Chapter 25 #2
I frowned. “Ian claims Sin blames our mother for the loops.”
She shook her head. “Sin isn’t all powerful.
She sees outcomes, not origins, and she often mistakes influence for authorship.
But none of us know everything. I didn’t become aware of the loops until I had visions of a future that had already taken place.
But every time we started over, realization came sooner, allowing me to prepare new visions with instructions for myself.
Ways to intervene and plan for the next go-round. ”
Always living for the next life.
“You contain the Ember at birth,” Elowen explained, tracing a fingertip along a scar on her arm, as if remembering the blow responsible, “but it remains dormant until the stones provide kindling. Now, you alone can unleash the blaze.”
By giving it my life.
I looked at my sister, this woman forged in tragedy, who had loved me fiercely from afar, choosing restraint when every instinct must have screamed to warn me. “Do you know what happens to Mom when she disappears from Kansas?”
“I do not. I believe Sin is responsible. She’s obsessed with our mother, and therefore us.”
Sin needed to be taken down. Malkom too.
Ian, yes. “I don’t know how to give the Ember my life,” I admitted.
“But I’m certain of this.” I reached for Elowen’s hand again, gripping it tight, grounding us both.
“I won’t run from what I am anymore. I won’t let your sacrifices or theirs be for nothing. And I won’t let you carry this alone.”
Elowen’s breath hitched. Her fingers tightened around mine.
For the first time since I’d met her, the burden in her eyes eased. Not because it was gone, but because we shared it.
Deep inside me, the Ember stirred. Not as a threat. As a promise. As if it wasn’t just smeared over my skin but branded in bone.
In my mind, portions of Ahav’s journal stood at attention.
I muttered, “Shabur shwin.” The words Sandrine—Andrea—spoke while unconscious, before meeting Ahav.
Then I couldn’t stop repeating the words, faster with every echo.
“Shabur shwin. Shabur shwin, shabur shewins. She burns—” My eyes widened, and it hit me all at once. “She burns, she wins.”
Elowen smiled again, this one steeped in pride.
“Before I hid her memory, Andrea chanted those words often.” All grace and elegance, she stood.
“I know you intend to enter the Ring of Truth to learn the mistakes and triumphs from your other lives. When you do…I hope you’ll forgive me.
Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for the good of us all. ” One step, two toward the water.
I stood too, my wounds immediately protesting. “I don’t want you to go.” We’d spent too much time apart.
“Sin and Malkom must be neutralized. They have stolen you in the past, and I won’t let them do so now.
You focus on Ian. Consider him practice for the big bad.
He and the clones are infected with Sin’s darkness,” she said, not masking her regret.
She entered the tub and sank into the water, as if there was no foundation under her feet. “Burn and win, sister.”
Her statement hung in the air as she disappeared beneath the water’s surface.
No time to react to her loss. Jasher strode into the hut without warning, already scowling. He’d bathed, his hair damp and his clothes clean. The breaks in his wings had healed. In fact, he looked more powerful than ever, despite his partial shift.
The sight of him acted as both acid and soothing balm to the array of wounds within me.
He stopped and extended his hand in my direction. “Swallow this.”
Argh! Compulsion kicked in, and my hand shot out, claiming the item, whatever it was. I popped it in my mouth before I could steal a glance at it, guzzling it down before my brain caught up to my actions.
Oooh. A serpens-rosa, I realized seconds later. The miracle cure-all for physical ailments.
“I hid it here as a boy,” he said.
My veins fizzed, unleashing a tide of warmth and strength. Muscle and skin knitted back together, and the newly formed scabs dissolved. An exhale of relief seeped from my lips as the pain faded. So much better.
And yet… “You use your shell to make serpens-rosa.” That shell had first housed the Ember. Life itself.
“Yes. What remains of it, anyway.” Jasher notched his chin. “You may hate that, but I won’t apologize for helping you.”
Hadn’t I once said the same to him? “I’m grateful for your kindness.” I stretched with the languid elegance of water finding its level. Like I’d accepted my new nature and decided to wear it as a crown.
Towering over me, Jasher stared, hard, not attempting to avoid eye contact but willingly getting trapped by it. A bolt of heat zinged me as we continued to stare, bringing a whisper of far more power.
This man might be infected with darkness, but he had light in him, too.
“What do you intend to do with me?” I asked, a plan forming. I hadn’t changed my mind. Ring of Truth, here I come, ready or not. Maybe, in the flames, I would learn how to “unleash” the Ember.
Would Jasher agree?
