I was confused, trying to process all I had just heard. And the banging was getting more insistent. ‘Banging?’ I asked.
Phoenix shook his head urgently. ‘Don’t worry about that. We need to do this now!’
‘Do … what?’
I still couldn’t believe I was alive.
How did I survive seventy-one arrows?
Just the thought brought the pain back – pain I never believed I would have to remember.
‘Concentrate,’ Phoenix demanded. ‘You need to heal your wounds. I need you as strong as possible otherwise I can’t help.’
‘I don’t … understand,’ I said, struggling to speak.
He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘I’ll explain everything later. You have to trust me.’
The banging persisted and I realised now that there were other sounds too. There were people shouting from far away – people who I knew.
I remembered Lincoln’s request. I felt him through our bond despite my weakness, and his. He was still alive. I felt the small flare through our connection – he knew I was thinking of him. He was willing me on. I remembered the promise I’d made to him that I would trust Phoenix.
I nodded and closed my eyes, concentrating on my abilities, calling them up. They were sluggish and tired, but my power slowly built and started to work its way through my body, healing the worst of the injuries. I could feel Lincoln adding his own power and I tried to block him so that he kept what I knew he would need, but it took a while before I was strong enough to effectively push him away.
Finally, I opened my eyes again. ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’m starting to feel better.’
Phoenix nodded, his expression now closed off.
‘What next?’ I asked, looking around. We were back at Evelyn’s cabin, in the basement. ‘Where’s Lincoln?’
‘He’s still there.’
‘And Evelyn?’
Phoenix just nodded.
I sighed. ‘What about the kids?’
‘She let Onyx take the seventy-one, but she still has almost thirty locked up and she’s already planning to go after more.’
‘Who else is here?’ I asked, things becoming clearer. The banging I’d heard was coming from the other side of the basement door.
He shrugged. ‘The whole damn gang by now. We don’t have long before they figure a way through.’
Why is he keeping them out?
‘So we’re going back, right? We have to get the rest of those kids out of there,’ I said.
Phoenix shook his head slowly. ‘There’s something else we have to do first.’
‘What?’
What could possibly be more important?
‘It’s better if you don’t ask.’
On his last word, Phoenix was on top of me, straddling and holding me down. I was helpless to stop him, my strength no match for his. My eyes went wide when his hand closed over my mouth and nose.
I kicked out and bucked beneath him, but it was useless. He was too strong. Every movement of mine was easily counteracted and I couldn’t breathe as Phoenix suffocated me.
The solid door blocked my way to help. They would not break through in time.
I felt Phoenix shaking on top of me and his haunting eyes penetrated mine, a million words within them, yet I couldn’t pluck out one.
Was this the way I was always meant to go?
The way that had been intended for me?
I had thought for so long it would be Phoenix who would kill me. Had he only lured me back for this final, most awful, betrayal? He must have planned this. He’d wanted me dead for so long.
This is his revenge.
I stopped struggling.
This is my time. I’ve done what I could and now I will end.
I stared at him. He was crying. I didn’t understand.
The colour in my vision and the life in me began to fade away. As the last pixel of light disappeared, I was suddenly standing before my angel maker.
This time, I knew beyond all doubt – I was dead.
There was no desert. No art studio.
I was in a field. Long, air-light grass, sun shining, its heat going all the way to my bones. The pain was gone. And this was not my world.
If felt strangely like a dream, though it was not. This was something else – for starters, it almost always rained in my dreams. But just as the thought crossed my mind, the sky crackled loudly and rain began to pour.
My angel maker stood before me. He was perfectly dry, not one drop of rain touching him. His face was clearer than ever before. More human and yet less.
‘I’m dead,’ I said, the words sounding all around me.
‘Right now? Yes,’ he replied.
I spotted the odd floating things I’d seen so many times before in my visits with Uri and Nox. They hovered in the background, shimmering and jutting in an unpredictable fashion. With so much water falling, they reminded me of large jellyfish. I took a step towards them, more drawn to them than ever.
‘Child, no. Not yet,’ my angel maker said gently. But it was a command. I froze.
‘Is this heaven?’
‘Is this what heaven would be for you? A field of rain?’
‘No.’
‘Then, that is your answer.’
‘Is this the angel realm?’
‘We have no need for land and physical substance. We are beyond that.’
‘Then where?’ Even in death, he was still annoyingly cryptic.
‘Where you must be. You are within the link, the place where we can be close to you. It is neither ours, nor yours. It is a place we make together.’
Suddenly I knew. This is what it was all about. This place. This was somehow what I was.
‘Others don’t come here, do they?’ I asked.
‘No. When we must, we can simulate a place for them. A place for their trials – a dream, a vision – but no other has the ability to create space in the universe with us. You are the only one.’
I closed my eyes and intuitively knew what to do. I willed myself to see the truth – to see this place as it really was. I opened my eyes again.
The first thing I saw was the limits, as if we were on an island surrounded by … not nothingness and yet, not something either. Space unknown. Then I noticed the sun. It was much closer than it should be, and the rain I’d started stopped instantly, clearing my view to the sky.
