Chapter 35 #2
“She would understand,” human-me says softly, reading the direction of my thoughts. “Eventually. If you explained that you chose her, chose the life you could have together over the universal responsibilities you never asked for. She would understand. She might even approve.”
“Would she?” I ask, because I genuinely don’t know the answer. Rynna has always been brave to the point of recklessness. She fights monsters because she believes it’s the right thing to do, not because she was chosen by fate or destiny or divine intervention.
“She loves you,” human-me says simply. “More than she loves the idea of heroism. More than she loves the fight itself. If saving everyone meant losing her sister forever, do you really think she’d choose the greater good over keeping you safe and happy?”
The thought hits me hard because I know the answer. Rynna would choose me. Every time, without hesitation. She’d sacrifice the world to save my life and consider it a bargain well made.
“But that’s not who I am,” I whisper, the realisation cutting through the temptation like a blade through silk. “That’s not who either of us is, really. We fight monsters because people deserve protection. We take risks because some things are worth risking everything for.”
Human-me’s smile falters slightly, but she recovers quickly. “You could learn to be different. You could choose to value your own happiness, your own life, your own family above abstract concepts like duty and sacrifice. There’s nothing wrong with choosing the people you love over strangers.”
“Isn’t there?” I grip my blade tighter, feeling the familiar weight of steel and purpose anchor me to what I know is true. “How many sisters like Rynna are out there in the realms the Devourer will consume if I walk away? How many families will be destroyed so that mine can remain intact?”
“They’re not your responsibility,” human-me insists, but there’s desperation creeping into her voice now. “You didn’t choose this burden. You didn’t ask to become the universe’s last hope. You were supposed to be a slayer, protecting your village, your people. Not the entire universe.”
“But I did become this,” I say, looking down at my hands, at the power that flows through them like liquid starlight.
“I made the choices that led here. I killed Aethel, claimed her power, bonded with the Shadow gods. Maybe I didn’t understand the full consequences, but I made those decisions, and now I have to live with them. ”
“You could unmake those decisions,” human-me pleads. “Give up the power. Break the bonds. Return the crown to whoever wants the responsibility of cosmic balance. You don’t have to carry this weight. Just say the words, and it will all be undone.”
I look at this version of me that chose differently, that valued personal happiness over universal responsibility and feel something like pity. “And who would carry it instead?”
“Anyone but you,” human-me says desperately. “Anyone whose life wouldn’t be destroyed by taking on this burden.”
“My life isn’t destroyed,” I say, saying the words aloud for the first time. “It’s different. Harder. More complicated than I ever imagined possible. But it’s still mine. More importantly, it’s meaningful in a way it never was before.”
She stares at me with growing horror, as if I’ve just confessed to some unthinkable crime. “You’re choosing them over us. Over Rynna. Over the life we could have.”
I look at my sister one last time. My funny, brave, magnificent sister who deserves to live in a world where the worst monsters are the ones that can be killed with wooden stakes.
Then I look at human-me, at the life I’m being offered, at the simple, clean existence where my biggest worry would be whether the milk has gone off.
“You’re right,” I tell her, and my voice comes out steady despite the tears threatening to spill.
“That is what I want. More than anything in any realm. I want to go home. I want to make tea and read books and argue with Rynna about whose turn it is to take out the bins. I want normal problems and ordinary happiness and the luxury of being selfish.”
Human-me’s face lights up with hope and relief. “Then choose it. Choose us. Choose home.”
I grip my blade tighter, feeling the familiar weight anchor me to purpose and truth and the person I’ve chosen to become.
“I want it,” I repeat, letting the longing ring clear in my voice.
“But wanting something doesn’t make it right, and choosing the few I love over the many who need protection isn’t love—it’s selfishness dressed up in pretty words. ”
She recoils as if I’ve struck her. “How can you call love selfish?”
“Because real love—the kind that matters, the kind that changes the world—isn’t about protecting the people we care about at the expense of everyone else.
” I turn my back on the offered escape, on Rynna’s laughter, on the phantom smell of vanilla and the promise of ordinary mornings.
“Real love is about making the hard choices so that everyone gets the chance at happiness, not just the people who happen to share our blood.”
When I face the advancing void at the edges of the realm, my voice doesn’t shake.
“I choose sacrifice. I choose to carry this weight because someone has to. Because the alternative isn’t just my unhappiness.
It’s the destruction of countless possibilities for love and joy and ordinary miracles that I’ll never see but that matter anyway. ”
Human-me doesn’t argue. She doesn’t plead or rage or try to tempt me further with visions of what could be. She just looks at me with something that might be respect, a sad but understanding smile on her lips.
“I know,” she says softly, her voice carrying the weight of absolute comprehension. “I wouldn’t be you if you chose differently. We wouldn’t be us.”
She fades like morning mist touched by sunlight, taking Rynna and the phantom pub and the promise of normal days with her. The realm stops its dissolution as if someone has thrown a cosmic brake, the purple tide of the Devourer pulling back in recognition that this meal will not come easily.
“Noted,” the Judge’s voice says, echoing through the stabilising architecture around us.
There’s something like approval threading through the clinical tone, the first hint of genuine emotion I’ve heard from her.
“You have chosen duty over desire, the many over the few, principle over preference. This is more than adequate.”
The cracked obsidian beneath my feet glows with soft white light that feels warm and welcoming after the cold uncertainty of the trial.
“Final test,” the Judge announces as the light spreads upward, encompassing Tabitha and me in a column of radiance that makes my skin feel electric with possibility. “Authority. If you would rule, prove you can wield power without being consumed by it.”
The light flares, brilliant and overwhelming, and the world transforms again into something I don’t recognise at all.