Chapter 32 #4
But we were running out of time. I was running out of time. I needed to leave, lest I get trapped here. But how could I leave in the midst of this battle? When I knew what happened here and how it changed the course of history—the course of my history?
But how could I not? This was how they bought us, all of us, time. And we needed that precious time.
I looked at the destruction around me. My parents fought back to back, desperate to get to the cliffside for their sacrifice.
I closed my eyes and let loose twin tornadoes.
They spiraled out from me and swept everything in their path away, hurtling the hufen off the cliff and into the roaring waters below, sweeping the way clear.
I had just enabled their sacrifice. The thought caused me to physically stumble.
I couldn’t do this. Couldn’t be the one who cleared the way so that they could die.
I started to go to them, but Violet grabbed my shoulders, spinning me around to face her, determination etched in every line of her face.
“No! Save enough to get home. You have to go. You have to get back.”
Go back? I couldn’t leave now. I had come for answers and still hadn’t received any.
“Tell me how to fix it,” I begged her. I realized the insanity of the timing—my parents going to their deaths, Violet about to go to hers, Valdris overrun with darkness—but I had to know what she knew.
“Fix it?” Violet laughed, with a tinge of hysteria. “It’s not about fixing it. It never was.”
That couldn’t be. I couldn’t leave here with nothing. Not when this was my one chance.
The decision crossed her face, seconds before she did it.
Violet smacked her palm against my forehead.
I staggered back a step as the world tilted but she stayed connected.
A tingling went down my spine and a heaviness settled in my skull.
I shrank under the weight as images flashed before my eyes, too fast for me to concentrate on and make sense of.
But as quickly as it came on, the sensation disappeared.
“Remember for me.” Her mouth quirked in a grin. “Time for us both to go, kiddo.”
And then she released me. Turning from me, she let out a savage scream as light burst from her chest—not the warm golden light I was used to, but something fierce and white, hot and final.
Lightning split the sky as thunder crashed like the world was breaking apart, and the earth itself shuddered beneath our feet.
Stone walls cracked and crumbled, the very mountain rebelling against the darkness that had infested it.
“Vi!” I heard someone scream. Kaia fought her way toward her. Her hair was fully dark, no silver in it, but still tightly braided back. Her fighting style was rougher, lacking the finesse I had grown used to, but it was no less deadly as she cut a path toward her best friend.
Violet flung out an arm, stopping her advance with pure force of will.
“No one else dies!” she screamed at the sky.
Another flash of lightning, crash of thunder, and the earth itself rippled with the intensity of her cry.
“What are you waiting for? Go, kiddo, go!” Her face contorted in agony as the power consumed her from within, but her voice never wavered as she faced the forces of darkness.
“My name is Violet Andrever,” she cried. “I will not break!”
The pure light radiating from her grew brighter, more intense, joined by the lightning from the sky.
Everywhere her light touched, dark warriors were obliterated.
She cleared the way for my parents as they continued their scramble.
Running hand in hand toward their destiny.
Toward their choice to die so I could live.
They looked back once. Our eyes met across the battlefield—one final look, full of love, pride, and desperate hope.
“I love you.” I had no idea if it would work, but I flung it at them anyway.
I felt their answering responses, but before I could move, a blade flashed toward me.
I turned toward it but somehow Kaia was there, blocking the sword from cleaving me in two, leaving a bloody gash running down her forehead.
I hesitated for a moment but heard Violet’s voice in my head, screaming for me to go, to live.
I took one last look, burning it into my memory forever more.
This was what I was fighting for. This was what could happen again if I failed.
Focusing inward, I searched frantically for that faint pinprick of golden light.
For my anchor to home, to my own time. For a terrifying moment, I couldn’t find it.
Had it abandoned me? Was I trapped here to die with them?
Then, like the sun breaking free from behind a cloud, I heard his voice, deep in my soul. “Come back to me. Follow the bond home.” And softer, quietly, with desperation, “I can’t lose you.”
The golden thread flared in response to his call, warm and strong and oh so familiar. I grabbed it like a lifeline and tugged. Folding myself into the ether, I trusted it to carry me across fifty years of time.
To bring me home.
To bring me back to him.