I gasped, backing up a few steps.
The now-dusky sky was filled with rainbows. Dozens. Hundreds. Rainbows were encircling the universe, connecting everything.
‘What … What does this mean?’
‘New possibilities.’
‘For what?’
‘Many things.’
‘But I … I’m dead.’
‘For now.’
‘But Nox and Uri said this was the angel realm when they visited me, that the two realms were touching.’
My angel maker shrugged. ‘In a way, it is true. They told you what you were ready to hear. How is Evelyn?’
His change of subject surprised me. ‘She’s … Lilith has her.’
He nodded. ‘It is the way it must be. Those of us who chose our paths earliest are the strongest and Lilith was the first to exile – her power grows. Evelyn is no longer a worthy opponent. She did what she could, remarkable it was, but now it is time for this battle to finish. It is time for you to take your place.’
‘How?’
‘You have all the tools you need.’ He glanced at my wrists and my markings began to swirl. I held them up, remembering what Onyx had said.
‘The thirteenth ingredient,’ I murmured.
He actually laughed, surprising me again. ‘The only ingredient.’
I blinked. ‘But … Onyx said … Why … Why the other ingredients, then?’
‘Humans like to complicate things. It is time to go.’
‘Do you care?’ I asked quickly, not knowing what was going to happen, where I was going to go.
‘For many thin
gs,’ he replied.
Desperate for something to make me whole again I pushed. ‘For me? Do you care what happens to me?’
He considered me for a moment. ‘Enough to allow what I know must now happen,’ he said, fire erupting behind his eyes.
When I just stared at him, he looked beyond me. ‘Go. Win the war and ask what you will afterwards.’
He pushed a finger over my heart and I felt something heavy thump into me, throwing me clear of the universal island and into the abyss.
I floated.
Another slam.
Air rushed into my lungs. So much, I thought they would explode.
They didn’t.
I was forced to breathe.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
‘Oh, leave me not in this eternal woe, For if thou diest, my Love, I know not where to go.’
John Keats
My lungs sucked in air greedily. It hurt. Every breath harder and faster than the last, trying to sate my oxygen-starved body.
Someone was with me, coaxing me. A low voice, speaking constantly, calling me. A hand touched me.
So familiar.
It brushed the hair from my face, shaking. The voice continued to murmur in quivering broken gasps, like crying.
Phoenix.
My body was coming back to life. I started to open my eyes, but as I did, I felt a terrible – and vital – snap.
The scream that escaped my lips was shrill.
It felt like I would never stop – could never stop – screaming. The pain went beyond the physical, beyond anything I’d ever known. I would have rather suffered an eternity of flying arrows than another second of this agony.
I was lost. Taken.
‘Breathe. You have to breathe, Violet. Please, God, just let her breathe!’ Phoenix cried out. He was shaking me.
What’s happening to me?
I managed to open my eyes. Phoenix’s body sagged. ‘Thank you, God,’ he whispered. And then, before I could scream again, before I could cry, or make any sense of what was going on, his hands went to my chest. The impact was like lightning.
I sucked in a sharp breath, my mind and body in extreme overload.
No death should last so long. Surely the end was near.
But what I saw was not the end. It was something altogether new. Phoenix’s power shimmered all around him. I’d always seen the moving shadows that followed him, often with swirls of gold running through them, like spun toffee. He had told me once that he inherited them from his mother – but this was different. The shadows were gone.
What came from him now looked like black crystal fire. Dark – but beautifully so, with sharp lines and a reflective quality, it was like the midnight you long to see. And from within the flames dazzling silver strands exploded like fireworks.
They encircled us, bound us. Left him slowly.
And came to me.
At the core of Phoenix’s power tornado, something hovered, reminding me of the reflections I always saw in the angel realm – if that was the right thing to call it any more.
Phoenix was struggling above me, unusually weakened and looking like he had used everything he had to put on this extraordinary light show. He stumbled back.
As he did … I remembered.
‘You killed me,’ I whispered. The pain that I’d been feeling since I first woke was continuing to build. It was insufferable.
‘I’m dying again,’ I moaned. I wanted it to happen soon, wanted this pain to end.
‘Relax,’ he said.
Before I could explain that was impossible, I felt the reality of what he’d done to me. A new and strange presence moved through me. It was foreign and my body began to violently spasm, trying to reject it, but another part, my angelic part, made room and pulled it close.
I could feel the power it offered. And more.
It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced except for with one other. An angel. I could sense Phoenix in a way I’d never done before. My heart broke for him. So much time. So much pain. Too much rejection.
I knew what he had done.
I grabbed his arm.
‘New death?’ I gasped, finally understanding, the unbearable pain still growing.
Coldness spread through me like burning ice.
He smiled sadly. ‘And new life,’ he whispered.
Tears rolled down my face. ‘You gave me your essence.’
