"I wouldn't do that if I were you," a woman's voice says from behind me. Luna's voice. And the ice in that voice chills my blood, sending tingles shooting across my scalp and down my shoulders.
I spin on my heels, hands reflexively going for two daggers. Luna stands in the doorway, but two big men armed with long Bowie knives stand between me and her. One goes down immediately as my flung dagger buries itself in his chest, but the other merely steps in front of Luna without coming at me.
That makes me pause. Bad mistake. Coughing from the man at Luna's feet draws my eyes, and I see him pulling my dagger out of his chest before climbing to his feet.
He looks fine, but Talon is overcome with coughing. Dammit, a Revenant...
The grin on Luna's face freezes me, like the bird before the cobra strikes. But only for a moment, because I know something she doesn't. I look her in the eyes, feeling a confidence I've never felt before, born of making an irreversible decision.
She sneers at my rebellious glare. "I see the scared waif has finally grown up. You have a spine now. It won't do you any good. Kill them both."
Before the two Revenants take their first step toward us, though, I'll show Luna just what decision I've made.
I grin at her as the word falls from my lips like an atom bomb: "Archimedes."
Talon has just enough time to scream "No!" before the world around us seems to shatter and explode into pain and rainbow-colored flames.
Chapter 24
Something wet is in my eyes. That's the first thing I notice. The second thing is pain, fiery pain, in my left arm and my chest. I try to move my right hand up to wipe my eyes, but something's pinning it. I take a deep breath, quieting my fears. I push as hard as I can with my right arm and left shoulder.
There's a cracking sound, and whatever's pinning me gives way suddenly, crashing to the floor, and I fall with it. The pain of landing on my left shoulder, jostling my arm, elicits a scream I cut off mid-yell. Biting my lip against it, I finally wipe my eyes. My hand comes away bloody, but not too bad. Scalp laceration, my jumbled mind tells me.
I open my eyes. The vast room is basically gone, the cylindrical wall blown out and filling what was the corridor running around it. In the room's center, a swirling multicolored ball of vapor floats. I don't know what it is, but it throbs like a thunderstorm-torn sky.
Or like the pain in my arm. I look down and see it resting at an odd angle. It's definitely broken. Odd—I thought that'd hurt more. Perhaps when the shock wears off.
Talon. The thought hits me and it shoves aside any consideration for myself. I spin toward where he'd been standing, but have to stop myself as the world around me reels and keeps spinning for a moment longer. More carefully, I turn.
There's only a hole where he'd been. "Talon!"
I rush to the ragged edge, ignoring the pain it causes, and collapse to my knees. Looking down, the hole fades into darkness some twenty feet in, and I can't see the bottom. I scream his name again, willing the hole to spit him up and give him back.
A familiar-sounding cough draws me away from the edge. The rubble is thick, the air is dense with dust and smoke, but I see some plywood and cement fragments moving. One-armed, I pull away the detritus. After a minute, the thinned rubble rises, then a figure bursts out like a zombie rising from the grave. Talon draws a breath of smoky air and his whole body is wracked with coughing.
But he's alive. The exploding soul cage must have blown him away from me before part of the ceiling crashed through the floor where he'd stood.
He looks me up and down, eyes locking on my bent and twisted left arm, and his coughing stops. But then, before my eyes, his pallid complexion flushes. The crinkles under his eyes and their accompanying gray bags fade. His breathing becomes even and regular. Even the sparkle I remember returns to his eyes as he smiles at me.
"I feel like a million bucks. You look like hell."
I smile through the throbbing pain in my arm. "Feel like hell. You look delish. Does this mean it worked?"
He stands and dusts himself off. "It must. The shard is shattered, and that bit of my soul with my Gift was released with its demise. One hell of an explosion, though. Where's Luna?"
Luna—I'd forgotten about her. Talon, now stronger, too, helps me dig through rubble. It only takes a few seconds to see where she and her Revenants lay half buried. Her two goons are beginning to stir, but from where I see her arm sticking out from under rubble, there's nothing.
