The Stone emptied of all magic, purified of its deadly power.
And their connection to the Stone was breaking.
Meghan decided she'd had her fill of strange new sensations today. The power leaving her was like knives scraping at her nerves. She supposed there was no way to know this part in advance, but still…
Colby felt like he was being torn apart and fell to the ground unable to remain upright.
Colin was affected as well, but not nearly as much as the two of them.
The last of the Stone's power rushed out of their bodies, leaving them vulnerable.
Human. No longer immortal. And like they'd just had hell dragged out of them.
Regardless, Meghan had not quite finished her job yet. There was another pile of Stones that needed to be destroyed. The pile her father was crawling toward this very moment.
He had a jar of blood in one hand, and was trying to get to the Stones.
He really never would give up until there was nothing left of him.
Meghan pushed herself to her knees. Winded. Dizzy. But there was no one else who could do the job. Getting to her feet, however, proved impossible. So she crawled, hoping to beat her father.
A weak spell whizzed by her head.
Colby had used every ounce of strength he could muster to try to hit his father. He didn't. But it was close enough to spew dirt into his eyes and blind him.
Meghan pushed upward, demanding her legs to work. Just a little closer… and… she released flames out in front of her. It spread across the Stones like fire hitting dried pine needles.
Her father cried out in defeat.
Meghan fell over with nothing left but enough breath to keep from passing out.
Her father was trying to get away.
It was now or never. Take him out.
But she had no way to do it and Colin got to him first. He was already on his feet and recovered. He might have lost the Stone's immortality, but he still had the Projector's powers and so much other magic inside of him…
Unfortunately, the dagger had fallen out of Meghan's reach.
But Colby crawled and snatched it up.
Meghan reached out to his mind and realized, abysmally, that with the end of the Stone had also come the end of their mind connection. Like it was never even there, ever.
Colby had to make a choice.
End his father. Or save Colin.
With his father still alive, he'd never give up his quest to conquer the world of magic. He would always have a hold over them. A fear that he'd return to try again.
Meghan watched, petrified, as Colby clamored upward and swung the dagger through the air, a direct hit in the middle of Colin's back just as their father shoved his own hand into his jar of blood, and vanished from the courtyard.
CHAPTER 26
Colin's body lurched. This force penetrating him something the magic could not control.
It didn't obey thoughts or demands. The magic and power that had clawed its way to the driver's seat of his mind fought to remain there, but something was sucking it out of him. The uncontrolled chaos that expanded in the dark aura around him twisted and wailed at the devastation of its loss.
His eyes began to flicker in color. The stark white fluttering to Colin's actual eyes every few struggling blinks.
They knew something was happening when the magical barrier surrounding the estate dissolved with a light hiss and everyone began flooding the grounds and courtyard—stuck in various shades of shock and awe. Apprehension, but also respect and reverence. But mostly a general stupefaction as they were forced to wait and see what transpired next.
There wasn't much fanfare.
No explosions, or fights to take back the control he was losing.
His second soul fell out of its magical home on his ear and to the ground.
But even with this act, Jasper approached, cautiously. Something was off. Or… maybe it wasn't. His own senses were in overload. It was like something inside Colin zeroed out, or bottomed out—the question that remained—was there anything left that would, or could, rebuild and resurface?
Colin was balanced on his knees, arms at his sides, and although his eyes looked normal again and his magical barrier had broken, Jasper got the sense that something else was happening. He worried it was that question he or Robert hadn't yet known to ask. The thing that would lead to failure.
But the aura surrounding Colin diminished. Sinking inward. Shrinking fast now. The dagger sucking out all the limitless chaos that made him a Projector. Even with this removal, there was still a lot of magic left inside of him… he'd taken in so much. But they had to hope that with the removal of the chaos he'd be able to control the rest.
And then Colin's eyes fluttered and closed and he fell over, unconscious.
Jasper held up his hand for everyone to wait, and approached him alone. As gently as possible, he pulled out the dagger and sealed the wound. He motioned for silence and patience, deciding to let him wake on his own, naturally, rather than accidentally disturb some vital part of the process.
Catrina edged up closer, looking pasty underneath her silver hair. He was still alive. They all were. And she begged the unforgiving universe to spare him. Hadn't he suffered enough? Didn't he deserve a chance to live a normal life?
Nona and Elisha found the arms of Meghan and Colby, licking faces and meowing out cries of relief—exactly what most of the others wished they could do. But no one dared. Not yet. They had survived—but they'd failed in taking out Jurekai Fazendiin for good. A failure most felt by Meghan and Colby. And something they'd have to deal with sooner, than later.
Elisha jumped down out of Colby's arms when Jae approached him. He held the Bone Dagger in his hands and showed it to Colby who shoved it in his own pocket. They'd dispose of it as soon as possible. He would not chance his father getting his hands on the thing again.
Sebastien had his arm wrapped around Meghan's waist and she'd snugged up as close as possible, the tension, thick. That, and she was dead exhausted and needed the help to stand.
Jae was doing the same with Colby, who also had a hand balanced on the burned out Immortality Stone.
