Here is the reason for Mom’s agony. I am gone too.
Jasyn struts around our triangle of death. Kicking Ky. Pressing a heel to Joshua’s head. I can’t decipher his reaction. His face gives nothing away. Shocked? Terrified? My grandfather pauses at my body. I want to cover myself, protect my vulnerable form. But he doesn’t touch me.
He begins speaking but the sound is warbled, as if coming from underwater. Mounting a foot on Ky’s thigh, Jasyn raises the bloody blade high in the air. His back is turned toward me.
That’s when I see it.
An aurorean swirl corkscrews from Ky’s open wound. Floating. Hovering. It’s like nothing I’ve ever witnessed. Transparent but opaque. Blinding but impossible not to look upon. The color-infused light moves, twirling as it glides in ribbons through the air. Stopping directly above my body. Does Jasyn notice? Am I the only one seeing this?
I scan the arena. All eyes remain fixed on the Void’s vessel.
When my gaze finds Joshua, a swirl identical to the one that emerged from Ky rises from the Ever’s body. It joins the light hovering over me. Intertwines with it. Completes it.
The Verity. Must be. But it came from both boys—men. Ky and Joshua were two halves of one whole. Both were the Verity’s vessel.
How is this possible? What does it mean that pieces of the Void and Verity could coexist in one person?
Reaching, I move toward the rainbow. My fingers graze its surface, my skin sparking, glowing, then dimming. Still, I feel nothing. Circling my body, I examine the thing from all sides, unable to deny or explain the way it draws me. Suddenly I have to know what it feels like. Because I crave feeling. A sensation. A breeze. Anything.
I step into it—the light transporting me like a Threshold.
A rush of wind, similar to what I felt when I kissed Ky, expands my lungs. Filling them. Making them whole. An ache punches my chest, so strong and so deep, I can’t help but laugh. Because I feel it. Life. Love. Death. Sorrow.
The Verity has merged with my soul.
Ky sacrificed himself for Ebony. He’s rewritten the ending. No time to reason or think or calculate why in the Reflections the Verity would choose my heart as its new home. Because now I have to finish this. No backing down. No second-guesses. No hesitation.
I will follow through.
My gaze sweeps between Ky and Joshua. So different. So undeniably irreplaceable. Mom’s out there too. Who will become the Void’s new prison?
Eyes open and pulse returned to an even cadence, I peel myself off the sand. So strange. I’m conscious the Verity resides within, but the differences are minute, nearly indistinguishable. Clearer vision. Fear less difficult to suppress. Yet I’m still myself, utterly human. This power, this gift, does not belong to me. It exists to contain the Void. Now, so do I.
My grandfather’s back remains turned. The audience notices me first. A child pointing. A woman with a hand to her heart. From the corners of my vision I register the stir of Joshua’s leg. The rise and fall of Ky’s chest. Each of us canceled out the other. My life for Ky’s, Joshua’s for mine. I still have no idea if I gave him a Kiss of Infinity earlier, but he must’ve given me one. When I rose, Joshua’s Ever blood took over, reviving him too. We need each other, the three of us.
Unstrapping the mirrorglass blade at my ankle, I grip it with certainty. Five feet. Three. When I can smell the arrogant fumes wafting from my grandfather’s person, I raise both arms, aiming straight for his heart.
The knife plunges. It passes through flesh. Muscle. My gut churns. Bile rises.
Jasyn’s sword falls. He coughs. Staggers. Left. Right. Then sinks to the ground.
I release the hilt. If I don’t withdraw the mirrorglass, the wound will be unable to heal.
A circlet of crimson crowns the blade in Jasyn’s back. For a fleeting moment, nothing happens. The crowd doesn’t react. Joshua and Ky don’t get up. My grandfather doesn’t move.
And then the strangest thing occurs. Jasyn breathes. Gulp after gulp of air, inhaling, and gasping, and exhaling again, as if this is his first taste of oxygen in decades. He rotates, grabs my wrist, and drags me to the ground beside him, the collision sending pins and needles into my shins and knees. The soles of my feet.
“Thank you,” he croaks. His eyes roll back. Head lolls. He lies in a crumpled heap before me. I watch his façade fall away, the handsome, regal exterior he wanted everyone to see. His skin is ash, darkness leaking like ink from his veins, staining his skin. His eyes are white as marble, the lids around them red and swollen and raw. Inch by inch the Void retracts, melting into itself, as if being absorbed by something outside. Then it’s nothing at all.
I lift my head, scanning the Soulless scattered throughout those present. A similar phenomenon affects them, the color returning to their skin, the light restored to their eyes. I experience a moment of panic. Because it isn’t just the Void within Jasyn I’m containing—it’s the darkness as a whole.
My eyes find the sky, soft light consuming the night. The room swirls. The arena. Everything false peels away as the Void finds its new prison. As if awakened from a spell, the crowd applauds, hugging and crying and celebrating the joyous ending they’ve all been waiting for.
But I ignore them. Just as I alone beheld the Verity’s true form in death, I cannot see the Void’s raw state in life. Who will it choose? Which of those I love will have to pay the price for Jasyn’s demise?
Joshua’s at my side, drawing me into his arms, helping me to stand. He kisses my hair and pushes it off my face. I’m alert enough to register he’s still himself.
Which means . . .
I trip over my own feet to get to Ky, breathing and alive, but still lying on his back. His hands are pressed to his soaked middle and his eyes stare at the sky. A lazy snow drifts toward us. Sticking in our hair and eyelashes. Melting into our skin.
“I’m sorry,” I spit, seethe, sob. My chest . . . so tight. Hard to breathe. I did what I had to do, but now, in the aftermath, I can’t help but feel a wave of regret wash over me.
What have I done?
“Don’t be.” His eyebrows cinch. “Now I know for sure.” And then he smiles. It’s weak and doesn’t meet his eyes, but it’s a smile just the same.
Joshua shouts behind me. Then I’m being hauled in another direction.
Guardians surround Ky, hoisting him up, carrying him away. Where are they taking him?
I don’t know what comes next. My head grows light. Stomach churns. Stumble, slip, fall. Strong arms scoop beneath my neck and knees, lifting, supporting. I fight the compulsion to pass out, but the urge is far too tempting. The curtain closes. The audience takes its leave.
It is finished.
THIRTY-NINE
Changed
Eliyana.”
Blink. A blurred face above me.
“She’s opening her eyes.”
Wince. Ow. My head. Who’s talking so loudly?
“Get some water.”
Whimper. My bones are lead beneath my skin.
“Lift her head.”
Cold. Something cold and wet at my lips.
“Not too fast.”
Spit. Sputter. Choke.
I roll my head, force myself to arrive at full consciousness. Where am I? A dimly lit room. Heat on my face. Lavender and vanilla. A fire nearby. And . . .
Oh—
“She’s awake! Hurry, get Nathaniel!” Mom barks orders like a drill sergeant. Her face slides into focus above me.