by Sacha Black
“Is that what I think it is?” I ask.
She nods. "It's the other side of the door. My mom used to tell me a fairytale as a child. About a magical girl who bore a lock mark on her skin. She used to tell me how powerful this little girl was and that one day she would open the doors between all the worlds bringing everything that was once fractured back together. But I was just a child, and I lost her when I was so young I'd forgotten all about the stories. Until…" her voice cracks.
“Until that morning in Stratera?” I say, remembering our first day there, how frazzled she looked when she found the door.
She nods. “The stories came flooding back, and I felt the throb in my cheek. I knew then that the stories were true.”
I slip my hand inside Trey’s, tears welling in my eyes. He kisses my forehead and squeezes my hand.
“Aww,” Victor says, staring at us, “it would almost be sweet if you hadn’t had to murder me to be together.”
“You’ve got what you want, Victor. Leave us alone.”
He laughs, “I’m not even close to getting what I wanted. The deal was to get Karva back into Trutinor.” He pauses, folds his arms, and glances around the stone colosseum. “By the looks of things, I’d say we were still in Obex.”
There’s a ripple in the air, and behind Victor, the Last Fallon materializes holding a short silver dagger, or maybe it’s a key. I slide in front of Nyx, my spine tingling as I realize it is a key. It’s the key. The one Victor was searching for, the one that will end Nyx's life and tear down the barrier between Obex and Trutinor. Trey must realize what it is too, as he moves next to me forming a barrier between the Last Fallon and Nyx.
She looks at us and laughs, one short sharp indignant snort. The patronizing bitch will have to go through my cold dead body before she gets to Nyx.
"Well, isn't this quite the little family reunion," the Last Fallon says, then she scruffs Victor by the collar and slaps him so hard on the back of his head his teeth clamp down, and he spits blood over the floor.
"You stupid fuck. You could have had everything. You had so much potential. But you had to go and fall in love with my niece of all people. Did you really think I didn't know what was happening?”
He stays silent, motionless, save for the wrinkles drawing into his forehead and the rapid rise and fall of his chest. Karva moves, circling her aunt, step by step, like a cat hunting a mouse. The Last Fallon doesn't even acknowledge her. Trey glances at me and peels back. He paces around the group, mimicking the same steps Karva takes from the opposite side of the colosseum. He hunts her, while she hunts Rozalyn.
“I know what you’re doing,” the Last Fallon growls at Victor. Embers of fire stream from her mouth and a flame ignites in her eyes. “You think I’d let you sneak Karva through that door to prevent me from escaping?”
The flame in her eyes burns harder, and her lips peel over her spiked silver teeth. For the first time in my life I am terrified for Victor.
"How stupid do you think I am? What is it with you anomalies? You just can't toe the line, can you? Well, you will now, boy."
The vein on Victor's forehead darkens, as do his eyes. His face contorts, stretching and pulling his skin tight over his sharp bones until it's not him anymore but the Last Fallon. Both of her faces smile, pulling his lips into a warped grin. I step forward, but Victor holds his hand out, and I freeze.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” they both say.
“You’re not killing Nyx.” My hands throb where enormous electricity pulses spin around my fists.
"Hand," Victor and the Last Fallon say. Victor raises his palm out flat, and the Last Fallon places the dagger-like key in his hand. I shift my body weight, aiming my fists straight at Victor.
"Eden," Nyx gasps in a strangled voice. I spin around. For ten long seconds, Nyx's body quivers as it shifts and spasms between her cat-self and Keeper-self. Then her body convulses and stays in her Keeper form, her face crumpled, pale and sweaty, as if the rapid change drained her. All except the birthmark on her cheek, which is now black. Her face contorts, her chin and cheek dropping as pain creases her expression. Nyx. I take a step forward, but she shakes her head at me. "It's already too late," she says, tears brimming over her lids.
No. My chest clamps so tight I stop breathing. It can't be too late. It can't. But the skin inside the birthmark is dissolving into a hole, perfectly shaped for a key. Just like the fairytales, it was never a birthmark; it was always a lock mark.
