Chapter 45
forty-five
. . .
Aten
This can’t be it. This can’t be.
“This isn’t fucking happening.”
I stoop over her, as her eyes stay closed, and focus on the little mist of air from her lips. She’s still breathing but barely. And I can’t do anything. I won’t leave her here. Not to die alone.
The Maker told me I’d have a choice. Well, I choose. This can’t be her fate. She told me the decision would shape Kirrasia. Her dying won’t create change, how can it? After everything she’s been through, all the lies and the secrets, she can’t just die in the snow, killed by her own brother?
No. I won’t accept this.
“Do you hear me, Aslendrix? I won’t accept this.”
“You have been on a journey yourself, Aten Ciro.” A strange voice rings out above me—around me—as moonlight carves a streak over us. “You thought you were destined for one path, perhaps a noble path that would have helped to secure peace. But alas, that wasn’t the way.”
Aslendrix.
“You’re talking about my father not passing his magic on to me, but how my mother gifted me her Guard magic instead?”
“Yes. Her magic has always been strong. She, like you, had a choice. Hers was selfless. She only wanted to do what she thought was right for Kirrasia.”
“I’ve made my choice. The Maker told me I had a journey—a decision—and I’ve made it.
It’s her. Ever. Every time. I went to save her, brought her back, and she chose to fight for you.
She is a Fifth. She isn’t meant to die like this.
Not after everything she’s done for you.
” My pain turns inward, stoking the wrath and temper within me.
“If Ever is meant to save Kirrasia, then you need to save her.” It might be foolish, but with every ounce of strength left in me, I wish it.
I will it, focus on it, believe it, and push my intent—the sole intent I feel in my whole body—for Aslendrix to hear.
“I have granted her power already. She took the offer of her magic, and I endowed her. I will not make considerations for my law again.”
“No. You can’t. She can’t die!”
“You have seen this from the start. It was always a future that could come to being.”
“No. I refuse to believe that. We have our say. We make our own choices. It is not already written. Ever is fighting for good. She had the chance to choose the wrong side, to forsake you and everyone in Kirrasia, but she didn’t.
Because she is good. She is smart, brave, courageous, and good.
And I love her. I love her, and I can’t lose her. I’ve only just found her.”
My hand doesn’t move from the gaping wound in her stomach, the blood still oozing from beneath the pressure I’m desperate to hold.
But there’s no response from Ever. Her body is deathly still, the little puffs of warm air rising from her lips have stopped, and the dark stain of her blood is only growing, leaking into the snow and soaking into my trousers as I kneel at her side.
Aslendrix is quiet. Her presence, dauntingly absent. There’s nothing. Nobody.
The pain guts me, just as real as if the blade had punched through my own heart, and I rage at the injustice. “Arghhhh!” I scream into the air, hoping that everyone hears. That Aslendrix hears what this has cost. For me, it’s cost everything.
“No, Aten, it hasn’t cost you everything. Not yet. But if you choose it, it will.”
“Enough with the riddles,” I scream.
“What is your choice?” she muses, as if Ever hasn’t just died in my arms. “Would you make it, knowing it would save Ever, without knowing the cost to you? Balance, after all, must always be kept.”
“I’ll make it. I’ve already made it, so I’d make it again. Every future. Every possibility, just save her. Please.”
“You, Aten Ciro, will need to be the one to save her.”
Her words vanish as we’re both surrounded by silvery light, cool and serene, nothing like the flaming pillar we faced earlier. And then, the next minute, we’re back at the site of the Transference ceremony.
The clearing is quiet, the stone table crooked and broken in two from the earlier fight, but Aslendrix’s glow isn’t on us. It’s on the spot on the stone where all the ceremonies have taken place. Where all that power had seeped inside, and the reason we were all here. Fighting for our lives.
I see what she is showing me and gather Ever in my arms. I step up and back into the light, letting it wash over us. Ever’s body is cold. Not just icy cold, but I lie and tell myself it’s just the snow. Because this has to work. It has to.
The Maker emerges, as if summoned herself, but there is no audience to witness it. It doesn’t matter. I will this to work. “Please, please, please.” I cling to her and bury my face in her hair, as if my touch can keep her tethered to me—to life.
“Have faith in our Goddess, Aten Ciro. Have faith in your choice.”
For once in my life, I don’t mind the Maker’s voice inside my mind.
The light overhead grows stronger, and as it shines down, I feel a shift within me, something from within. I suck in a deep breath, and as I exhale, the light fades, and I know She’s left us just like after my own Transference ceremony.
The place grows eerily silent, the clouds racing overhead to block out any light, and the weight of expectation grows.
I look down at Ever, her hair still spilling all around her face, her pale skin as white as snow in the darkness. Even her freckles have hidden themselves.
But I feel… different. Less.
I reach for my magic—my power—but it’s not there. There’s a void where it used to be. It’s always been there, since as early as I can remember. Until now.
“Ah-ahh,” Ever gasps as she takes a breath, her eyes blinking open as she looks up at me.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” Her body starts to shake in mine, and her hand moves down to the wound at her stomach that had killed her.
“No. No, don’t. Just…” I don’t know what to say to her, but I bundle her hands against my chest and pull her closer to me.
