I kick him hard while he’s on the ground and send a cannonball of light straight to his wretched, evil heart. It hits and I send another and another, and as I’m holding him down, for a brief, beautiful moment I let myself believe that maybe Malentus is wounded more than he let on. Perhaps this isn’t futile and I can keep Declan and the baby safe and still be with them and we can have the life together I imagined … the life I crave so desperately and imagined so many times. I allow myself to believe, in this moment, the starry-eyed notion that it’s possible for me to win against one of the most powerful dark guardians in existence.
I hold that belief in my mind as I keep hitting Malentus with everything I’ve got. With colossal force I send bolt after bolt of surging white light straight into his cold, black heart. I don’t keep anything in reserve. I wasn’t bluffing when I said I won’t go down without a fight. If I can’t obliterate the evil in front of me, I’ll die trying. There’s no other way.
As I draw on every ounce of power, I focus on my love for Declan, and indulge myself with the idea that maybe it hasn’t really come down to this—to what I dreaded all along.
I stare at Malentus, still on the ground, and I continue to strike him, over and over, with brutal, unrelenting force as I hold him with my light, and in the moment that I start to believe, really believe that I may have a chance, he slowly manages to stand up … and then he laughs.
He meets my eyes with his cold, black stare and crushes the final remnant of hope I held close.
When the dark flash of light hits me, I’m knocked off my feet and the searing pain I feel as it burns through to my soul tells me what I already know: this is the end.
If I’m going to do what I hoped I’d never have to, it’s now or never. Soon, I won’t have enough power left within me.
I attempt to rise and thick fear takes hold when I can’t move. But I have to. I summon all the love I feel for Declan and our child and I imagine her smile and her laugh and the way she looks at me when I come into a room. Then I imagine her aura, and the vibrancy of the blues and the brilliant whites that surround her, and I remember how it makes me feel when we’re together. I sense my life force fading and I know I have to summon the power to do this or she’ll never be safe. I rise up, picturing Declan’s arm outstretched for me, lifting me off the ground, so I can do what Malentus never expected. I feel him hitting me with everything he has. He’s risking himself to prove to me how superior he is, how much more power he wields, just as I always knew he would. And this is my chance.
Instead of resisting I embrace all the evil he’s directing into me and with every ounce of light I have left I merge our energy into one. Malentus forged this connection to me and I’m certain he never thought I’d have the will or the power to turn it back on him. But he vastly underestimated the love I feel for Declan and what I’m willing to do to protect her and our child.
I may not have the power to defeat him outright and remain here to be with Declan, but I’ll fight like hell to take him with me, even if it means I’ll be gone forever.
“This is my leverage,” I hiss into his ear and I can feel his surprise and sudden resistance, but when I sense his growing fear becoming one with me—cold and vile and searingly malevolent—I know that it’s working.
Declan and our baby will be safe.
In my final moments, before our energy transforms and escapes into the universe, I grip the note I left in my pocket, just in case, and as my final act as Alexander Ronin, I send my mortal shell to Declan with light.
To try to explain.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I can’t shake this uneasy feeling.
And the farther I drive, the more it transforms into mounting dread. I’m halfway home but I pull over and turn the car around.
Something is terribly wrong. I feel it.
As I drive back toward Redwood Park and the fairy ring where I left Alexander, the dread hits me like a bolt of electricity, making me step on the gas. I drive down the gravel access road and when I see Alexander’s car, still there, without him around, I feel panic rising in my throat.
I step out of my car, into a fierce, blowing gale, and that’s when I hear Alexander’s voice, carried on the wind.
Watch for me.
I look up and my heart lifts to the sky because I see him at the entrance to the trail, and he’s waving to me.
But my feeling of relief disappears almost instantly. Something isn’t right. I can see it in the sadness in his eyes or maybe it’s his wave, or the way he’s not shining brightly from within, as he always does.
