Chapter 31
Chapter
Thirty-One
Light returned. First it was just a pinprick in the distance, then, it rushed up to me faster and faster, like I was running out of a tunnel.
My ears rang and popped. A new scene came into view, black and gray, but I didn’t understand it.
My brain couldn’t process what I was seeing. But I could feel something.
I stood on very unsteady ground. It was lumpy, and… moving. I put my arms out, trying to steady myself. A strange miasma rose from the ground—not a foul stench, not exactly. A potent misery. A powerful despair.
Or was that coming from me?
Rain lashed me, drenching me to the bone. I’d come down in a wild storm. Thick thunderclouds clustered above me, so close I could almost touch them. Lightning strikes zapped through the black-bottomed clouds. The thunder rattled my back teeth.
I blinked, trying to get my eyes to quickly adjust to this new reality. My wrist was buzzing now; the tattoo of the hourglass on my skin was red.
Donovan. Where are you?
I could barely see a thing in this storm; I couldn’t even stay upright. I stumbled, putting my hands out, trying to stand again.
I screamed into the wind. “Donovan!”
Adrenaline swamped me. The sloping ground lurched underneath my feet, and I slipped trying to regain my balance. What the hell was I standing on?
The ground was weirdly transparent and so bizarre. It was undulating, moving, like a giant mountain made out of strange, soft rocks. Half-mountain, half heaving ocean. I couldn't make sense of it.
But I didn’t have to make sense of it. I just had to find him. I screamed into the rain again. “Donovan!”
Only a rumble of thunder answered me. He was here somewhere; I could feel him. I could feel the bond between us, the proximity caused my heart to thud wildly in my chest. He was close, so close. But I couldn’t see him anywhere. “Donovan, where are you?”
A voice hit my ears, the sound of a little boy crying. Why did you take my father from me? He sobbed uncontrollably. I needed him!
I looked over; the breath left my lungs in a horrified gasp.
The boy was inside the ground I was standing on. Wait. No. He was the ground. He was part of it. One of millions.
I was standing on a mountain of bodies.
No. A mountain of ghosts.
My eyes rolled over the sea of bodies. A man to my left rolled over, groaning. You said that the Queen would agree to a ceasefire!
An older woman underneath me sobbed. He was all I had left. My son was all I had left!
Why did you leave me, Your Highness? Another girl cried pitifully. I would have done anything. Anything!
I whirled in a circle, stumbling on the mountain of bodies.
The horror of it all nearly destroyed me.
I’d asked to be taken to him, and I had been.
Donovan was here, somewhere, deep underneath these ghosts, swamped by his worst fears.
Haunted by the people he couldn’t save. They were piled on top of him, an entire mountain of his own demons.
“Donovan!” I screamed.
I had to save him.
Frantically, I pulled at them, shoving the ghosts away, trying to push them off. A crying woman tumbled down the mountain. A young man with black eyes rolled away.
The tattoo on my wrist buzzed. I only had minutes left, and I wasn’t moving fast enough. There were too many.
And Donovan was buried underneath them.
Desperately, I threw myself down and dug in between the bodies, wrenching myself inside the towering mountain of misery. I ignored the crying, the screaming, the desperate sobs, the tingling feeling of the last of the sand trickling through the hourglass… and pulled myself downwards.
The ghosts ignored me. I was nothing to them. They weren’t mine.
But they were in my way.
I gritted my teeth and swam down into the depths of Donovan’s misery. My wrist buzzed again. “No. No! Donovan!” I clutched at my heart, pulling our bond. “Take me to him!”
A gap opened between the bodies. I fell into a tiny cave at the bottom of the pile, landing in bare dirt. Ghosts writhed around me, above me—a horrifying pile of misery and suffering.
Panting, I struggled to get up—the collective anguish around me was almost crippling. The first thing I saw was… me.
The sight of it made me freeze in horror for a few precious seconds.
The ghost of me, Susan Moore, a perfect replica lying on the bare dirt at the bottom of this pile of ghosts—deathly pale, skin translucent, eyes wide open but completely sightless.
Cuts and bruises disfigured my bare skin, my long shimmery gold dress tangled around my legs.
I knew what this was. Donovan was being haunted by the sight of my corpse. He couldn’t save me, either.
I looked around frantically, struggling in the dim light. Then, finally, at the edge of the cave, I saw him.
Donovan.
He was hunched into a ball, arms wrapped around his legs, staring at a little boy standing in front of him. A little boy with bright-green eyes.
I started to run towards them. “Donovan!”
The boy was crying. Why does she love you more than me?
I ran faster. Donovan’s lips moved, but he made no sound. His eyes were empty, almost dead.
He was almost gone. My time was almost up.
She gives you everything, and I get nothing, the boy cried pitifully.
Almost there. Almost there…
It’s all your fault. You could have made her?—
I leapt high into the air…
And kicked the little boy in the face as hard as I could. “Take that, you little shit!”
The ghost of Connor flew backwards, sinking into the wall of bodies.
My wrist zapped me. Too late. Too late!
I let out a scream and threw myself at Donovan. We rolled together, into a ball. I straddled him and sandwiched my hands over his face. “Donovan!” I screamed. “Save me!”
He blinked; his bright-green eyes cleared and focused. “Chosen?”
“Yes, it’s me! I’m alive, I’m here. Feel me!”
“I— I?—”
He was moving too slowly. I gathered his hands and pressed them to my cheeks. “Listen! You couldn’t save them, but you can save me. You have to do it now! Please, Donovan. Take me back! Say the words!” Inspiration hit me. “I’ve forgotten the words, Donovan. I can’t go back if you don’t take me!”
His arms moved, wrapping tight around me. “My woman,” he whispered. “Mine.”
The tattoo buzzed one more time.
“No!” I screamed, watching it fade from my skin.
I was too late. It was over.
Donovan looked up at me, lifted his hand, and brushed a strand of hair out of my face. “Mine.”
With an anguished cry, I buried my lips on his, kissing him desperately, savoring him, his blazing golden splendor, the taste of his mouth, the feel of his skin on mine.
He wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me closer, and one hand wrapped in my hair gripping the back of my neck.
I sank into it with every fiber of my being—the perfectness of his soul.
Then, he pulled back; his lips left mine. I whimpered.
He smiled, the first time I’d seen it. A gentle, serene curve of his luscious lips. “Liar. You remember the words.”
He had me there. “I do,” I whispered. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m not going back without you.”
“You don’t have to.” He stroked my cheek with his thumb.
“It’s too late.” My voice broke. “Venus has risen. You’ve been here too long.”
He laughed, a deep chuckle of genuine amusement. The sound made my heart explode; I’d never heard anything so beautiful in my life. He kissed me again, long and deep, and suddenly I didn’t care if we were too late. I’d stay here, with him, forever.
“Cress never did learn how to set an hourglass properly,” he whispered, his breath tickling my ear. Then, he stroked a silver glyph on my chest and murmured the words, “Iliya minyth armat aymantia!”