The two goons manage to unearth themselves, and Talon and I stand side by side, weapons ready as they look first at each other, then at us.
The swirling, undulating globe at the room's center pulses, expanding several feet in all directions, and a half-visible shockwave rides outward from it. When it washes over the Revenants, the result is immediate. Both throw back their heads and scream. Bits of flesh begin falling from cheeks, chins, hands, and turn to dust as they drift toward the floor. Before our very eyes, the process speeds up until, in the end, only ashes and echoes mark the fact that they ever were there.
"Luka."
Talon's response is immediate. "Go get him. I'll see about Luna and take care of her if she still lives."
"But—"
"Go! You won't get a second chance to say goodbye. I'll be fine."
If the connections are severed, Luka's time is finite. I run from the room. I take the off-branching corridor labelled Area 5, which is where the main assault was going on when Talon and I got separated from the rest. The evidence of battle is everywhere. The dead are scattered thinly, scorch marks and bullet holes more thickly. And everywhere, half the ceiling has come down in the aftermath of Archimedes. Every thirty seconds, I half-perceive a warping of the air as a silvery shockwave streaks outward from the disk's core. Each time, more screams that sound all too familiar echo to me from this corridor or that, but I don't slow. Running with a broken arm hurts, too, but it's only pain. I taste blood from biting my lip, but I carry on.
"Mirella!" The welcome voice reaches me from a side corridor as I race past, and I have to stop and turn around. There, behind makeshift fortifications, my people. Birka pokes her head up, smiling, as I approach. Then her smile vanishes. "My son?"
I force a smile. "Alive and better than ever. Archimedes did wonders for him."
She purses her lips, but nods. "I thought that's what happened."
"Where's Luka?"
She can't meet my gaze, and my stomach sinks until she says, "In that side room. Took a round and isn't healing right."
He's not dust... not yet. I rush through the doorway, ignoring her trailing questions. I find a small room, maybe ten-by-ten feet. Luke is on a large folding table of the sort one might find at any office or cheap buffet. On the floor around him, crimson circles gleam and two people stand working furiously on him, sans anesthesia.
He turns his head as I enter, and he smiles through gritted teeth. His complexion is waning fast. "You had us worried, Mirella. Thought we'd lost you."
As I watch, blood continues to ooze from a hole a half-inch across, the clothing around it fused and burnt into his skin. Someone's Gift hit him full-force.
"Any idea why I'm not shrugging this off?" Anything more he wanted to say is cut short in pain as the medics cut away his burnt uniform and the flesh it fused to.
Outside, fresh screams mark a decided reduction in the din of battle farther down the corridor. Familiar screams. I almost pity those Revenants. Almost.
"We succeeded. We severed the connections between the hubs and Talon. Took out half of Mortals Landing in the process. The Revenants—" My throat chokes off my words as it tightens, dry and brittle.
"Are dying," he finishes for me. "The newest are the first to go, it sounds like."
He was the very first, but he's closer to the heart of Mortals Landing than the ones that just passed into dust and ash down the hallway. He must be right.
I nod, biting my lip as I inch toward him. But I can't take it anymore. My feet rush to him of t
heir own accord and I drape myself over the first man I ever loved. Sobs take my breath away. The feeling of helplessness is almost the worst part of this. He's dying, and I can do nothing.
"I love you, Mirella." His soft words match the gentle touch of his arms as he wraps them feather-light around me. "I always have, since that first moment I saw you among the mortals. I'm glad you'll have Talon to mourn me with. If it had to be anyone..."
I grip him more tightly. Say it. Damn it, say it! The words sit on my tongue, waiting to burst forth. But I'm being ridiculous. I'll never have another chance, and most people don't get that much. "I love you, Luka. I don't want you to go."
"I know. But being dead wasn't so bad, and I'm ready to go back to it. I'll only miss you, love. But we'll see each other again—eventually."
