Become

by Ali Cross

  “It turns out there were more options than you led me to believe,” I said, taking a step forward and trying to see around or through him.

  Someone was behind him, someone in pain.

  A man.

  Daniel, I thought.

  The blood of the Lost. That’s what Knowles had said. That Akaros would need a relic—and the staff, my staff, was as sacred as they come. And he’d need the blood of the Lost. I knew of none other more Lost than Daniel.

  Still. Whether for him, or for the greater purpose, Akaros had to be stopped.

  I took another step. I could feel Akaros’ essence creep over me and where once I was impervious to the biting cold, now it burned and I had to work to restrain myself from shivering—from showing weakness.

  Another step.

  He exhaled and the loose hairs around my face ruffled in the frigid breeze.

  “Who have you got there, Akaros?” My voice sounded remarkably calm, an echo of my father’s authority.

  Akaros looked over his shoulder, and when his face returned, it held a satisfied smile. “I suppose I could show you,” he said, his tone boastful. “Though I wouldn’t want to harm your . . . ” he let his gaze drift over my right shoulder, over my Halo and down my arm, some of the golden tendrils visible on my hand, “newfound sensibilities.”

  I thrust the butt of my staff onto the gazebo steps, making the building quake. “Show me,” I commanded.

  With a grand flourish he swept his wing back and provided me with a clear and uninterrupted view.

  Of James.

  “No!” I cried, lunging forward. But I didn’t know where to start.

  James, beautiful, enigmatic James, hung by his feet from the center of the gazebo. His arms had been pulled wide, out to the sides, secured by ropes to the support posts.

  His naked body glistened with sweat and blood.

  It dripped in an impossibly slow measure into a shallow pool. A pool in which my staff lay drenched in his blood.

  “James,” I said. Or whimpered. It was barely a sound. I fell to my knees and reached for him. He wouldn’t last much longer.

  “Princess,” James whispered through parched lips.

  “Shh. I’ll get you out of here.” But I had no idea if that was a promise I could keep.

  I felt Akaros move behind me, felt the stillness of his breath that told me this was “movement with purpose”—and I was his purpose.

  He brought his fist down toward the base of my neck—and would have struck me, had I been a millisecond slower. As it was, his killing blow fell onto my raised staff, breaking it in half.

  He laughed as he lunged past me and grabbed the staff from its bloody bath.

  I whirled, one hand brushing against James’ bloody chest, and saw Akaros breathe a cloud of icy air over the staff. The rod seemed to shudder, then the blood vanished. Just disappeared. Swallowed into the wood itself.

  “Come, child.” He stepped back and pulled his wings inward, letting them slip back into his Shadow. He swung the staff toward his side where he spun it in his hand before letting it rest on the length of his arm. “Or shall you concede? You know you cannot beat me.”

  I had been trying my whole life to beat him.

  And I had always lost.

  Every.

  Single.

  Time.

  The gazebo rocked as Akaros stepped onto the lawn, making James’ body sway. I tried not to notice how pale his soft lips were.

  Tried not to imagine the pain he’d endured.

  Tried not to think about how I hadn’t been here to help him.

  Tried not to remember how I’d delayed in my room and how if I’d just moved faster things might have been different.

  I might have saved him.

  “I’m sorry, James,” I whispered.

  “Oh, you’ll see him again—he’s likely already checking into the frigid wasteland of Hell.”

  Fury pumped through me as if I’d suddenly grown ten hearts. I whirled away from James, my vision seeking Akaros. I would kill him. Killhimkillhimkillhim.

  With Aaron’s coat on, and James’ blood on my hands, I felt . . . strong. Invincible.

  “Oh, but then, look at you. You won’t be returning home, I suppose.” Akaros slipped the staff down his arm, then back up again. He sighed, making a show of it. “Well?”

  I stepped down.

  My boots echoed on the steps like thunderclaps.

  Boom.

  I reached over my shoulders and pulled out the short sticks that rose in an X behind my back.