And then, as my brain struggles to process this disparate information, it becomes clear that something is wrong. Terribly wrong. Because now, before my eyes, Alexander’s body crumples to the ground. And the way he crumples, like a lifeless doll, without any attempt to break his fall, sends my heart plummeting through my center and drives my soul outside of my body as I run, nearly tripping over myself, to try to catch him.
But when I reach him on the ground and lift his head into my lap my hand recoils because his skin is already cold. So cold. And lifeless. I’ve lost my voice and I’m losing my mind because this can’t be.
This can’t be Alexander lying lifeless in my lap on the eve of our wedding.
This can’t be how it ends.
Tears come and I kiss him over and over. I kiss his forehead and his lips and his cheeks and his lips again and again and again, trying to warm him and renew his life force. I lift his hands to kiss those, too, and that’s when I see the folded piece of stationery gripped in his palm with Declan written on the outside.
My hands are shaking as I slide it out of his fingers and unfold it, and my tears fall on the paper, causing the ink to blur and bleed, as I read the words Alexander left behind.
My Dearest Declan,
If you’re reading this, I’m sorry. More sorry than words can ever convey. Please know this wasn’t my plan. I said I would do anything to protect you and the baby and I gave it all I had but my plan didn’t work.
I was forced to do something I didn’t want to. Something I hoped it would never come to.
I did it for you, and I did it for our child, and also for the world that our child is going to bring so much light into and make a better place.
Malentus can no longer hurt you. And Edwin promised me he’d protect you from Avestan—in the same manner, if it comes to it.
I want to say that my heart is broken over how this ended, but I think my heart is the only part of me that will live on, so I don’t want it to be broken. And I don’t want your heart to be broken either. Please find a way to go on and live a happy life with our child. I want you to smile when you think of me … and when you think of us … and what we had.
Please don’t let thoughts of me bring you only sadness. I couldn’t bear it.
If there’s a possibility for my energy to communicate with you, you know I’ll do whatever it takes to break through, so watch for me. Souls with a connection as deep as ours have a way of finding each other across time and space and I hope that’s true for us, in any form. I’ll never stop searching. I think if I didn’t believe there was some small chance to connect with you again, no matter how remote, I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did. After all, what we had is more powerful than anything I ever dreamed of, or thought possible.
I love you, Declan. Deeply and always. Into eternity and eons beyond.
True love like ours never ends.
Alexander
Teardrops continue to fall in a silent, broken rhythm as I struggle, in shock, to accept the finality of Alexander’s words. I won’t do it. I won’t. I don’t accept it. I kiss him again and again, lips slick with tears, just as I did when he was lifeless in my arms once before. But he remains cold, not moving, and deep down I sense the futility of my attempts. Nothing can change this, no matter what sprite powers I can summon or how much I want to tear the fabric of the universe open with my bare hands and make it not true.
<
br /> The door to the life I imagined and dreamed of so many times with Alexander has closed forever and I’m left with only wrenching, heartaching despair.
I rock Alexander in my arms over and over as I sob in agony until my lungs have ceased taking in air and no sound can get out. I continue to cry, silently, until a sharp pain in my lower back shocks me into focusing on a new and different type of agony. The sharp pain is followed by a forceful contraction that wracks my body and leaves me gasping.
Oh my God, the baby is coming.
But it’s too early.
A dark shroud of dread falls over me as I sense a presence in the woods.
I turn, slowly, to see Avestan smiling wickedly, enjoying the sight before him.
Chapter Thirty
“You did this,” I whisper vilely, the words clawing from my throat like tiny daggers. I feel another contraction building within me but it can’t compete with the misery and fury I’m directing at Avestan in this moment.
Avestan laughs. “Alexander sacrificed himself? To save you? How quaint, and selfless, and thick.”
“He took your Maker with him,” I spit out.
He shrugs, unfazed. “Malentus was willing to cut a deal. A deal I disagreed with, most vehemently. But it turns out Alexander’s sacrifice was all for naught. Because here I am, ready to destroy you and your baby after all.”
