My words come out dark. “You do not love me.”
“How can you say that, Amelia?” He looks away from me. “You know I don’t want to, Amelia, but I have to.” He looks back at me, his eyes wide with tears he cannot cry because he is dead. “You don’t understand how much I want to end my suffering, and you’re the only one who can do that for me. That’s why I made all of this for you, these ripe plums, these bloomed flowers. You’ll have a beautiful place to die and turn into a Shadowman, and I can take you and guide you and love you.”
A strangled laugh slips out, one that must have been building in me this entire time. “Love me? You do not love me at all. Your Exaltation has led you into believing that you do.” I bite my bottom lip to suppress further laughter. “I understand you’re in pain, but I do not want to be your Exaltation! I don’t want to be anyone’s Exaltation!”
Shadows overtake Oliver’s entire demeanor. His gray eyes narrow and grow cold, and his mouth slips into a frown that is worse than Theosodore’s jagged smile. “You don’t love me then. If you did, you would want to do anything and everything to end my suffering, knowing that there is a life for you after this that does not have to interrupt the life you are living now.”
Our surroundings shift. Storm clouds overtake the clear blue sky, spitting out lightning and heavy rain. The plum trees shake themselves of their leaves, the plums dropping from the branches and landing as rotten plum spatter. The flowers wither into brown husks, their delicate frameworks beaten away by the heavy rainfall. The gentle heat turns searing. Ten minutes out here will graze my flesh with cherry-colored burns.
Oliver takes a step toward me, trapping me so that I cannot sidle away from him. He slams his lips against mine and thrusts his tongue in my mouth. I press my hands against his chest to push him off. He grabs my wrists and stays me. I bite his tongue. He slaps me. The slap feels like acid, and I cry out.
“Damn it, Amelia. Give me this. Let me enjoy you before you die.”
“No!” I ram my fist into his stomach.
Oliver grunts, but doesn’t let go of me. The force was too weak.
“Please, Oliver!”
He ignores my protests and presses his lips back to mine, one hand holding my wrist, the other wandering downward. He grips my bottom and holds me against the railing with the weight of his body. He licks my lips and pulls away, smiling.
“You’re beautiful when your face is so flushed.” He lets go of my bottom and brings up that hand to stroke my face. His fingers burn on my skin. “Tell me what you want, Amelia.” His tone is mocking.
I attempt to push him away, but he forces more of his weight on me. “I don’t want this!”
“Then what do you want? You want something. I think you want this.”
“I want things to be the way they were before!”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible.”
Oliver grabs my wrists and throws me on to the wood. I scramble away. I can’t take Oliver on by myself. What was I thinking? He throws himself on top of me, pulling a scream from deep within my belly. He kisses me again, fiercer this time. His teeth graze my lips, his tongue chokes me, and his hands wander to places they do not have permission to be. I flail beneath him in a pathetic attempt to get him to release me. This is just like that time with Theosodore in the library. Exactly like that time. But this is Oliver, and when I’m with Oliver, I can’t think well.
Oliver snatches my hand and pulls it downward until it cups the thing between his legs. I look away, squeezing my eyes shut. “Why? Why are you doing this to me?”
“It’s going to take a while for you to turn, Amelia. I don’t plan to burn you because I want to be beside you and only you. I don’t want a pile of ashes. So let’s enjoy this while we can, hmm?”
He flips up my petticoats, undoes his trousers, and I lay back, squeeze my eyes shut, and let him have me. The pain is excruciating. I bite my bottom lip and sob. This is nothing like our first time. He finishes fast, and he pulls my limp body up and holds me, his head resting on my shoulder. “Thank you, Amelia. Thank you.”
He kisses me again, his lips rough and swollen, and I let him. I bring up a trembling hand that forms a fist. I tap his back; I can’t even punch him. Oliver grabs my hands and draws me to my feet. Pain grips my lower back. “Are you ready, Amelia? Are you ready to die?”
I almost nod, but when I look out into the stormy surroundings, I can’t become complacent with death. Not right now, not when so much is dependent on a love struck girl with a special, cursed power. A power that can stop Oliver. There is no time to become a victim.