  Boom.

  I swung the sticks in loose circles at my side.

  Boom.

  Akaros laughed and I joined him.

  Laughing still, I stepped onto the grass to face my former tutor.

  And I would kill him.

  We didn’t move.

  He stood, sneering, his body poised, but exuding ease. He had every reason to expect this to be easy. When had I ever truly challenged him?

  I stood, not laughing anymore, not smiling. Felt the Shadow stretch inside of me.

  It screamed for revenge. For James. For Aaron. For Lucy. For everyone that suffered under the brutality of Lucifer’s rule.

  My Halo shrank from the reaching dark inside me, making me feel like I was already at war inside my own soul. I needed to squelch the spark. I could not afford the weakness.

  I needed to fight.

  To win.

  To be darkness.

  To be death.

  To be Desolation.

  Akaros howled at the sky. “You never could embrace your true nature. Even now, you cannot summon the strength you need for victory.” He paced around me while I still fought for control. “Or perhaps you are afraid you couldn’t control yourself once you embraced your Shadow.”

  He stepped onto the stair, leaning in slightly, and poked the end of the staff against James’ side. I heard James’ low moan through the roaring blood in my ears.

  “Perhaps you are afraid that you will kill him, murder another innocent.” He tsked. “Such a mess you made of the last one.”

  With a roar, he swung the staff over his head and brought it down. I stepped forward, bracing myself, and held the my weapons up, catching his blow in the crux of the crossed sticks. He applied his brute force and I struggled to hold him back.

  As I stepped through and spun on my heel, my head beneath the staff, I whipped my leg around and up, catching the side of his face with the outside edge of my heavy boot.

  With an oof! Akaros stumbled back, swinging his staff into its resting position on his arm.

  I followed the momentum of my movement and turned again, landing a side kick to Akaros’ chest. But it barely fazed him, while I was already gasping for air.

  When he attacked there was no more time to consider how to respond. It was all movement, intuition. Forward, back.

  The staff flew at my head, my knees. Jabbed my side. Stole my breath.

  Wood clicked against wood, beating a steady rhythm to my desperate efforts.

  My palms slipped on the sticks, and my thoughts scrambled to catch up with my need to win. My need to defeat this monster once and for all.

  I tried to call my Shadow. Tried to find something inside to help me fight this demon.

  But all I found was fear.

  My muscles screamed for relief. The short sticks fell from my quivering fingers and I stood facing Akaros, trying not to fall from exhaustion.

  He laughed, the sound like boulders falling down a cliff face. He stepped back, till his heels were against the bottom step of the gazebo. Slowly, he climbed the steps, never taking his eyes off mine. Never letting the smile fall from his face.

  And we were right where we’d started—except this time I was spent. I had nothing more to give.

  When he raised the staff above his head, drawing a figure eight in the air, adrenaline brought my body back to the moment with sudden, burning energy.

  I saw the change in Akaros’ actions
as if a map had been drawn across my vision. Saw the slight twist of his heel, the lift of his elbow as he brought the staff down. The blow would finish off James as it fell with the strength of a First Order and all the fury of Hell.

  Time slowed. So slow it seemed to stop. Even the beat of my heart lurched into a new rhythm as I lunged forward.

  Thump.

  Without my Shadow, without a Halo, I threw myself across the distance, my eyes glued to the path of the staff.

  Thump.

  Akaros threw his head back, releasing a howl of triumph into the air. I had never seen his face look so cruel.

  The blow caught me at the base of my neck. I felt it, like a kiss from home, the sting of biting ice.

  I had never felt my heart so slow.

  Thump.

  . . .

  Thump.

  I had never felt such surprising warmth.

  Thump.

  Everything was warm, burning even, the brightness filling me until I couldn’t contain it any longer.

  Thu . . .

  I had never felt such release.

  . . . mp.

  chapter thirty-one

  I stood on a ribbon of light, every color of the rainbow reflected in its depths. There was no heat, no cold. All around me the expanse of space filled my eyes with wonder. I knew this place.

