris’ mist, highlighted by the violent lightning in the sky.
Jaegen is gobbling him up. Taking him from me.
I can’t let him die. I can’t let him go.
Again, my life flashes before my eyes—not the past this time, but the future: a life without Aris. I picture the cities I could live in, the people I might meet—yet, all of this is stained in gray, like a noir film. That world is wrong; it would be empty. Uninhabitable.
Without him, there is no future. None that I want, anyway.
But what can I do? He has relinquished himself, smoke to be eaten, because he would do that for me. He loves me. Like this, he completely loves me.
And I didn’t tell him… I didn’t say it back, but of course I love him. Of course he is my future.
This form of him.
Without his memory, he loved me. My fragile, human body made me precious, not worthless. I wasn’t something he pinned to the ground and laughed at. He let me eat what I wanted, go where I wanted, be who I wanted. He would have let me go into the world without him.
Before, he never would’ve relinquished himself. He would’ve fought Jaegen until the island was decimated and not a scrap of life remained. He would never surrender—not for anything, certainly not for me.
I realize: if I want him to live, that is who he must be again.
I come to a sudden, heartbreaking decision.
There is not much vapor left; Aris is almost completely consumed. There is no time to consider what I’m doing, to even mourn what I’m throwing away. All I know is his name raging through me, how I cannot let him go, how I understand, finally, why he kept me caged to his side.
If I had his power and there was ever a risk of losing him, of ever feeling this way again, I’d never release him. I would never let him be hurt. Nothing would come close. If that meant I had to put a collar and leash on him and keep him chained to my side, then it would be so.
The fire has weakened but the flames remain competent and sure, and I don’t give myself the time to second-guess as I scramble to my feet and launch myself into their scorching embrace.
The runes must burn, they must burn—
Indescribable, impossible pain strikes as the fire eats me alive, and I scream. It’s no louder, no less agonized than how I yelled when Aris surrendered; the pain is not more , just different.
Through the smoke, Jaegen turns in my direction, startled and fuming. He knows my plan. He is about to set out toward me, until he bends over, vomiting smoke blacker than that from the fire.
I could be delirious or dead already, but it looks like the vapor is forming… reforming , into a person I would know on the edge of oblivion.
And, despite how much it hurts, despite everything I’ve risked and sacrificed, despite knowing that what is reforming will not be the Aris I love, and who loves me back, I smile. Smugly and stupidly, I smile.
Fire burns runes. Mess with the rune, you lose the magic.
You get back the memory.
There is a furious roar, powerful enough to flatten mountains, and then a flash of light bright enough to cut through my exhausted haze. My vision goes dark as my pupils fail to dilate in time, and for a stupid second I think that I might have died and that was the tunnel of light everyone talks about.
When the heat dampens, pain ebbing along with the dying fire, it only furthers my belief that I’m dead, until I recognize what smothered it: the will of destruction incarnate.
Writhing in soot and ash, head knocked against a piece of charred wood, agony stubbornly remains, but there is a sudden balm. A chill, as I am lifted and cradled against a hard chest.
I know who is holding me with my eyes closed, but I manage to look. Need to look and see that it is him, that the pain is worth it, that he has lived. Jaegen is gone and Aris is safe.
And there he is.
“You… remember…?” I manage.
His eyes search my face. “I remember,” he replies, voice black.