Her eyes are wide and wet. Her body is yanked upright, her arms chained to each side of the door, stretched out. She's shaking, but like the soldier that refuses to face the final battle lying down, she looks the Last Fallon straight in the eye.
“No,” I shout, and spin on my heel launching multiple bolts of electricity at both Victor and the Last Fallon.
“Victor, STOP,” I shriek.
I halt, unsure of who to go to first – Nyx, Victor, or the Last Fallon. Victor is much closer than Nyx. He angles the dagger-key at Nyx, and my body lurches forward, sprinting toward him, throwing as many pulses of electricity as I can. They ricochet off pillars and crack slabs in two. For each bolt I throw, the Last Fallon counters it with five more, batting them away like I'm nothing more than an irritating wasp.
I change direction, and just like the drills Archie and Arna made me run, I throw fireball. Watercuffs to the ankle and fire wrapped in electricity to his chest. But I stumble to a halt. I’m too late. He’s already released the key, which is flying through the air toward Nyx’s face as if pulled by an invisible magnet. I break into a run, stretching out my fingertips trying to grab the key, but everything moves in slow motion. The key is always an inch too far away.
Nyx’s eyes close, she leans her head back, and the key slams into her face, clicking into the lock mark. I land at her feet. The handle of the knife-key shunts out like it’s ejecting something. A glass cylinder appears. Inside the tube is a shimmering cream liquid: blood from the Heart of Trutinor.
She glances down at me, her eyes fixed on mine, and in that silent connection, a thousand things pass between us: the love, the loss, the memories, the family she became. A tear falls down her cheek, and her arms stiffen, her body erupting in light, and the key falls to the ground.
“No,” I shout. “NO.”
A sharp pain fills my chest as I scream and reach out to her, but shards of light are emanating from her torso, limbs, and head as if she is her own sunrise. The shadow of her face fades into the glistening cloud of sparkles. Her body disintegrates, molecule by molecule, dissolving, floating into the air, dancing with the sunlight, until she's a swirling mass of shimmering particles. The image of her, and the sensation of my tears stinging my cheeks as I watch her drift apart, burns into my memory.
Like a newborn star, the particles rush together forming a ball, compacting, growing, and building until they’re a dense throbbing mass. Then she explodes.
The force of the explosion flings me backward. A sheet of blinding light floods my eyes as a thunderous crack emanates across Obex. The ground quakes as a hole fractures the colosseum's stone slabs like an earthquake. I slam into the ground. Victor rips the electricity loop from around his chest and crawls to where Nyx was standing. He grabs the key, which now looks less like a key and more like a normal knife, and stands but freezes on the spot.
Trey’s eyes are blazing blue. A trickle of blood oozes out of his nose and the Last Fallon, her expression contorted as if she’s fighting some internal battle, has her hands around Karva’s neck.
Trey's controlling her. Then there's an ear-splitting crack-crack-crack that sounds like gunfire, and everyone turns to the Door of Fates as threads split down the silver door, and it bursts open. On the other side, standing in Stratera Academy foyer, is the First Fallon.
Thirty-Three
‘Never trust a Fallon that can’t keep the Balance.’
Lionel East – R.I.P. - 13th January 1972 - 3rd July 2017
The First F
allon steps through The Door of Fates. A scream fueled by pain and fury explodes through the colosseum, cracking pillars, breaking stone slabs, and making me drop to my knees and cling to my ears wondering if this is what will shatter our worlds and make the walls collapse.
The Last Fallon charges at her sister, swinging electricity, and fire, and wisps of magic. A green wisp slams into a slab next to me. The stone blackens, hisses, and disintegrates. When the sisters plow into each other, the impact is like an aftershock. I'm buffeted across the floor, over and over, as they throw punches, and I struggle to gain my footing. I commando crawl over the floor toward Trey. I reach him, and we cling to each other.
“How are we going to close the door?” I ask.
Karva and Victor try to pick their way across the stones, but the Last Fallon blocks their path, using fireballs, and wind to throw stone slabs as obstructions.