  Spinning on the balls of my feet, I saw Heimdall, standing at the Door, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword as he regarded me. In his left hand he held a golden horn, as long as his arm. He raised the horn to his lips, and blew. The Bridge quivered and sprang to life with such brilliance of color I had to shield my eyes. When I opened them, Heimdall nodded, and I turned to look the other way, to see a company of people standing between me and the glorious realm of Asgard, my one-time home.

  Before me stood Odin. His hand on a staff that rose twice his height into the sky. His broad shoulders were draped with a white mantle encrusted with shimmering jewels. A woman stood beside him, her left arm hidden behind a round, golden shield, her right hand resting on the hilt of the sword at her side. She was stunning to behold—warm skin, black hair falling around her shoulders. She wore the clothing of a warrior, though the winged crown on her head identified her as Valkyrie—Odin’s own warrior handmaiden. Her lips sparkled with a sheen of gold as she spoke.

  “Welcome, daughter, to your home. You have earned eternal rest in the halls of Valhalla.” Her voice resonated with authority and my body responded with an up swell of desire to accept her invitation.

  “Welcome, daughter, to your home,” Odin said, stepping forward and reaching out his free hand. I moved toward him, and my fingers touched his.

  In an instant I was in his embrace, and for the first time in my life I felt truly at peace.

  Odin pushed me gently back, then gestured widely with his staff toward the glorious horizon. “You have earned eternal rest in the halls of Valhalla, my child. Come.”

  I fell into step beside him, then stopped.

  Odin paused and looked down on me. I hated to peer into his face, hated to show him what was in my heart, for I knew he surely saw. “I—I can’t go.”

  “Can’t? Or won’t?” His arm fell from my shoulder but I felt no judgment in the movement. Odin’s face remained open and kind while he waited for me to respond.

  I shook my head, glancing at the Valkyrie before returning my gaze to Odin. “My friends need me.”

  Odin’s face broke into a wide grin. “Ah. Your friends. You are right. They do need you. But do you need them?”

  My mind grappled for understanding. Was this a trick question? Because probably the very best thing for my friends would be to have me out of the picture. But I knew what danger they were in, and I couldn’t just leave them—not to fight Lucifer alone. I said nothing.

  Odin gestured again, but this time for me to look behind me, at Heimdall, who still stood before the Door. Odin raised his staff and brought it down with a thud, the bridge shimmering out in waves of light at its touch. Heimdall raised the horn to his lips once more.

  He blew, but there was no sound.

  Between us, the air coalesced into a solid wall, my view of light and space falling away until all I could see was the world I’d left behind. The gazebo, with James still hanging in the center of it. But now it was Father, in all his glory, who stood on the steps. I could see my crumpled form at his feet. On the grass before him, Akaros lay prostrate, arms and wings spread wide.

  “What is it you have done?” Father demanded, his voice rocking the gazebo and causing the earth to shake.

  “I am sorry, Master. I—she—”

  “Fool!” The gazebo’s support beams buckled under the weight of his voice. Timber splintered and flew. James fell to the ground, and disappeared under the tumble of lumber. Yet Lucifer stood there still. “You have robbed me of my only child!”

  A jagged fissure opened in the ground between him and Akaros.

  “She had chosen, Master. She had betrayed you.”

  “No!” Lucifer roared and blood red lightning cracked the sky. “Her choice doesn’t matter, imbecile. She will always be mine. There is no choice she could make that would change that.”

  He stepped forward, one cloven hoof on either side of the crack in the earth, and stood before Akaros. “Tell me.”

  Akaros regained his feet and held up the staff, while he kept his eyes averted. Lucifer ran one clawed finger down the length of it and the staff became as black as pitch. “I have begun, Master.”

  Lucifer said nothing.

  “The spearhead is nearly in my grasp. Please, Master. Another chance and I will not fail you.”