I hold on, so damn tight as tears streak down her face.
“Ten?”
“Yeah.”
“Is this real?” her voice is mumbled against me.
“I pray to the stars, it is.”
She struggles, and this time I let her as she rights herself and looks down at her stomach. The blood is still damp on her shirt, and her hands come away stained as she checks, touching and prodding her stomach.
“He stabbed me. I was dying.”
“I know.”
“I think...” She looks up at me, her eyes wide and full of fear, clouding the colour of them. I vow to rid that look from her eyes, forever. Now there’s nothing that should stand in our way.
“You’re here. That’s all that matters.”
Aslendrix took my promise literally, and I’m glad she did.
All this time, I assumed the choice I had to make was to go after Ever—that was what I had to do to help shape Kirrasia, but it’s clear now that wasn’t the dilemma.
The greatest decision any Kirrian can make is to sacrifice their magic, and my plea to save Ever has come at that cost. I don’t have my magic anymore.
It’s not there because Aslendrix used me as an Advocate for Ever.
Using my power to save her. To restore balance.
“Do you feel any different?” she asks as she shifts again so that she’s sitting to face me. Her hand creeps over my knee and then to my arm, before she reaches for my face. “I can touch you, and there’s…”
“Nothing.” I breathe and smile, adding my hand to hers and leaning into the contact until it’s not enough.
We both lean forward, my hands reaching for her, as she wraps her arms around my neck, and she kisses me. Quick, urgent, it doesn’t deepen, and she breaks into tears as she hugs me harder than she ever has before.
She might be trying to squeeze the air out of my lungs, but she makes a funny laughing noise that’s so unlike her. I don’t release her. As long as she’s happy, I’ll let her do whatever she wants because she’s here. Alive.
“I don’t have my power. It’s gone. It’s not there for me to wield,” she starts, and finally lets go of me. “Or rather, there’s a memory of it, a feeling, wound into the very fibre of my muscles.” She wiggles her fingers at me.
“Are you sure? It was gone before, when we left Nehandun,” I check, nervous to tell her it’s the same for me.
She shakes her head. “No. This is different. When I woke up from Nehandun, it felt like something was missing. Like it had been taken from me. This is calmer. Easy.” Ever looks up at the cloudy sky, as if she’s seeking an answer from above.
But there’s no obvious reply from the sky.
“Did we really just do that? Did you… bring me back?” She looks at me as if searching for something that is right in front of her.
“Yes, although I think it was Aslendrix. She took my power to balance the gift.”
Her eyes flash wide. “You don’t have your power? You… gave it up?” Her lip quivers as she asks.
“Yes. I thought the Maker meant for me to save you and bring you back to Kirrasia. But I think she meant for me to save you in a bigger way.” I fold her fingers through mine, gripping hold and concentrating on the touch I always wanted to share with her.
“I don’t want to believe in fates or that the gods control our destiny.
But, with you—” I release her hand, and I brush my fingers through her hair, sweeping my thumb over her cheek and dusting away the specks of ice that have remained on her skin.
“With you, it’s hard not to.” I kiss the top of her head and breathe in the relief that we’re not being spun into a hundred new visions.
We survived. Of all the possibilities. Of all the futures. We’re still here. Fighting. Together.
“Want to stay up here?” I think the words in my mind, but as I scramble to find the tether of our connection, the line we could use to speak to each other, with no magic, I realise it’s gone.
“Ten?” The sadness in her voice tells me she’s figured it out, too. “We can’t speak into each other’s minds anymore.”
“My magic was the price I paid for you. I have no regrets. We might not be able to talk and sense each other’s emotions, but I can do this without having to shield from you.” I place my hand over her heart and run it up to cover the burn mark at her neck.
My thumb takes her pulse, able to feel it beat, strong, vital. Alive.
We sit in stunned disbelief, gathering the facts of our new reality. So much has happened, but I sense Ever’s restlessness.
“As much as I’d love to keep it just us, we need to go back to The Court. We don’t know what they’re facing.”
“You’ve done enough. What happened to not fighting the Orders?
Besides, we won’t be any help to them. No magic.
No strength.” I wrestle the part of me that always relied on my magic.
It’s been a part of me for as long as I can remember.
Now, it barely registers. A shadow. A memory. Still. At rest, almost.
I stare at Ever, knowing that she was worth the cost, but realising it’s going to take a minute to get used to it. To look at Kirrasia through new eyes.
“Ten?” She scrunches her face up at me. “We fight. It doesn’t matter if we don’t have magic. This is my normal, and I won’t let Lyle, or Calix, Kyra, or anyone else fight if I’m not standing with them.”
“You stood and died for them, Ever. We can hang back and make sure we don’t die after sacrificing everything. I’m pretty sure Aslendrix is out of giving favours or pardons.”
Her eyes rage at me, just as they did when she stormed past me the first time we met, and it reminds me of just how formidable she was before she knew about any of her magic. She sucked at fighting with actual weapons, but her will was stronger than any sword.
I shake my head at her, grab her face, and kiss her. Kiss her with all my fear that she’ll be taken from me again, the fear of what life will be like without magic.
Just as quickly, I break the kiss, grab her hand and start marching us back along the path towards The Court.