“I’m going to compel them,” Trey says.
“Them? Both of the sisters?” My eyes are wide, terror filling my body. The first time he tried to control the First Fallon he collapsed from the exertion, there’s no way he can control them both at the same time.
“What choice do we have? Either Karva or Rozalyn has to walk through, and I know who I'd rather pick, even if that means giving Victor what he wants."
A stone slab flies above our heads and smashes into smithereens against a pillar. Trey stares into my eyes. He smiles and touches my cheek, but there, buried underneath his softness, is the fear that paralyses me.
“I love you, Eden. Only you. Always you.”
“Trey. Stop,” I say, “you’re talking like this is the end, that this is goodbye.”
“Am I not allowed to tell you how much I love you?”
“Yes. But the way you’re saying it is scaring the crap out of me.”
He closes his eyes and leans down until his forehead touches mine. “It’s time," he says, his breath trickling over my skin. The scent of his frankincense and summer aftershave fills my nose and makes my eyes close. A nudge of his emotion presses against me, gentle and full of unconditional love. But behind it, just like his eyes, I feel the tremble of his fear. He’s afraid, and so am I.
“Kiss me first,” I say, gripping his shoulders till my knuckles whiten. “Kiss me like everything’s going to be okay.”
And he does.
In amongst the aftershocks, the flying slabs, and the crack of exploding magic, there’s one blissful second of his lips on mine. One second of unity, our essences mixing and flowing together under the orange sky, surrounded by ruins. He slides his lips over mine, wrapping me in his arms. He releases a little more emotion: the wanting, the longing, the acres of love that fill my soul and complete me.
"I love you, Trey, in this lifetime and all the lifetimes to come."
He gives me one final short kiss on the lips then he’s gone, hauling himself up and fighting against the aftershocks of the sisters’ fight. His hands fly up, his eyes blazing with an intensity I’ve never seen, and his body quivers under the pressure. Both the Fallons freeze, their backs stiff, their eyes skirting left and right, trying to understand what invisible force is controlling them.
“Run, Karva,” I scream.
She sprints across, reaches the door, and says, "Hurry, baby," to Victor who has made his way behind Trey. Then she walks through The Door of Fates, and a blinding white light blankets the colosseum.
“NO,” the Last Fallon shrieks. She lets out a deafening roar; sharper, fiercer, and filled with frustration. She turns on Trey, breaking his compulsion. He falters, then raises his hand capturing her in his grasp again. But this time, blood trickles from his nose and eyes, and I scream for him to stop. As I do, Victor's hand slides around Trey's neck, and a glint of something silver makes my blood turn to ice.
Silence descends on the colosseum. The only sound is the drip of blood falling from Trey’s nose and splashing against the floor as he tries to keep hold of both the Fallons.
“Oh, Eden,” Victor says, his voice cutting through the silence like a homing missile.
He's holding the dagger he used to kill Nyx under Trey's chin; it's nestled next to his carotid artery. My heart pounds in my ears, my breathing loud, ragged, and cut with fear.
"Ironic, isn't it?" he sniffs. "You had to kill me, to be with him, and now I'm going to kill him, to be with her. We've come full circle. Kind of serendipitous for me, isn't it?"
“You don’t have to do this,” I plead. “Karva’s already walked through the door. Let him go.”
“Oh,” he says, “I know I don’t have to do it." His eyes twinkle; hatred drenches his black pupils. He leans in and inhales the scent of Trey's neck like he used to do to me, as if he’s savoring the aroma of dinner. His eyes lock onto mine. "But the First Fallon asked me to, and let’s be honest; I was only too happy to oblige. Any last words?"
“Victor, ple…”
"Too late," he shrugs, and plunges the dagger into Trey's neck.
Thirty-Four
‘I love you, Eden, for all the lifetimes.’
Trey Luchelli
They say that when you die, your life flashes in front of you. I don’t know what Trey saw as he stood there bleeding out. But as the knife sliced into his neck, and bright red spurted in thick gushes down his chest, that’s exactly what happened to me.