“You’ll be weakened now,” I say with a measure of satisfaction. “Your Maker is gone.”
He shrugs again and flexes his hands in the air. “Strong as ever,” he says. “They say it takes quite a while to make its way throughout the line. But consider this—perhaps it’s only a myth we spread to entice the guardians to sacrifice themselves. Like the stupid lemmings they are.”
“You’re lying,” I say threateningly. “I can see the fear and dread in your eyes. And Edwin’s coming for you.”
“The only thing you can see in my eyes is the delight at what I’m about to do to you, to end this. And I wouldn’t count on Edwin. Alenna’s keeping him busy for me. I was just there, cheering her on in fact.”
I look down at Alexander in my arms and my heart is so drained that part of me wants to give up and tell Avestan to kill me now and be done with it. I can’t take it anymore. I want out of this torment and searing grief. But another contraction rips through me, causing me to gasp in pain, and I’m reminded of the life growing inside of me—the life fighting to come out—and I know I can’t give up.
“What’s this?” Avestan says as steps forward and rips Alexander’s letter out of my hand. As he pulls away the fragile paper, wet with my tears, it falls into pieces, and that’s when I truly break.
And something in me snaps.
Rage swells within my chest, to a level and degree I’ve never felt before, and as it threatens to consume me whole, I gently lower Alexander’s head from my lap to the ground and stand up, slowly, a quiet fire engulfing my insides.
I turn to Avestan with a voice as bitter as acid. “You did this.” My hand thrusts forward with all the fury in my heart and a ray of light bursts from it and strikes Avestan’s chest with explosive precision and intensity. He falls to the ground, momentarily stunned, before unleashing his own flash of black light in my direction. When it hits, the pain is excruciating but somehow welcome, because it distracts me from the real agony underneath.
“You did this,” I say again, my voice steeped in stinging, vicious despair. I keep up my assault on Avestan, sending wave after pulsing wave of searing white light directly into his miserable, shriveled heart and I will it to stop beating from the strength of my wrath alone. And I can feel it working … but at the same time I feel his energy draining my life force, too … only I won’t stop, I can’t stop, because if this is my last stand, I’ll use every last breath to save my baby and take Avestan with me. Another contraction rips through my body and I use the pain to hit Avestan again with everything I’ve got.
“Stop!”
We both hear Alenna’s voice and turn to see her standing to the right of us, eyes wide with panic, at the spectacle in front of her.
“Avestan!” she cries out in horror. “Alexander is dead! He’s gone—forever. You got what you wanted. Yet you’re killing yourself! Why won’t you stop?”
“She has to die, too,” Avestan hisses, not letting up on the bolt of black light he’s burning into me. “Alexander will feel her death, wherever he is. He has to know that I won.”
I feel Alenna’s rage ripple out in almost visible waves that roll over us with white-hot intensity. “Alexander was obsessed with her,” she spits out acidly, “so obsessed that he died for her! And now you are, too! You’re going to destroy yourself! But I’m here,” she pleads, “the girl you said you loved—the one you killed for … and we can be together now. Forever. Are you going to throw that all away? Because of her?” Her voice fades and her eyes fix on me and then flick back to Avestan with a look of hurt so wide and so deep that I feel it swallowing her from within.
But Avestan doesn’t back down from the fatal duel we’re locked in and I can feel Alenna’s fury spill over as she realizes that he’s not going to stop.
Not even for her.
She looks at Avestan, burning his black light into me, and then she looks at me as I continue to fight back with my own light, and when her eyes meet mine I feel her contempt and her fury but also something else … regret?