  “And will you return me my only daughter?” Lucifer boomed. He beat his wings, pulling the air around them with such speed and intensity they soon stood in the center of a tornado. When the air cleared, they were gone.

  I looked to Odin, but he remained focused on the scene before us, which faded and darkened before settling upon the scene of a hospital room. The glow of monitors bathed the otherwise dark room in muted light. But I recognized the white-blond of James’ hair against the pillow.

  He stirred, and lifted his hand. He trailed his fingertips over Miri’s cheek while she sat huddled over, her forehead resting against the edge of his bed. At his touch, she started.

  “You’re awake!” she cried before throwing herself on him.

  “Shh, bright eyes. Shh.” James awkwardly stroked her back and head, despite the tangle of lines of tubes and leads attached to him everywhere.

  “I thought I’d lost you,” Miri finally said when her tears had slowed.

  “I had lost you,” James said softly.

  “I’m sorry James. I was wrong; I shouldn’t have pushed you away.” The words tumbled out as feverishly as Miri’s hands swept over James’ face and hair. “I just couldn’t live that life anymore. But I still love you.”

  “You were right to send me away, love. I know it. But things will be different now. I know they can be different. I—I want to be worthy of you.” James’ voice cracked and he had to swallow against the crush of tears in his throat. “To be happy with you.”

  Miri laid her cheek on James’ chest and closed her eyes. “I love you, James,” she whispered.

  The scene faded away, but I didn’t need to hear James’ response to know that he loved her too.

  “Such is the world to which you may return, if you so desire it,” Odin said, stepping close to me, his presence enveloping me like a bubble in which only he and I existed. “Or you may accept your reward.” He swept his arm to the right, indicating Valhalla rising like the sun over the city.

  To my left, Heimdall had not closed the veil between our worlds. Instead, I saw at least two dozen Spartans surrounding Longinus, while Michael fought with Akaros, his glorious Halo shining in the darkness.

  My blood ran cold—colder than usual—when the Spartans moved as one, loosing their spears into the stoic soldier. As he lay on the ground, struggling against the b
lood filling his mouth, a demon pressed his sandaled foot to Longinus’ throat and ripped the leather thong holding the spearhead from his neck.

  Michael, unaware that his friend had fallen, took a blow to his temple and fell to the ground. The sky opened up with thunderous rain, pummeling Michael as he struggled to his knees. Akaros stepped forward, his mouth moving in what I could only guess was an endless rant on my many faults and all the ways we were never meant to be together. Michael swayed, exhaustion etched on his features, in the fading light of his Halo.

  He raised his face to the rain, his eyes open. It seemed he looked straight at me, finding my gaze, my heart, across the vast expanse of space.

  Akaros pulled his arm back, and began the swing that would end Michael’s life. I covered my mouth with one hand, twisting the fabric of my shirt in the other. I whirled to Odin, ready to ask after Michael, wanting nothing but for his life to be spared. He put his hand on my arm and directed my attention back to the scene.

  “He will be there, or he will be here. But you will be together. I cannot keep the two of you apart any longer.”

  The feeling of warm sunshine flooded my veins as Michael blocked Akaros’ blow, and jabbed up into his armpit. Akaros stumbled back and Michael jumped to his feet. Akaros glanced to the right, where his man stood, the spearhead dangling from its cord in his fist. With a howl, Akaros lunged past Michael, grabbed the spearhead and soared into the sky.

  “Nor would I wish to try,” Odin said. “You have been apart long enough.”

  We would be together. There or here, together.

  Beyond Odin, the Valkyrie stood proud and stunning, and I realized I was like her. Or, I could be. Odin was still watching me, his eyes twinkling with a spark of humor and affection. “Before you choose, I believe there is someone who would like to see you.

  I looked at Odin with confusion. Someone here wished to see me?

  “Fiahre, if you would?” Odin asked the Valkyrie, sweeping his hand to the side so she came fully into view.

  “My Lord.” She bowed low, then in a flash was gone, a trail of golden light hovering in the air in her wake.