His breaths are coming faster now, more shallow. With my head on his chest, his heartbeat is clear, hammering like a hummingbird's wings. Then, it skips one beat.
Luka gasps. His grip on me tightens for the shortest moment. When I look up, he's looking down at me. Our gazes meet, and I don't look away. He's a warrior. I'm a warrior. I won't flinch from it. And I want to be the last thing he sees in this world, me and my love for him. I will it to show through my eyes, windows to my soul. The love in his is clear.
One gasp. It lets out slowly. The hammering heart beneath my ear loses its rhythm, and then there is no rhythm at all. His pupils grow to consume his irises, but before they finish growing, I feel the gentle touch of ash on my cheek.
Only then do I close my eyes. I keep them closed until there's nothing beneath me but the table he once laid on.
Once the Revenants pass, the fighting becomes one-sided. I join the battle, and it takes less than an hour for Talon to find me and join me in the fight. The Revenants are gone now, and Dawson is holed up in Birka's manor, surrounded by Birka's loyalists—now joined by ravening hordes of Wraiths and Shades who didn't appreciate Dawson's dictatorship, fighting side by side. It's only a matter of time.
Once my anger is sated, the heat leaves me and I collapse to the street curb to sit. For the first time, I can look around me and see what's become of Mortals Landing. Talon sits next to me, and looks. The silence stretches on, neither of us willing to break it. I'm afraid of what happens when we do.
A thought strikes me like a bullet to my brain: The streets look just like in my vision. Maybe fewer people running around, but in all other regards, the match is uncanny.
But instead of trying to change that vision, I made it happen.
"Why the sudden frown?" Talon's shoulder bumps mine.
It should hurt, but someone healed it during the fighting. I wish I knew who, so I could thank them. I take a deep breath, part of me mourning the death of the silence we shared. "All the people who died here—they're my responsibility. Their blood's on my hands."
His hand finds my shoulder, squeezing. "Ella, this is the only time I'll ever say this, but you're stupid."
"What?" I blink.
"You're being stupid. You freed them all—and all of us—from a war we couldn't win. You saved the world from Dawson. Gave peace to the Revenants. All at great personal cost. You're no monster."
"I feel like one."
His head rests on mine, reassuring me in a way I've never felt before. "Even the enemy's history books will mark you the hero of this tale, I promise you that."
"The winners write the history books." It's something my mom once said, I think.
"Those ones will, too."
Silence stretches again, welcome like a blanket on a cold night, and I'm content to sit with Talon and simply be.
Chapter 25
Birka, Talon and I stand on the landing at her manor, once again her own, and watch the frenzied activity below. It mirrors what's going on throughout Mortals Landing, and indeed, in all magical places around the world. The victors take the spoils—that age-old proverb plays out again now among the populace, though Birka has done her best to mitigate it. There's only so much one can do to prevent that kind of rage from finding a release, though she knows any future peace will rely on some restraint right now.
Restraint for the followers, at least. For Dawson, on display in chains in the yard until he can be transported somewhere more secure, there is no restraint. Passersby throw things at him, until guards shoo them away—though none too diligently.
I see Birka's narrowed eyes locked onto Dawson. It makes me uncomfortable. "Dawson sure surrendered quickly once his ultimate weapon was gone."
Her raptor eyes don't budge. "Thanks to you."
"It wasn't my code word." I'm eager to share responsibility for the carnage that played out across Mortals Landing when its heart shattered.
"Wrong." Birka finally turns away from Dawson to face Talon and me. "My word of power would only have shut off the lights, basically. All the rest—the explosion, the Revenants turning to dust, the release of my son's Gift—was because you willed it. You, daughter of Death. You changed Fate for thousands, today, and only you could have."
Once, I'd have retreated from that cocky, self-assured gaze and her authoritarian tone. I don't even shrink back, though. I've said all that to myself a thousand times, by now. I just nod, my suspicions confirmed. I'm not the same person I was when Luka found me in the city park.
