"How are you feeling?" I murmured, measuring my husband's spirit from head to toe. He didn't seem any different, but I didn't think it would hurt to ask.
Whatever had happened with the ritual could've affected him, as well. I'd learned a long time ago that it was always better to question everything than to simply accept it. Sherus gazed at his body for a while, then gave me a warm but poignant smile.
"I think that, no matter what happens next, we'll all be okay," he said.
"How? You're dead. Not sure you noticed."
He chuckled. "I am well aware, thank you, my love. But even so. My death will not have been in vain."
"Maybe she can help you," I said.
"Who?"
"Death. Maybe she can help you. From what I'm gathering out of these comms reports, the ritual didn't happen. It was stopped. Which has to mean that our Tae found Death. So, I don't know… as a reward for his accomplishments, she could undo what happened to you. What happened to the other fae, as well. All these deaths are unnatural. They shouldn't have happened."
Sherus walked over to me. Outside, the evening set in stars and indigo stripes over The Shade, the silhouette of the nearby redwood forest clearly outlined like ink drawings against the glimmering sky. It gave me a sense of peace—the complete opposite of what was going on inside my soul.
He couldn't touch me, but he could still get close enough for me to grasp the impression that I could at least sense him. "Nuriya, let's not get our hopes up," he said. "You and I are both grown people. We've had our share of madness and death, long before this happened. We can't rely on higher forces for anything. We did that with the Hermessi, and you saw what happened."
I scoffed, lowering my gaze. "We brought them out to save us from Ta'Zan, only for them to turn on us with their stupid ritual. Yeah, I see your point."
Even so, I didn't want the truth that Sherus was hinting at. It would've left me without my soulmate and my son without his father. The loss was too big. Too difficult to stomach. Impossible to ever get over. I hadn’t made it this far in life to take such hits. It just wasn't fair.
"Maybe we'll get lucky, like you said," Sherus replied. "But we should not hope for it. Most importantly, we should be careful, going forward, of seeking favors from any of the entities that make this world move and spin."
Looking back, I had to admit, even the swamp witches' relationship with the Word, a cosmic force of its own, was rather complicated. During the apprenticeship, it could either fuse with them or kill them. And it didn't jump out with a solution for everything. The Word, for better or for worse, had taught its subjects not to rely on it to save them. They could use it. They could channel its strength. Sometimes, it stepped in, sure, but it wasn't reliable. Its interventions were unpredictable.
And if there was one thing we'd learned, it was exactly what Sherus had just pointed out. We could no longer allow ourselves to mess with or depend on these godlike entities.
The damage the Hermessi had done was, in many ways, irreparable.
"The loss of life…" I mumbled, a thought surfacing into my consciousness. I'd been so preoccupied with Sherus and Taeral that I'd nearly forgotten about all the other fae.
"Nuriya. You have that pensive look that sometimes worries me."
"Whatever happened to the sanctuary fae?" I said. "I haven’t heard reports yet. Agents said they were heading back there to see, but no one's said a word in almost twenty minutes."
He smiled again, and, for a mere flicker in time, I had the false sensation that everything would be okay. My skepticism cut deeply, but it was necessary. Sherus was right. I couldn't delude myself about this.
"I'll be okay in here," he replied. "Why don't you go to the grand hall? I think the GASP seniors are still gathered there. Find out what's happening."
"Perhaps our son will say something in the meantime," I said hopefully.
"Regardless of whatever he tells you, make sure he knows I love him," Sherus said.
My eyes felt wet. Tears were pooling again, and I needed to get out before I broke down and cried. It wouldn't have been the first time today. Exhaling sharply, I shot to my feet and gave my husband a brief nod.
"I'll see you in a bit, Sherus."
I vanished, teleporting myself across The Shade and right inside the grand hall.
I found the whole of GASP here. All of them looking rather conflicted, torn between grief and relief. What an odd pair of emotions to behold across so many familiar faces.
“Any news?” I asked, feeling stupidly hopeful.