‘Shh,’ he soothed. ‘It was the only way to release you from our bond. We still have one, but it’s different now. This one cannot kill you. You’re free.’
I closed my eyes. My body bucked. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. Phoenix’s essence was changing me, but that wasn’t what was causing the world-shattering pain that was consuming me.
I heard the banging again, but this time it was from above. They were breaking through the ceiling.
Phoenix looked up, frustrated. ‘The room is a vault!’ he yelled.
‘Let us in there, you bastard!’ Steph screamed.
‘Eden, are you okay?’ Spence’s voice followed.
I started to shake all over. ‘I’m cold,’ I said.
Phoenix turned back to me and attempted to hold me down, but it only got worse. My body started convulsing as if it were rejecting my very existence.
My eyes shot open.
Oh. My. God.
I grabbed at my chest. At my heart. I clawed at it, feeling as if it had burned away to nothing.
‘I died!’ I gasped. I turned my wide eyes to Phoenix. ‘I died!’ I screamed, the pain and the truth tumbling down on me.
Phoenix was wordless.
‘No! Tell me, no!’ I begged.
No words. He just stared at me.
‘No!’ I screamed.
But Phoenix didn’t need to say it.
I pushed my power out, searched everywhere for the link. I beckoned my soul and cried out for his. I pleaded, I begged, I cried.
Nothing.
Nothing but a billowing coldness that blasted me, freezing me to the core.
I rolled off the table I had been lying on and dropped to the ground, gagging, not wanting the air that continued to enter my lungs and torture me with life.
‘No,’ I gulped. ‘No, no, no!’ My head shook trying to make it so. ‘No, no, no!’ I gasped, again and again. ‘No!’
But there would only be one answer for me.
Yes.
The connection was gone.
I had died …
Lincoln’s soul had shattered.
He was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
‘What can be worse; Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned.’
John Milton
Phoenix held me from behind, his arm around my waist, as I collapsed to the ground and screamed with everything I had.
Every second that passed was a long, unbearable eternity without him. I couldn’t go on. I couldn’t possibly be expected to breathe, to live, without him. What was left of my soul battered me violently, demanding to know where its counterpart was, blaming me for its loss.
But he was nowhere to be found.
I grabbed at my hair, ripping clumps of it out as I grappled desperately for sanity. And failed.
Phoenix held on as I struggled against him.
First absent-mindedly and uncontrolled, but then, along with a dawning realisation, my screams focused on him.
‘You did this!’ I accused. I didn’t even sound like myself. ‘You killed me!’
He continued to hold me up.
I flipped around and jumped on top of him using strength that was not there. I don’t even remember the first punch, or how many times I hit him, all I know is that he just lay there and let me until he was bleeding badly and I finally fell on top of him, crying.
He pulled me close, held me tight.
I screamed and cried. I screamed and cried.
Hours passed.
I heard the intermittent banging on the door as Steph and Spence and whoever else
was out there tried to get in. But it was all so distant now. I lost track of reality and writhed with the pain and loss. The misery of everything Lincoln and I were and would never be again overwhelmed me.
Phoenix held me silently, so tightly I was sure if he let go my body would fall apart.
Finally, thoughts started to connect to form broken questions.
‘Why?’ I spat out, the one word breaking me all over again.
Was it revenge?
Phoenix kept his arms around me as he spoke. ‘It was the only way. We thought of every alternative but you needed the bond with him first to survive the arrows and this was the only way to release you from our physical connection.’
No.
‘We? Lincoln … He knew?’
‘I told him you were our only hope to destroy Lilith. He wasn’t surprised. He said Dapper had told him something before you left the city, something else that made him believe you were the key to her destruction.’
Dapper had always had suspicions about the thirteenth ingredient. He must have told Lincoln he thought it could be me.
‘My blood,’ I lifted a wrist then slapped it back down. ‘The markings are poison. I’m the goddamn apple, snake, whatever!’ I cried.
Phoenix nodded sombrely. ‘They told me when I brought you here. Your blood is lethal to exiles in human form. Angels in human form, too, I would guess. That’s what Onyx told you, isn’t it?’
I nodded.
He sighed. ‘Lincoln and I knew that if I tried to help you, Lilith would turn on me. She has maternal power over me. If she chose, she could force me to inflict wounds on you or she could just kill me. I told Lincoln I knew how to break the connection so that no matter what happened to me, you would be safe. When I told him what it involved he said a source had hinted as much to him, but as far as he knew no exiles were capable of sharing their essence.’ Phoenix half smiled, bitterly. ‘But then, I’ve always been different.’
I remembered how relentless Lincoln had been in his quest to chase down sources and informants before leaving the city.
I’m such a fool.
‘When Lincoln drove me out of here the other night, we talked, we fought … we reached an agreement.’ Phoenix’s hand moved towards my face but did not touch. ‘We knew no matter what we said to you, you would still go there to save those kids – you would’ve just insisted on doing it without the soul-bond and we couldn’t risk that.’
Endless: Violet Eden Chapters: Book Four Page 30
