Destroyed

by Madeline Dyer

  His voice fogs around me, and I feel strange. Don’t let go? Keep resurrecting? But I don’t know how I’m doing it.

  “You know what to do. Your powers know what to do.”

  Juanita. I see her as she runs to her mother. The Stone Seers, they’re all here, alive. In front of me. Jana’s eyes lock onto me.

  I gulp, feel darkness in me. They’re going to come for me. They’re going to—

  They turn on the Enhanced.

  But it’s not me killing them, and I concentrate on that.

  More and more Untamed are appearing around me. I’m doing it. We outnumber them. All the Untamed, those from the New World, and all the Lost Souls, back here. All together. Resurrected. Life. All—

  A beautiful woman—willowy, tall, with long arms and legs and hair that flows like silk—points at an Enhanced near me. The man drops down at the hand of my power. Mine? I feel it.

  No.

  People are screaming. Untamed—because there are no Enhanced left in New Kimearo. They’re all dead. Because of me, my people.

  We did it.

  But what about elsewhere?

  I concentrate hard, because I know I can find out.

  My people are everywhere now, and I’m connected—I can tell, and they’re fighting and—

  The air cracks, trees fall.

  People shriek.

  The beautiful woman with the silky hair turns, looks at me.

  She’s shimmering.

  My mouth dries.

  She’s not an Untamed, never was a Lost Soul.

  But my Seer powers—me, but not me—stare at me, from her, from hundreds of bodies, from Gods and Goddesses as they climb out of the bowels of the earth, alive, and connected to me, controlled by me.

  Gods and Goddesses.

  Me.

  My powers.

  In them.

  My hands tingle, and I look down, see gold threads. Gold threads leading out of my body—thousands of them—stretching forth, one to each God and Goddess. But, no! They can’t be here. They can’t walk the mortal planes—Death told me that himself—nor kill mortals. But that Goddess…she….

  I take a step back, blinking rapidly. My shoulders tighten.

  I’m resurrecting them too.

  I gasp, expel my breath too quickly, and images flash through me. The Gods and Goddesses running—running at the speed of light—around the world. The whole world.

  There are hundreds of them. No, thousands.

  They’re everywhere, and I see them all, in all the sections of the world, as they shout, radiate power. As I make them radiate power. Light flares from them, from me, because I am inside every one of them, and I flick the Gods’ and Goddesses’ fingers at people.

  People who drop down.

  The Enhanced.

  Because the threads unravel. Because I’ve had practice. I know how to do it, and, with the Gods and Goddesses as vehicles, it’s easy. Billions of deaths. Enhanced Ones dying.

  No.

  No.

  No.

  I feel it. Thousands of shots within me. My powers—and every ounce of energy they use echoes inside me.

  I’m killing billions through the Gods and Goddesses. My powers.

  No…! The addiction can be taken away, they can be saved!

  My breath catches in my throat, and—

  There are no more.

  No more Enhanced.

  They’ve all gone.

  Dead.

  I jolt back to my body. My powers, gone from the Gods and Goddesses, only in me now. I look around. Bodies. Everywhere. Untamed faces. People shouting, running. Gods and Goddesses and….

  The bison. In front of me. He screams as he falls.

  His body thuds, makes the land shake. The world shakes.

  A teardrop of silence.

  The War of Humanity is over.

  It’s over.

  I turn, slip in the wetness, arms flying out just in time to catch me.

  Pain thrums through me, and I pick myself up, look up and—

  A God bends over Raleigh’s body. They’re still here. They don’t need me to sustain them, keep them here?

  He reaches out with long fingers and touches one of Raleigh’s eyeballs. His thumb and forefinger press together on the jelly-flesh. My heart pounds as the God pinches the fibrous layer.

  He peels it back, the mirror. But it resists, and the God’s pulling hard. A squeaky sound. It gives. The God pulls his hand back toward him, a soft mirror flapping in his hand. Blood gushes out of Raleigh’s eye.