Ivan surfaced with Maria by his side. Meghan caught his eye but none of them refused to release any hope, only questions.
No one was quite sure what to do with themselves.
There was a reserved silence filled with overwhelmed emotion. So much had happened for all of this to happen. But was it enough? Had they hurt Fazendiin enough to keep him down, for good?
It might all be for nothing if it was too late to save Colin, and the dagger didn't work.
A series of gasps had all eyes trained back on Colin.
His eyes were opening, confusion thick in the blue orbs peering upward and all around him. He leaned up on his elbows to everyone staring down at him.
"What happened?"
But there was no need for an answer, it was all coming back to him. Jasper helped him to his feet and not two seconds later Catrina had flung herself around him. It took Colin a moment, but then his arms were returning the gesture. Followed by his mind.
Everyone else began to breathe easier. The tension breaking away to relief.
Meghan's mind was a daze of exhaustion, and now a solace that only added to the fatigue. Thankfully, Sebastien was there to hold her up.
Colin gently pushed Catrina away so he could see her eyes. "I'm so sorry. What I did. I thought it would be best if you didn't remember me. Especially if…" things went bad, he left off.
Her teary eyes forgave him in a heartbeat.
"You're lucky Jasper was able to restore my memories," she sniffled.
Colin cast a wary gaze over in Jasper's direction.
And that's when things went horribly wrong.
His gaze froze on Jasper, but not really him. Colin's body stilled. His features flattening. Catrina felt the change underneath her fingertips. Heard the tempo change inside his veins. The strum of his heart striking a n
ew rhythm.
She backed away, filled with instant terror.
"Colin?"
His head twisted back to meet hers, but he said nothing. His stare blank. Cold. His expression vacant. Like Colin Jacoby had just vanished right before their eyes.
They hadn't won!
They hadn't saved him!
It was some momentary reprieve. Some reset.
And to what new nightmare?
Jasper motioned for everyone to back up and give them some space.
He nudged Catrina and when her feet refused to obey her order to move, Noah came forward and gently pulled her back to stand with him.
Colin sucked in. His body inhaling back to life.
Meghan almost fell over when a hazy white aura began to surround him. This wasn't supposed to happen. He was supposed to be okay now.
Panic started to roust the crowd and those closest to Colin, those who loved him, tried to keep the calm and push them back even more.
They all froze when he began to speak.
"Thank you." Except it wasn't Colin talking, but more like ten of him speaking simultaneously. "You have freed me."
And it had happened—Jasper's worst fear—the realization of the questions they hadn't known to ask.
The crowd hastened their retreat as hazy wisps of white energy expanded out of Colin. It had to mean something, right, that the color had changed. But what?
Jasper made to try to cloak the magic, to secure it. Or Colin.
"You cannot contain me," Colin's ten voices spoke evenly. "I am magic. I am pure. I am—above."
"What is your purpose?" Jasper asked. "What is it you want?"
"What all want. Only to survive. This vessel holds me."
Vessel, that didn't sound promising. Did that mean Colin was even still in there somewhere? They dared not think of the alternative.
Jasper tried to furiously piece it altogether. He was missing something.
Magic, it seemed, had chosen Colin as a vessel. Or he'd taken in so much magic he'd become this. Or… even with the Projector's powers taken out of him…
"The dagger only released the chaos. The limitless chaos," he spoke outwardly.
"Yes," the magic spoke through Colin. "The power was uncontrolled. It obeyed no master. Not even me, its creator. It had its own will. You released the chaos. I am the control."
Unfortunately, they had no idea if this was good or bad. Or what this meant for Colin, for them, for magic, or the world.
Meghan had it in her mind to march right over and punch the magic right out of her brother. This was not fair. Not after everything they'd gone through to get here.
As if magic, itself, had heard her thoughts, the vessel strode closer to her. But not close enough to get caught up inside the magical aura.
"Your brother has a choice. But he must hurry. He fights the outcome."
"What do you mean?"
The vessel didn't answer.
"What the hell is happening?" Colby stared down the vessel. "What is it he has to do?"
"He must give in."
"No!" Meghan argued. "Colin, don't give in. Fight it."
"He must give in," the vessel spoke. "Or he will die. His body is no longer strong enough to contain me. He must give in."
Meghan wanted to die. This isn't how this was supposed to go. Not at all.
"Wait!" Catrina raced forward, closer to Colin, stepping inside the aura. She'd never been so glad of her gift than right this very moment. The answer was singing all around them, riding the magical energy. "Colin needs to release the magic. That’s what it means by giving in. Colin is fighting to keep it inside, fighting to control it. He thinks if he lets it out everyone will die."
Jasper approached cautiously, trying another tactic.
"Can you leave this vessel?" he questioned the magic.
Colin's multi-voice answered back. "No. I am tethered to his will. He must release me before he no longer can."
Why was everything always right now, and before it's too late?
The aura surrounding him expanded with an electric pulse that jetted outward, forcing everyone back. The white haze surrounding Colin was becoming so thick they could barely see him.