Oliver raises a hand. The gazebo begins to quake, and through the white flooring erupt roots that capture me in the same cage Colette found herself victim to. Oliver produces a dagger, sending a thousand screams through me. How Colette managed to escape, I will never know. These roots are far more binding than a corset, and with the searing heat and the roughness digging into my skin, I fear I will faint in a matter of minutes.
Oliver touches the point of the dagger right where my heart is. “The heart is a rather hideous looking organ, but sentimentalists have turned it into a symbol of love.” Either he is tapping the point against my heart, or the heavy, fast beating is bouncing the dagger against me. “Many believe all emotion originates in the brain, yet, when we feel immense pain, the pain starts in the heart. Isn’t that peculiar? When you’re in so much grief, your heart hurts just as much. My heart doesn’t beat, though. I don’t feel the pain there. I feel the pain somewhere else.”
This is my last chance to convince him--otherwise, I will have to kill him. I have control of my fire. All I would have to do is imagine that single candle, and the fire will be there for me.
“I feel the pain in my heart. I feel it everywhere,” I say. “I feel the pain for you, knowing you want to relieve yourself of pain by choosing to destroy everything that you were.” I gulp. “It doesn’t have to be this way…Olly.”
His eyes fly open, his pupils shrinking to tiny pinpoints. “It has to be this way!”
He pulls the dagger back. The snarl coating his demeanor, the rage in his eyes, the lost air about him--they all tell me there truly is no turning back for him. I swallow tears as I blacken the world around me and conjure the single candle. I wrap my hand around the fire and scream as it touches my already raw skin from the searing heat of the sun.
When the stormy gray overtakes the blackness, I find the roots are in ashes around me, and I am on top of Oliver with the dagger in my hands, the tip pressing against his forehead. If his heart is already dead, then stabbing it will do no good. His brain must surely be alive though--something in Shadowmen must be alive to make them as animated as they are.
“A-Amelia,” Oliver says, his hands shaking, his eyes wide with fear. “Don’t do this. Please don’t do this. Please…” He draws his head in to kiss me, but it falls back down.
“You told me you didn’t want to kill me. Well, I don’t want to kill you, either, but you have left me no choice.” My tears fall on his face in little droplets. They are now his tears, the ones he is unable to cry. “This is what you’ve done to me.”
“Amelia--”
I cut him off by shoving the dagger into his forehead. He screams, and his body spasms. His gray eyes cloud over with black. Tarry black blood seeps from every opening in his body. I pull myself off him, leaving the dagger where it had stuck, and scream as his body disintegrates into charcoal black smoke that flies off into the now-winter sky. Nothing remains of Oliver, not even the clothes he wore. There is only the dagger, laying still and alone on the floor of the gazebo.
A torrent of tears flood my face, the most tears I think I have ever cried. I cry so hard that I fall to the floor and press my forehead against one of the wooden planks. My head pounds, but I let every single emotion tear through me, until I am reduced to a quiet, sobbing heap.
There is nothing left of Oliver. Nothing. He is nothingness, just like Sash, like Asch, like any other Sh
adowman who has died in this senseless battle. Everything that he was, everything that he could have been, gone, just like that. There will never be another person like him. There will never be--
I grab the dagger, tempted to tear out my heart in the hopes of destroying myself along with my pain. “Damn it, Olly! Why did you lead me to this? Why did you make me do it?”
I toss the dagger over the side of the gazebo, retreating back to the sobbing state I find comforting. Tearing out my own heart will not end the pain. Using pain to replace pain never does. As my sobs quiet down, a heavy hand presses upon my shoulder.
“Amelia?”
It is Theosodore.
“Amelia?”
When I give no response, he lifts me in his arms and cradles me as he steps down the gazebo steps.
“It’s over. Those who cling to Purgatory’s ideals are gone, and those who wanted anything to cling have retreated elsewhere. The city is in shambles, but it’s over.”
“How is it over so fast?” I ask. “I just—I just killed Oliver.”