I take a breath, time slows, and in the instant it takes for his life to slip away, our life, the one we’ll never have together, flashes before my eyes.
Our hands lace together as we kiss under a thousand sunsets. Glances stolen across hundreds of Council meetings. We stand on top of my home tower, me pirouetting around his arms under clouds of rain and thunder, the lightning dancing in the sky with me. Evenings spent by the Pink Lake, staring at a starlit blanket above us, blossom and petals falling from the trees and landing in our hair like confetti. Our family, two children with lilac and blue eyes, running by our feet as we smile and laugh and love. Growing so old, and wrinkled, and happy, that joy lines paint our ancient faces like smiles. Our essences age and entwine like the matt of a tree’s roots as we spend our lives together.
All of that passed before my eyes in a single breath. When I exhale, it's gone.
And so is Trey.
Thirty-Five
‘Death of a Balancer – Once Bound, two souls are inextricably linked. Meshed together for eternity. The death of one Balancer is, in essence, the death of part of the surviving Balancer’s soul. There are few words worthy to describe the agonizing pain of such a loss and is, in part, why many do not survive the loss.’
Excerpt - The Book of Balance
The vault doesn’t just crack open, it obliterates my entire subconscious and consumes my body like liquid fire. With Trey’s compulsion broken, the First Fallon swings for her sister, the crack of fist to head so loud it sounds like a bomb. Rozalyn crumples to the floor, unconscious.
When I turn back, Victor’s running through the Door of Fates after Karva, and Trey’s limp body is slumped on the ground, red spittle spurting like a fountain from his neck and mouth as his breathing slows, and the rise and fall of his chest shallows.
The First Fallon walks toward me, her pure white figure splattered in blood and stony dust. Her lilac eyes smile at me. “So much for the prophecy,” she laughs, a glint in her eye.
“I won’t just kill you,” I shriek. “I’m going to destroy you.”
But she laughs at me as she walks over to Trey’s body.
“Don’t you touch him,” I scream, and run at her. She waves her wand at me without even looking in my direction, and something grabs hold of my legs and yanks, hard. I’m pulled away from her and toward the Door of Fates. A choked cry escapes my throat as my nails scratch the stones desperate to stay put. My feet, followed by my body, lift up, making me float horizontally as if an invisible rope is pulling me back into Trutinor. She leans over Trey's body, slides the dagger-key out from his neck, and licks the end. She wipes the remaining blood on her white dress and says,
"It's already over, Eden. Without Trey, you're no more dangerous to me than a human infant."
She flicks her wand, and I'm flung backward through the door and into Stratera Academy. There are students running and screaming everywhere. Yells rip through the air like bullets. Professor Astra has her hands up barking orders and giving directions to clear the foyer. Professors are collaring students and hurrying people outside.
When the First Fallon walks through the door, the ground rumbles. Fragments of the exploded silver lift up from the ground and fly from Stratera and Obex to slot into the frame like puzzle pieces meshing together.
She's rebuilding the door? The final pieces slot into place, but there's a hole in the middle.
I inhale; my breath is harsh, cut with hate and rage, and it roars in my ears like the breath of a hurricane. My heart flares to life, beating a slow boom that fills my head. My eyelids blink shut, enveloping me in a fleeting darkness filled with Trey’s face. The images of his death fire across my mind in rapid succession. Over and over he dies. Sheridan was wrong. The visions of Trutinor weren't the only prophetic part.
Trey. Is. Gone.
When I open my eyes, the darkness is still there, or maybe it’s in my head. The whispers of encouragement echo around my head like furious commands.
Kill the First Fallon.
Kill Victor.
No. Kill. Them. All.
The vault is controlling me. And this time, I let it because Trey is gone. Forever. Heat floods my chest, my body encasing itself in electricity that throbs and pulses around me like a halo.
"He's gone because of you," I shriek.
“Yes. Wonderful, isn’t it?” she says, “no more prophecy. No more stopping me. I will bring Balance to Trutinor.”
With every pump of my heart, Imbalance courses through my veins.