An eerie quiet slipped in, that was only broken by pulses of the energy as it pushed them all further away, with no way to see Colin or try to help him.
Colin was outside of himself.
Like a ghost looking at his own body.
What was happening?
In the distance, through a field of haze he saw all his friends and loved ones. He called out to them but they didn't hear him. He peered down at himself, hovering like a ghost in a cloud of white energy, and eerily, staring at his own body a few feet away. Except, he wasn't inside of it anymore. He gazed down at his hands, all ghost-like. Was he dead? Was he dying?
His body spoke and moved without him in it. "You're not dead. Not yet."
"But you must hurry." The voice came from behind.
Colin spun around to see the ghosts of his parents not far away. Hovering inside the white energy, with him.
"Mom. Dad. What—what's happening?"
His mother approached him. "You must make a choice, Son."
"Do you want to return to them?" Eddy waved his hand across the field of people outside the electric energy. So many people he loved and cared about. "Or, you can choose not to go back. And move on."
"Couldn’t I just—stay with you." The true desire in his heart. To know his parents.
Juliska shook her head. "Our fates are sealed. We would not have that for you. If you choose not to return to your life, your business would be finished, and you'd move on."
"And our hearts would be happy for it."
But Colin's never would.
He guessed he'd rather have one lifetime of getting to know them, of living out the human life he hadn't yet gotten the chance to, than nothing at all.
"If I let the magic free, if I release it—I don't want to hurt anyone."
"You won't," Eddy told him.
"All you have to do is let go." Juliska reached out and stroked his ghostly face. "It's okay to let it go."
So he did.
He left the ghostly plane, slipped back inside of his body and let go.
Releasing the hold he had on the magic. It exploded out of him in a storm of white energy, but nothing else happened. He was in his body, standing inside a massive blast of energy that was twisting and twirling, but not moving. Not changing.
Colin noticed a form in the distance. Ethereal in its movements, never quite solidifying into a recognizable form. Eddy and Juliska watched in awe as it approached their son.
"You have freed me." It spoke to him. "You have released me back into the world where I belong."
"Um—you're welcome?" Colin wasn't sure what you said to magic in its most pure form.
"For so long I have been imprisoned inside of evil. Away from the world in which I was meant to protect and nurture. And now you can return to the world in which you belong."
He gazed rather brokenheartedly at the parents he didn't really know, but wanted to. Wondering, if perhaps, he might be better off with them in the land of forever. But if he went back to his life, he'd have one lifetime with them before he died—and until they remained forever stuck in the in-between.
"I can see your most inner desire. I can grant your wish, Colin Jacoby."
He stared at magic, too dumbfounded to reply.
"It is within my power to give you this gift."
"Is—is that—really possible?" he asked of magic. Because if it wasn't, he didn't want to return to the living world. He could not bear the weight of it.
"It can be done this moment, if you truly wish it. But it must be decided now, before I disperse into the world."
Colin didn't know what to say. He stared at his parents as if this was the last time he'd ever see them, and Eddy realized right then what his son had asked for—Colin's greatest desire was for them to move on from the in-b
etween. So they'd not be stuck forever, never moving on. Magic even went so far as to show them they'd be happy and at peace.
"I can lift the veil and allow you to resume the afterlife you should have had, should this evil have never been allowed to reign."
But Juliska came forward—to her son, to magic.
"I have not yet redeemed myself enough to deserve any such fate."
Magic decided the answer for them.
"Then I will give you until the death of your son to redeem yourself. And when he leaves the world of the living, you will both leave it with him to whatever afterlife you've earned."
Juliska nodded.
A fate they could all live with.
And Colin couldn't help himself. He smiled. At peace in the knowledge that he'd have some time with them. That they would not slip into insanity after endless lifetimes of never moving on…
"It is done." Magic's ethereal form slipped away from them all. "I return now, in all my glory to nurture this world."
A torrent of blinding white energy exploded across the island. Outward. Upward. Down into the earth. Into the deep of the ocean. Out across the sky, blocking the bright of the sun as it expanded and exploded into tendrils of magic and energy that shot off like rockets in all directions.
And when it cleared.
Colin's parents were gone. For now.
And he was standing, as himself, for the first time in what felt like twenty lifetimes.
CHAPTER 27
It was all gone.
The overabundance of magic.
He wasn't a Projector any longer. He no longer carried insane amounts of magic inside him. He wasn't immortal any longer. He was just—Colin Jacoby. Maybe a guy who still had a chance at having some magic left, but didn't care in the least because he had won something far more valuable than magic had ever given him—life—love—freedom. For him, his parents, his friends, all the people he cared about in this world. Pretty much everything he ever wanted, actually.
When the light cleared and everyone's vision returned to witness Colin standing in the middle of what had been an epic expulsion of magic, looking much like his old self—well, after what had happened when they'd all thought it was over a bit ago, no one quite dared to move. Or get excited. Or speak.
Ascend (The Last Oracle, The First Seer's Gift, and a Prophecy Fulfilled) (A Fated Fantasy Quest Adventure Book 11) Page 17