“I am very powerful, Amelia. As is Colette. We killed the ones who wouldn’t relent, and those too weak to defend themselves against us gave up.”
I should be happy that it’s all over. Every bit of happiness, however, has been drained from me. There is no chemical in my body that will make me happy ever again.
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
“I will have to go into hiding. I think I will retreat to Belhame where no one knows me and where I can start anew.”
“Are you going to find a new victim for your Exaltation?”
His jagged smile returns. “In time, I will. For now, I will concentrate on rebuilding. I cannot go back to Cathedral Reims. Pope Gilford knows what I am. He has known for a while. Sneaky Bastard. He took it upon himself to stop this by trying to call down the might of Deus, as though He will intervene. That man has no more connection with Deus than a pauper does.”
“What of Colette?”
Theosodore’s smile drops. “She died fighting a powerful Shadowman. Not Gisbelle, of course. She was easy to dispose of.”
I should scream again. I have no energy, no will. She is another casualty. Just another casualty. But then, she hasn’t been Colette in a while, has she? She died when she turned. She was never Colette after that. How could she be? Her wants as a Shadowman differed from her wants as a human being. Her Exaltation would have eventually seen to that.
“And what of me?”
“That’s your decision from here. Be grateful for free will, Amelia, because when you die, your will is bound to Deus and Deus alone.”
“My decision from here. The only thing I have to go back to is Nathaniel. Will you take me to him?”
Theosodore sets me down at the entrance to the south transept. “I can’t. You are on your own from here.”
I look at the enormous portal doors. I have been on my own since I left three years ago. This is the first time in three years that I wish to go back in time and stop myself from leaving.
Regrets are useless, though. Repentance is what I will use the rest of my life for, even if this means seeking forgiveness in the darkest of places.
Chapter Thirty
Theosodore was right. This was my decision. Even if he was the one who led me here, I still chose to come back, even with the knowledge of what waits for me.
I sit in the basement with Nathaniel, huddled around a dying taper whose light wanes with the passing minutes. Theosodore had no reason to watch me walk free, just as Pope Gilford had no reason to let him walk free, at least without some sort of stipulation. The Professed Order is out with Pope Gilford gathering the witches Theosodore unveiled in exchange for keeping his life, a life Pope Gilford mistakenly believes belongs to a witch. Theosodore could have kept my being a witch a secret, but I doubt he did, even though I was the one who stopped the Shadowmen, even though we shared that same goal.
I am certain I am branded as Theosodore’s Exaltation. I can feel it in my bones. Freed from Oliver, I am his. He can’t have me, though. He will be all the way on the other side of Warbele, lusting after something he can never get. The only way to break that brand is to stop wanting me. That will not happen for Theosodore. The one other option, then, is to kill me. It will be only a matter of time before Pope Gilford comes back and accuses me of being a witch. Then I will be tortured. I will not let that happen, though. I will show everyone that I am a witch without fight.
Oliver told me nothing has to change when I become a Shadowman. This is a lie. Everything changed when Colette turned. I will accept becoming a Shadowman though. This life…it is no longer for me. This life never was for me. Life as a Shadowman may offer more stability because I will be bound by the will of someone else, and not bound by my own earthly wills. Serving Deus, too, will allow me to seek the repentance I desire. This life has nothing more to offer. I have nothing more to offer it.
Nathaniel falls into my lap, and faces my stomach, his hands curled beneath his head. “Amelia, what will we do from here, when they come back?”
I tangle my fingers in his hair, relishing in the warmth radiating from his scalp, the warmth I will no longer have when I turn. Best to cherish it now. “Cardinal Brandon, I’m certain, has something planned for you.” Theosodore had no reason to let Pope Gilford know Nathaniel is a witch. I am confident he is safe.
Nathaniel flips on his back, his eyes widening with worry. “Something planned for me? What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me, Nat. There is something out there for me. I don’t know what, but there is.”
He bolts upright and throws his arms around me. “Don’t talk like that, Amelia. Please? I can’t take this anymore. I can’t take not knowing what’s going to happen to us next. I need you.” He pulls away, his face painted with tears. I hope one day that same face will be painted with nothing but the smiles of a better life. “Why do you have to do this to me?”