I don’t sense the pain anymore. I’m beyond that now, and as Avestan’s beam of black light burns through me, and I prepare to take what I know will be my final breath, fighting for my baby, I watch as Alenna does something wholly unexpected. She rushes Avestan and she holds him to her, and I see him resisting but he won’t stop burning his light into me. I sense he can’t fight off Alenna at the same time that he’s killing me, but, still, he won’t stop—not until he knows he’s won. I feel him doubling down on the energy he’s sending into me, shooting a fiery bolt with explosive force that pierces the center of my heart with searing precision. My heartbeat jolts and then slows, until gradually I sense the wounds are too great … and I know this is the end. I see her light enter his body and embrace his darkness and, with hazy amazement, I watch as their bodies start to transform before my eyes and spiral upwards, into the air.
And the last thing I see, before I take my final breath, is Edwin running towards me. His eyes follow mine up to the night sky where the spiral that was once Avestan and Alenna transforms into what can only be described as a beautiful shooting star.
Chapter Thirty-One
The Hospital
I see my mom first. She’s in the waiting room, crying, and Mark has his arm around her, looking grave. I can feel his deep love for her, and for me, and the fear in his heart—borne of painful, lasting memories of receiving bad news in hospitals, years ago, when his wife had cancer. I’ve never tuned into Chief Stephens in this way before and it brings me peace as I feel his bright aura and his devotion to my mom and the comfort they bring each other.
My mom. Oh, my mom.
The love between us glows like a bright golden sun filling the room. I send her a wave of warm white light to buoy her heart and remind her how much I love her. She looks up for a brief moment, but soon she puts her head back down in her hands and begins to cry again, silently.
The doctor walks in and she and Mark stand up and I hear her ask the doctor a question and I see the doctor shake his head and I hear her begin to sob and collapse into Mark’s arms as he holds her against him.
“What about the baby?” I hear someone ask. And this time I can feel that the doctor’s answer is a salve to my mother’s wounded heart.
“The baby survived, miraculously,” I hear the doctor say, and I grasp pieces of their conversation: It’s a girl. Healthy and fully developed despite being nearly a month premature. Your daughter was a fighter, Mrs. Jane. I think she gave her last breath to ensure the baby survived …. I’m so sorry for your loss …. There was nothing more we could do …. You say it was dry lightn
ing? I’ve only seen one other case like it before with those kinds of injuries …
“Edwin saw it happen,” my mom answers through her tears as she turns her head to look behind her and that’s when I notice that Edwin is also in the room, sitting off to the side, staring into the middle distance, his face full of anguish. “He said it struck them both as they were standing together … he found them in each other’s arms on the ground …. They were supposed to be married tomorrow ….” My mom’s voice drifts off and she begins to sob again in Mark’s arms as he holds her tight with tears escaping his eyes, too.
“Yes,” Edwin confirms quietly. “That’s what it was.” He’s silent for a moment and then he adds, almost too softly to hear, his words steeped in anguish, “I was too late … I was too late to help.”
I’ve never seen Edwin cry before. I can feel his aura, bathed in sorrow, and I want to tell him that it’s okay. I’m here. But I sense that he already knows that … he’s crying for all that was lost.
I watch everything with a curious detachment. I feel no pain, only deep, abiding love, and as I peer into their sadness I have a vision into the future of a day when they’ll all be happy again.
I see my mom holding a baby girl with my golden hair and Alexander’s deep emerald eyes. And I know it’s going to be okay because Mark is there, too, beside my mom with his arm around her, and Finn and Liz and Edwin are also there, and they all smile at Miracle Jane Alexandra Ronin (Mira for short), which my mom named her, as I told her I was planning to do.
And I see visions farther into the future with my mom and Mark raising Mira and experiencing many happy days, and Finn and Liz taking Mira to the park when she’s older, and she’s calling them Aunt Liz and Uncle Finn and she’s laughing, and so are they as they swing her up in the air between them as they walk, holding hands. And Edwin—Edwin is ever present in Mira’s life, too, and I feel his protective, comforting aura surrounding her from near and far. He smiles every time he looks at her.
Revelation (The Guardian Series Book 3) Page 14