A thousand storms were raging through my heart, as I’d yet to hear from Taeral. Perhaps knowing that he couldn’t be killed had taken some of the edge off, but I was still worried. It was in my nature as a mother to worry—about his wellbeing, his state of mind, anything that could make him feel anything less than happy and fulfilled.
Derek and Sofia were the first to greet me. They didn’t seem happy at all. No one could bring themselves to experience such a thing. The haunted looks in their eyes stabbed my heart with invisible daggers. I could only imagine how they felt, considering how much of their family they’d had to leave behind in the sanctuary on Calliope.
“We think Taeral and the crew managed to stop the ritual, somehow,” Derek said, his tone grave and heavy. “But not before the five millionth fae was taken under the Hermessi’s influence.”
“That… That means the fae… They died?” I replied, finding no better words for this kind of follow-up. Sofia teared up and nodded rapidly, then hid her face in Derek’s chest as he pulled her into an embrace. Oh, my heart…
“I am so, so sorry,” I managed, feeling their pain like a throbbing pulse in the pit of my stomach. No mother would ever want to bury a child, and for Sofia, this was her worst nightmare come true. She’d already lost Ben once. I, too, had experienced such agony before, because of Cyrus.
This time, she’d lost Grace, Caia, and Vita, as well. Derek had lost his brother. Aiden, his wife. River had it the worst of them all. She could barely move, as Lawrence and Field tried to comfort her as best as they could. But she was limp, her eyes glassy and blank. When would all these troubles end, I thought, while my gaze wandered past them and around the grand hall. Moonlight poured through the tall windows, dressing everything in a pale, pearly white. The glass table in the middle glistened quietly. The only sounds I could hear were the muted sobs of those present.
Yes, the ritual had been stopped. But at what cost?
Millions of fae were dead, gone forever. We knew Taeral and his crew had killed Brendel, but we were in the dark regarding the Spirit Bender and Death, how it had all been stopped. There was no news of the rebel Hermessi, either. Everything had come to a sudden halt, in a way we’d never asked for.
This kind of pain would never simmer down. It would burn through us forever. At least we still had a future to look forward to, as empty as it was without our fae friends and loved ones.
“We’ll have to open the portal soon,” Derek said after a long pause, stroking Sofia’s hair with one hand in a bid to comfort her. “We’ll need to go out there and assess the damage. The agents who stayed behind are already at the sanctuaries.”
“How did it manifest?” I asked, trying to get their minds away from Ben and the others, at least for a little while.
“The ritual?” Derek replied. Dark shadows had settled under his blue eyes, brushstrokes of grief that would take forever to fade. Sofia wiped her tears and raised her head, trying to get back into the conversation.
“They said the sanctuaries lit up all white,” she said. “We only got this account from a couple of local agents. The rest had already gone into hiding, but due to the matching details, it’s safe to assume it unfolded identically across the In-Between and the Supernatural Dimension. It went on like that for a while, then a pulse—the pulse we felt as well—rippled across the skies, and… that was it. The light faded. The air sort of cleared. The sanctuaries came back down and… silence, ever since
.”
“Like it didn’t even happen,” Rose added, joining us. Behind her, River raised her head, wanting to say something. But no words came out, so she gave up and rested her head on Field’s shoulder—her son… the only one she had left. The poor soul. If anyone understood her pain, it was me. Granted, I’d gotten lucky. I’d been able to see my Sherus. River had found herself kicked out of the sanctuary with everybody else when the Hermessi had first begun the weaponizing stage.
“What news of Taeral?” Corrine asked. “Has he said anything?”
I shook my head, feeling my brows pull into a deep frown. “He’ll get in touch when he can,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely convinced. His silence worried me, especially after what had just happened.
This was a bitter victory, to say the least.
“Have you tried reaching out to him?” Ibrahim replied. “If his comms are down, you still have your Telluris link, don’t you?”
Pressing my lips into a thin line, I closed my eyes for a moment.