The doors to the common area burst open. In white robes stands Nathaniel’s answer. Pope Gilford points at me, then gestures me forward, and I know this is it. This is the end of Amelia Gareth.
#
Pope Gilford has had boarded me in a cell for the past week, keeping me alive with the barest minimum of food and water. It’s enough so that I am breathing, but not so much that I don’t feel the pain of my own existence. I haven’t felt much this past week. No bitterness or resentment, anger or sadness. Nothing. I have only wished for this day, today, to come. The day I will be executed. I will not be burned. Mother Aurelia begged for a humane death: beheading.
My jailer brings me my final cup of water. I never caught his name, or even what he looks like. He is a faceless thing. “That pretty little head of yours will be lying in a cushioned casket. You’ll be all but forgotten.”
I hold no ill-will toward him.
“Oh, and you have several visitors.” He clinks his keys against the door, teasing me with tempting freedom I no longer care for. “Make it meaningful.”
His laughter echoes down the corridor.
A slat opens from the outside. In peeks the teary blues of Nathaniel. “I-I--” He cracks, covering his face with a dirty hand. “I should have saved you.” A pair of unlined hands gently move him out of the way. Cardinal Brandon’s eyes replace Nathaniel’s.
“He will miss you, you know.”
“I know.” I raise my voice. “I love you, Nat. Always remember that. I will be here for you, and some day, I will come back to you, one way or another. I promise that.”
He speaks up, though his voice is small. “Promise?”
“I will come back.” And I will because I can. “This will not be the end.”
It is never the end for a Shadowman until all that is left is nothingness.
Cardinal Brandon speaks up. “Also, I am resigning from being a Cardinal. I will simply be Pastor Brandon, from now on.” He lowers his voice. “I’m going to--I’m going to open a sort of safe house for witches. Nathaniel
will be able to participate. It is now sanctioned law that all witches be executed, and the search for them is more fierce than ever. I have done things in the past I am not proud of. This is my way to repent.”
I smile at Pastor Brandon. “That sounds like a wonderful idea.” I close my eyes, imagining a safe place for Nathaniel. “That is a wonderful way to repent.” I open them. “Tell Isis to take care of Nat, Pastor Brandon. He will need her, now more than ever.”
“I will.”
I raise my voice again. “Nat, no matter what happens in your life, hold on to all your feelings. Don’t let a single one slip from your grasp.”
They leave me alone.
Hours pass. Mother Aurelia appears around what must be evening, for I can hear the bells ring for the third time, signaling evening Liturgy. My execution awaits me, and I suppose she is brazen enough to fetch me.
“Amelia,” she says, her voice soft and sad, “it is time.”
She opens my cell, bounds my wrists with rope, and takes me down the corridor.
“This is no easy thing for me, Amelia, to see one of my own girls executed, in spite of innocence filling every bit of her soul.”
I almost want to laugh. “I am no saint.”
“Regardless of what you think, Amelia, I saw that desire to change the world in you from day one. I never once saw it wane. When you die, Amelia, pray for that same change you came to Cathedral Reims for. Whatever reason you came here, pray that your wishes will one day come true. Do not let your dream die with you. Speak your dream out loud, if you must.”
Mother Aurelia says nothing more after that. She is not one for sentimentalism; however, I can tell she does not approve of what Pope Gilford wants to do to me. She is powerless to stop this, though. Pope Gilford is the merest of mere men, but he will only discover that on his own death bed one day.
Mother Aurelia brings me out to the steps of the west portal, where sawdust--to catch my blood--and a chopping block with a cloaked axman await me. Although this execution is far more humane than being burned, it is still horrific. All of Malva has turned out for my execution--not that they had much of a choice. They will later attend a mass witch burning. Parson Hill will not have a spot of grass when this day is through. At least I can die knowing these people do not want to see me die. I do not want to look at them, though. Nathaniel is out there somewhere, and I do not wish to see his face.
When Stars Die (The Stars Trilogy) Page 24