  Nausea floods me, and I turn away, retching, gasping, look up and see a Goddess grab Marina by the neck.

  No! My chest twists, and I reach out for that Goddess. Reach out to control her and—

  Nothing.

  A quick snap, and Marina falls, eyes rolling.

  Darkness washes over me.

  I haven’t got control of them anymore. It’s gone.

  They’re….

  They’re killing us.

  They’re killing the Untamed.

  I scream as a God lunges for a reindeer herder.

  No.

  No.

  No.

  Rahn leaps forward—Rahn, Untamed, alive—and a God collides with him. Roaring sounds fill my ears so I don’t hear his death.

  “Seven! Do something!” Taras yells. “I’ve got no powers! You’re the only Seer!”

  The only Seer?

  I stare at him.

  Then I jolt.

  My powers.

  I pull on them, but the golden threads—my powers—nothing happens. They’re in me, but they don’t respond. Too tired, worn out.

  A Goddess screams, and she’s right in front of me. “This is our world now! You’ve ended the war and brought us here. There’s no space for mortals.”

  Pain slices through my head, blinds me for a second, and—

  Power. I see it, lingering around Raleigh’s body.

  My power. A little left behind when the transference channel caved in under the effort of resurrection.

  I run to it, to him, his body, press my hands against his head. His spirit—it’s lingering? Because it’s my power.

  It drains into me, comes home, that tiny bit, and when it hits my core, it grows, replenishes my energy, fuels my powers, awakens and strengthens the Sarr legacy. I am whole again.

  I turn and shoot at a God. And another and—

  Outraged cries fill the air.

  The God of Death stands in front of me.

  “Stop them!” I scream. “They’re killing us, killing Untamed!”

  But Death laughs. He laughs.

  “This is our world now. You brought us here, you used us to end the war, and now the mortal world supports us.” His grin is grotesque. “The war is over, but so must the Untamed be. This is our world now, it has been getting ready for us, absorbing the fragments of the Dream Land, and you brought us here. We will have no inferiority in it, no mortals who will make bad decisions and bring another war. Now, there will only be peace.”

  I stare at him, flinch. No. No. No. It can’t be. My lips tremble as I try to speak.

  “You can’t! They’re… You can’t kill the Untamed because you’re here….”

  All the Untamed…the Untamed who I saved….

  All dead?

  No.

  “The Untamed are good people!” I yell.

  “Good?” he echoes. “The Untamed became the Enhanced! You are all the same people, and you nearly destroyed humanity. You will still find a way. You always find a way. Human nature is destructive.”

  “So you’re going to destroy humanity to stop us?” I stare at him, then I reach out, and I find them. My people.

  Esther.

  Toivo.

  Bea.

  Elf.

  Then more and more, and I connect to them all, connect in a way I’ve never done before. It’s not body-sharing, and it’s not summoning, and it’s not traveling. It’s something new, and it’s all at once. All
of them.

  They become me, and me them, as my powers spread to them, as they get my white light so they can fight back and—

  Corin? Where’s Corin?

  I search and search—but I can’t find him, can’t sense him. Our connection. Gone.

  Gone….

  No.

  I can save him.

  I can save everyone.

  I have to.

  My heart pounds. I’m shaking, shaking so much. Too many people, too many—

  My mind is stretching, weakening…no….

  And where is Corin? I can’t find him, when did I last see him? I can’t think, but the connection between us—it’s gone.

  Too unstable, can’t… and—

  “You’re going to fracture,” Death warns. “But then, you do have to die. The last one with mirrors.”

  Fracture.

  Death.

  No. My heart pounds. But I—

  My breaths become ragged, sharp, splintering.

  I can’t do it. I can’t save everyone.

  Screams fill my ears.

  Raleigh’s words pull through me, like they’ve been sent to me. An anchor, I need an anchor. A Sarr Seer.