Oh yes. He would. Confidence fogged my head. Do not smile. But I did smile, gliding a single step closer. He was about to give me exactly what I wanted.
My Tinman opened and closed his claw-tipped fists. A sign of internal struggle, even as his expression remained cold as ice. “Once upon a time, you paid for room and board with answers and truth. Do you remember?”
“I do.” I licked my lips and stepped even closer, thrilling when he swallowed. “I’ll never forget.”
“Today, I offer you freedom for answers.”
I slid the rest of the way, brushing against him. “What if I tell you nothing but lies? How can you ever trust me?”
His pupils eclipsed the sun. “What do you propose?”
“Take me to the Ring of Truth. We’ll go in together, and I’ll answer anything you ask.”
Now to go in for the kill.
“Finally, you’ll know.” I lowered my volume and added an extra scoop of softness. “About me. About you. If you are man or monster. If I’m everything you hope, or what you should fear.”
Heaven help me, I heard Elowen and Iris spilling from my mouth.
The same persuasive temptation and enigmatic pauses that promised more than I could deliver.
But I didn’t pull back. Let this reach its perfect end.
“If we both tell the truth, we’ll both emerge.
” I set my palms on his shoulders, just as I’d done before his beastly transformation.
Restrained violence rippled over his muscles. “You seek an escort to the palace.”
No reason to deny it. “I promise you, Tinman. You want to go as much as I do. We have history neither of us have remembered. Yet.” Heart thudding, I obliterated what remained of his personal space.
“When you were metal, I fed you a potion. Do you know why I told my mother to include a heartfire coal taken from the royal hearth three days after an eclipse?”
He studied me, then relented. “It is said to reawaken what is dead.”
“And the mercurial vein extracted from the roots of a moon-kissed willow?” I toyed with the ends of his hair, loving it when the jet strands slid through my fingers.
He leaned into the touch. “Removes impurities from a man’s heart, melting it down like armor.”
A slow smile curved my lips. “And the eldermarrow?”
He matched my rhythm now, his voice going lower, becoming more intimate. “Grants structure once the impurities are gone.”
I molded my curves against his hard planes. The air thickened, heavy with sandalwood and orchids, heat and want. “Breath of the north wind?”
His eyes darkened as he wrapped his arms around my waist, his claws tracing the hem of my tunic. “Instills vitality into the heart. Without it, the man is nothing but a husk.”
Rising on my tiptoes, I nuzzled my cheek against his. His stubble rasped my skin like sand against silk. “Tears of the first dawn?”
“Renewal. Growth.” He ducked his head, his breath grazing my neck. “Temptation.”
My pulse became wild and frenzied. “Pulsegold nectar?”
“Pure energy. Brings strength.” He slid his hands lower, those claws spreading across the small of my back.
My breath caught. “And the sanguine root?”
His lips brushed the corner of my mouth. “A potent source of life. Rich, sure…” His voice dropped to a growl. “…and hungry.”
Every nerve in me flared to life. He hovered at the edge of breaking. But so did I. “The potion’s effect was no instant miracle. Your heart still melts, burning the impurities. But they can be purged. If you dare. And what better place to turn up the heat than the Ring of Truth?”
A flicker of the future, a vision gone before I could catch it. My mouth lifted slow and sure. “You will say yes,” I murmured. “I see it.”
The air shifted. He moved, a blaze of motion.
Suddenly my back struck the wall, his body pressed flush against mine.
My lips parted on a gasp. His scent surrounded me, filled me.
We stared, trading breath for breath. His pupils had yet to retract, only a razor-thin ring of light rimming the darkness.
“I will enter the Ring with you,” he said, voice scraped raw. “You’re right about that. I’ll even remove the cuffs.” He tipped his head in quiet challenge. “In exchange, you must answer a question before we leave.”
“Agreed,” I whispered, shocked that he’d offered this unexpected boon.
“Do it, then. Shed the chains.”
The metal clicked and fell, striking stone with a hollow clang. My wrists tingled, the absence of weight as startling as the ribbon of warmth curling low in my belly. He was trusting me not to run.
And I could have, but the Ring waited, and I was done retreating.
“Thank you.” I pressed a soft, sweet kiss into his lips. “Ask your question.”
Tracing his thumbs along my cheeks, both gentle and rough, he murmured, “Do you think we’re doomed?”
I softened and warmed, even as an ache bloomed. “I think…our fate can still be decided. What we do next matters.”
He studied me. A moment rife with longing, dread, and heat. When he released me, I missed his touch as I would miss a limb.
“Create a waterway to the palace.” He motioned to the tub with a clipped wave. “Let’s get this done.”