“Nuriya?” Vivienne asked, noticing my expression shift, though I wasn’t entirely sure what I was displaying. I’d been working so hard to keep my composure, but I had grown tired. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I was falling apart at the seams, and it was happening before their eyes. “Are you okay?”
I broke down crying, and Aisha and Horatio rushed over from across the room, having heard my voice louder than usual. It wasn’t in my nature to bawl, yet I couldn’t control it. I cried so hard, my whole body shuddered. They held me tight, and I surrendered to everything that had been poking and stabbing me for the past couple of days.
My husband. The Novaks. Fierce little Vesta. Kailyn. Lucas. Every single fae that had been dragged into this hot mess. I cried for all of them, finding no comfort in an embrace but still feeling thankful that I wasn’t alone in this. I’d held it all in for too long, not wanting to show much to Sherus regarding my inner self, given his condition. I’d been so careful not to worry him or my son that I’d completely neglected myself.
And now, it was all coming down, brick by brick.
“I’m sorry, Nuriya,” Vivienne said, and I felt her arms come around Aisha and Horatio. I was in the middle of a group hug, as Derek, Sofia, Rose, Caleb, Xavier, and even Corrine and Ibrahim piled on. Soon enough, the others joined, and we turned into a mass of brokenhearted people who’d lost loved ones in this elemental nightmare.
We all cried and felt sorry for one another. We whispered words of comfort to each other. We embraced the pain and allowed it to flow through us, to liberate us from the pressure that had been gathering. Strangely, I could breathe a little easier now. Crying did help.
“Mom?”
My son’s voice came through like a faint crackle. So faint, in fact, that I had barely noticed it. For a moment, I didn’t even realize he was calling out to me.
“Mom, are you there?”
I sucked in a breath. It was Taeral, I could hear him clearly in my head. Oh, such music to my ears!
Quickly but politely, I pulled myself away from the group, my eyes wide and scratchy. The others watched me carefully, while I felt a smile tug at the corners of my mouth. My lips were cracked, and they stung a little as they stretched, but I didn’t care.
“Taeral?” I called out. Our Telluris link was activated. I could feel my baby deep in my soul, pulling the invisible string that connected our hearts. All of a sudden, the world was no longer as grim or as defective as I’d seen it. It was slightly better, because my son was back in the picture. “Honey, what happened? Are you okay?”
Looking around, everyone’s breaths had been cut off. They were all quiet, their gazes fixed on me as I waited for a reply.
“Mom, we did it. We stopped it,” Taeral said.
And just like that, I slid down the emotional spectrum, from grief and despair to an indescribable sense of relief, having finally received the confirmation that my Taeral and his friends had prevailed. My heart swelled, threatening to break out of my ribcage, and a different kind of tears trickled down my cheeks. Tears of joy and pride.
“You saved us,” I whispered. “You saved us…”
“We…” Taeral paused for a moment. “The fae, Mom… We didn’t get to Death in time.”
“Tae, my darling. You saved billions. Entire worlds. Please, do not sell yourself short. Not after everything you’ve been through,” I replied.
“Mom, there’s more,” he said.
I stared at Sofia and Derek, though blankly, with no particular purpose. They were the most solid figures in my field of vision. “What is it?” I asked, my voice dropping.
“It wasn’t Death who used Thieron to stop the ritual. It was me,” he said. “And I stopped it for good, this time. It will never happen again. I guess, in a sense, I broke the cycle.”
My mind went blank. The information was so foreign, so shocking, that I didn’t even understand it at first. It didn’t click. I was missing something, for sure.
“Honey, you need to explain that to me, bit by bit,” I said at last.
“I will, soon. I promise.”
“Where are you?”
“On Aledras. I’ll see you in a bit, Mom. I love you. Tell Dad I’m trying to fix this,” he said. Again, my heart leapt, performing a series of somersaults I wasn’t prepared for. What did he mean by this?
I couldn’t allow myself any false hope. Sherus had been right. I’d fooled myself about all this for too long. My motherly instincts kicked in, swerving through various scenarios.