  I look around, try to see, but it’s just Death in front of me, and the Gods and Goddesses behind him, throwing lightning everywhere. The land rumbles as Untamed fall.

  No.

  Siora. I see the flash of her hair.

  A Seer. And a Sarr. Part of me.

  But part of Raleigh too?

  No, Corin!

  My head pounds. I can’t think.

  Enhanced? But her eyes are Untamed… The augmenter, she never took it? Not like Quinn….

  I pull her soul to me. Her body follows, and I grab her, my hand around her wrist. Her face is bathed in blood, and she jolts, her eyes wide with shock. She’s alive—and…and my mind grows stronger as I use her, as I drain her of her power to keep me stable.

  I know I shouldn’t. Because I can feel the pain it causes her, and a mother shouldn’t do that, a mother should never cause pain, but I’m not her mother yet and….

  …and I can’t stop.

  It’s a vacuum, absorbing her.

  My body stills, stops shaking, and I breathe deeply, and, suddenly, I find them—more Untamed, out there. I push my power into them, a shield, an extension of me, give them weapons to protect themselves with.

  “You cannot save them.” Death’s voice is slow, and it grounds me, brings part of me back to look at him, while the rest of me is still collecting my people, equipping them to fight. Because they have to be able to fight. We can’t just be another casualty. “We do not need them in our world. This will be a new beginning. Isn’t that what all wars end with?”

  “The end makes things better,” I shout.

  Siora’s fingers pull at mine, my hand. Something cold, solid, presses into my skin. My fingers close around it.

  “Draw him in,” she whispers but I don’t understand, look back at Death.

  “The Untamed have to live,” I say. “The augury! It says my side will win and the rest will be destroyed. The rest. Not everyone!”

  “No,” Death says. “No one has to live. There’s nothing about living. You used us, controlled us so the Untamed could win. But now we are here, you are the rest. You all are.”

  “What? No, that’s not—that’s not fair!” I scream. “That’s not—”

  But he points at me, and my words stop. My powers stop, frozen onto the Untamed I’m connected to. Them, and no more.

  Everything around me—the Gods and Goddesses, Siora, the Untamed—stops as water rises. So much of it. A sea of anger, resolute.

  Water over my head.

  No!

  I fight, lungs burn, feel it diving down my throat as the water fills the world, reaches up to the sky, its surface ebbing as I slip from everything I know.

  “It’s over, Seven Sarr.”

  We fly out together, each of us a candle in the dark. Collective light, guided by the line I follow. We’re ghosts, we’re life, we’re death, and we’re something new, reaching forth.

  The New World is waiting, and my powers know it, for they’re not only mine. They’re all of ours, the Sarrs, and my mother got to the New World before—just as they all did. They know where we’re going because the Sarr legacy is ahead, and it wraps around the haven, breathes life into it until it’s breathing once more. The first breath in an eternity, and then another, and another.

  The moonlight guides us, guides me as I take them all, follow the silver tones and the footprints away from the darkness swallowing our old home, because I know. The powers know, and we’re free as this world strengthens itself for inhabitance.

  When we get there, to the New World, where moonlight hovers over the river where children will play, they land among rocks. My terrier awaits, eyes shining as the bison’s did, so full of promise and safety.

  Be a good guard-dog.

  A new life, awaiting.

  There are a thousand things I could think of as the sudden night carries me away, doesn’t let me fall with my people, or float with the powers that knot around the world, that seal themselves there under my instruction, for I can only keep those that were truly mine—because I’m doing it, and I already know how, even though I’m not there.

  But they’re there. They’re there, inside, below. My mother, my father, Three, Five, Six, and Siora. Siora—I feel the darkness inside her, the desperation, the lurking destruction. It’s not her—it can’t be. She wasn’t like that—isn’t like that.

  But she… she’s alone. She’s different.

  Quinn fell with the Enhanced.

  The death of one empyrean twin is the death of the other. But the second death always causes the most destruction.