Talon's arm, around my waist, reassuringly pulls me in a little tighter. I don't need reassurance, but I do need him, and I appreciate his concern. Always, his concern is for me. We sit for a while with my head on his shoulder as the couriers and messengers come and go, each with some communique of vital importance for the queen to sign or decide upon. Birka, the once and future queen, handles the chaos like a pro. She is one, and though this may be the largest crisis she's faced, it's not the first. It won't be the last.
One courier, however, stops before Talon and me. He stands politely waiting. I nudge Talon.
"Oh. What is it?"
The courier hands Talon a slip of paper, and he holds it where we can both read it. There, in black and white, is the report on Luna's capture. Talon had turned her in to the first friendly patrol he found, and from there she'd been detained in a telekinetic-safe room. When she awoke, she started demanding to see us. Not that she's in any position to make demands.
"Thank you." Talon waves the courier off, then turns to me. "Do you want to humor her?"
"Why not?"
A bubblecar takes us three blocks to a building I don't recognize, but he tells me it's their version of a supermax prison. Only the best accommodations for the star guests.
We're waved through with only a cursory check to ensure Talon is who he seems. With all the chaos going on, it's the best we can expect, I suppose. Once inside, a uniformed guard leads us to a single room with nothing in it. Plexiglass a foot thick detains the prisoner rather than bars. Runes faintly glow on the glass, and inside with Luna, other runes glow on the walls and floor. Luna stands in the center, while a built-in bed platform occupies one side of her small cell.
When her eyes lock with mine, I see murder in them. I can't resist a jab at her expense. "How's that impotent rage taste?"
"Impotent? Vile, evil thing. I did what was needed, but you? You almost single-handedly destroyed both our worlds. And all because you couldn't have it for yourself." She spits on the glass, the disgusting glob glistening as it slowly runs down the window.
Talon surprises me as he bursts out laughing. "Destroyed? Have you seen what's going on out there? No, of course you haven't. Well, you wanted to unify the Shades and Wraiths. As it turns out, you've succeeded. Just not quite in the way you intended. Only a few fanatics on the run remain, Luna. The rest aren't Shades or Wraiths anymore—we're something new. I ought to thank you for that."
Luna's return laugh is dark and bitter, in stark contrast to Talon's. "You think you've unified the world? Those 'few fanatics' will never rest. None of our kind will ever be safe from them, you'll never catch them, and you'll never see them coming. But what more should I expect from a
daughter of Kasik? This is your legacy—endless strife and suffering."
She's conveniently ignoring the fact that she's Kasik's daughter. What she doesn't know is that I'm not. But that's okay with me. I know differently, but I won't tell her that. She's not the one to be trusted with that kind of information, even if it would feel oh-so-good to rub it in her smug face. The people I trust know the truth, and that's enough for me.
To Luna, I smirk and shrug. "That hasn't been proven. Think what you want, from behind your glass, little zoo girl."
Her eyes narrow, and she lunges at the glass like an insane person, bouncing off it and landing on her back. She doesn't get up, just lays on the floor panting.
Talon puts one arm over my shoulders. "C'mon. She's lost her marbles. The future she wanted is dead and gone. We have a better one to build toward, now."
I nod, and we turn away from the past, leaving it behind us in a cold, barren cell. "We'll build it together, with you by my side."
"Always." He doesn't miss a stride as he kisses my temple, and a thrill shoots through me. We'll explore that more later, but for now, there's work to be done. The future is being built. There will be struggles, trials, and sorrows—but for the first time in a long time, the future is brighter than the past.
All it takes to make that happen is the will to make it so.
<<<>>>
About the Author
J.A. Culican is a USA Today Bestselling author of the middle grade fantasy series Keeper of Dragons. Her first novel in the fictional series catapulted a trajectory of titles and awards, including top selling author on the USA Today bestsellers list and Amazon, and a rightfully earned spot as an international best seller. Additional accolades include Best Fantasy Book of 2016, Runner-up in Reality Bites Book Awards, and 1st place for Best Coming of Age Book from the Indie book Awards.
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