“Tae, don’t get yourself indebted to anyone or anything. Please,” I replied. “I don’t want you to owe—”
“Mom, don’t worry. I have to go.”
Silence settled inside me. The kind that worried me. Taeral had left our Telluris line without clarifying what it was exactly that he was trying to fix. I knew he was dead set on saving his father—though chances were he was now looking to save five million fae, not just one.
Again, I found myself in the middle of turmoil on the inside. Hope, ever the treacherous fiend, was circling me, prowling through the darkness of my thoughts and threatening to seduce me. The last thing I needed was another bout of disappointment where my husband was concerned, not to mention everyone else who’d perished in the sanctuaries.
Then again, my son had always had a tendency to surprise.
What if?
Taeral
I stood in the middle of the frozen lake, thinking I’d made my mother broil without giving her details of what would happen next. She was in so much pain. They were all in so much pain that I simply didn’t have the courage to detail the promise I’d made. I just knew I’d make it happen, one way or another.
The specters had all been cleared—whatever was left of them, at least. The ghouls had munched on their fair share. I wondered, for a brief moment, if there was such a thing as ghoul indigestion. The souls had not been part of their diet in a very long time, yet they’d managed to consume thousands in the span of a few hours.
Death stood before me, the chain still keeping her tied to the bottom of the lake. The Reapers were done releasing the confused specters from their curse, and billions of golden flakes spread across the sunset sky. The sun had already sunk into the horizon, leaving behind splotches of pink and dark blue. It was cold, but it was also quiet.
Glancing around at my team, I found relief. I even allowed myself to smile, watching Amelia and Raphael as they hugged and kissed. Riza grabbed Herakles and pulled him into a short smooching session, prompting the Faulty to groan and chuckle with delight. Eva and Varga were inseparable, laughing and showering one another with kisses. We’d made it so far.
Eira was next to me, trying to look away from the couples. She avoided my gaze as well, but I could see the roses blooming in her cheeks. It was over, at least in one matter. The Spirit Bender was dead, and so was Brendel. Gone forever from this world. They’d left so much pain and misery behind. I knew I wouldn’t stop until I’d found a way to fix that.
Until then, however, I turned to face Eira and took her hands in mine. I’d been waiting to do this for so long, I couldn’t get on with anything else until I got it out of the way. She gave me a startled look, seemingly confused.
“Tae, what are you doing?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“What I should’ve done a long time ago,” I replied.
Without giving her the opportunity to serve me with a follow-up question, I leaned down and caught her mouth in a kiss. It was meant to be a short and sweet one, but enough to make her understand how I felt. I’d never experienced such feelings before—not with this intensity, and not until I’d realized how important she’d become to me.
She tasted like a dream come true, the very dream that Phantom had forced us into for the Phyla challenge. Only better, because this was real. I felt her lips. I could hear her drumming heartbeat. I belonged with her, and she belonged with me. Maybe, if Inalia hadn’t sacrificed herself to become Cerix’s Fire Hermessi, this never would’ve happened. I never would’ve gotten so close to Eira. But fate had a funny way of arranging the pieces, making sure they all fell in a certain direction, without us knowing.
She moaned softly, unable to break the kiss. Love burst through me in waves of honey and sunlight, finally free to roam and consume every atom in my body. I’d been holding this in for a while. There had never been a right moment, but dammit, we’d earned this much.
I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her close. We deepened the kiss, reacting to one another. So much for that short and sweet one. I heard Amelia giggle somewhere in the background, but my eyes were closed as I lost myself in the moment. It was if time had been stopped, just for Eira and me.
Eventually, I managed to raise my head to just look at her. There was peace in her blue eyes. The peace of a sun-kissed lagoon, opening out to an endless ocean. A smile rested on her glistening lips, and I instinctively licked mine, already yearning for round two. Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—the Soul Crusher felt the need to cut in.
A Shade of Vampire 77: A Fate of Time Page 20