  The second death. My mind jumps. Elf—what he did when vengeance blinded him. Is that… Is that going to happen with Siora too? No… I can’t. They’re safe there. They have to be. My daughter.

  I look away from her—because I can’t look at her any longer, and I see Esther, Toivo, and Melissa… Kayden, Faya, and Clare… Keelie, Elf, Bea, Jana, and Manning… Jeena, Kyla, and more. Men, women, and children I haven’t met. And the ones I have. The Sarr Seers.

  My lips burr as I search for him.

  Corin… No Corin.

  The stars above fill my vision as I turn over. They blink, flash, slower and slower. The gates are closing, and this land is sealing, walls falling, and Death’s promised words are calling.

  It really is over.

  I open my eyes to intense light. White, so bright. I blink, try to shield my eyes with my hand, but my arms are stone, and they don’t belong to me.

  Fear scoops me out until I’m clean, pure inside, like sand dug away.

  Someone, far away, is laughing.

  And this is it?

  I turn my head, my neck cricks. Something clicks inside my head. Death’s realm? His torturous realm. The white light, so bright. So bright and…the table.

  I see it. Just like before, the first time I died. Except Death is not sitting at it, and there are no chairs now. Just the wooden table.

  Every muscle in my body screams and protests as I force myself to stand. I shuffle forward, the light blinding me, until I’m at the table. My fingers curl around the edge of the tabletop, the hard wood. It is warm, and as I look at it, an image appears.

  I see their world. The New World—infused with Seer powers so it’s for the mortals once more. I see the other Untamed inside. A glimpse; a whole world in another, rotating round and round.

  They’re all there, and pride fills me. A feeling that thaws my edges, that settles inside the empty pod that now is me, as I watch them. They’re trapped, yet they do not know it.

  My hands clench and—

  Something in my hand. Cold, hard.

  I look down—my neck cricks—and I see a pebble. What? It wasn’t there before—it just appeared and—

  No, not a pebble. A pendant. A dark Seer pendant. Light
er, silver specks inside it.

  Not mine.

  Siora’s.

  I frown, then I touch my own pendant. It’s still around my neck, and I take it off, hold the two side-by-side. The moment it’s not around my neck, darkness falls. Pain lashes through my body, and I scream.

  I drop both the pendants, hear them clatter somewhere far away and—

  My body.

  I feel it. Not this body, but my mortal one. The dead one, down there.

  Somewhere…far below…being carried in fire and light and darkness, the world alive and—

  Burning. Flesh, burning.

  Me.

  I scream.

  You’ll feel the full pain of your broken body down there—as it lies bleeding, as it rots, as it swells.

  I inhale sharply, then I’m screaming, and Death’s realm latches onto my screams, drags them out of me like daggers, and stone rises up. Formations. Caves. A thunderous roar. Blood runs—my blood—covering the stone land, until it is red and it burns with my soul.

  I’m on the ground. Flat. My hands are curling, my fingers like claws. My nails scratch rock. Pain twists in my throat, and I gasp, reaching out for—for something.

  Draw him in. Siora’s last words to me—the last spoken—but they sound like they’re being spoken now.

  Draw him in.

  Yes. My body shakes, and I reach out, stretch so much my bones creak, but then I get hold of it. Siora’s pendant. Its uneven shape.

  And mine… Where’s mine….

  My eyes water, sting as my sweat drips into them, but then my other hand has my pendant in it again.

  I touch the two pendants together. Power radiates from Siora’s Seer pendant into mine. And mine—it holds my powers. The connections, inside me no more, but accessible and—

  Siora’s explodes in my hand. Sharp fragments dig into my skin, cut me. Blood pours out, and I drop the shards and—

  The land creaks behind me.

  I turn in an instant, see another person, looming out of dark ice. Ice? What? The stone—where’s the….

  The figure. Death. Waskabe. Has to be. My breath hitches.

  But it isn’t.

  It’s….

  I stare at him.