Redemption (28 page)

So close, so close, so close!

I threw my head back and howled
and was answered with the howls of my Wolves, who were fighting with the
viciousness of the beasts that they were. When I reached the third story, I
leapt over to the balcony and landed on the railing with perfect balance. I
jumped down, disappointed beyond words to find that the King must have gone
inside.

Kayden was on the balcony only a
second after, and through the haze of my Monster’s bloodlust, I looked over at
him with glowing eyes. So much seemed to pass between us in that small moment,
and I knew that if given the option, I would take us away from here, out of
this mess that had me starving for death, and call it quits on the whole matter
if I could just spend a few more moments with him.

Kayden looked at me with so much
love then, that if I’d allowed myself to stop and think about it, I really
might have turned around and left. Just left. With his hand in mine and my
heart in his. I would have left.

Kayden said, “In this world and
beyond, Alexa.”

And my bloody heart broke and my
hand reached out and opened the doors that led inside from the balcony. And
there, hundreds of the King’s Warriors were waiting for me.

I spotted King William through
them, moving a safe distance away so that he would be able to watch the show
comfortably, and my anger and fire took over once more. When the Warriors
attacked me, I cut them down like blades of grass, my eyes locked on the
King’s, my resolve growing stronger each time he watched one of his best fall
before me.

Closer. Closer. Closer. My skin
was tingling all over as the silver tattoo that kept count of my kills spread
and bloomed across my body. The floor was slick and sick under my feet, but I
glided over it with ease, moving faster than I had ever moved in my life.

I saw it in his eyes when it
happened. The moment that the King realized that today would be his last, that
I would reach him and kill him as promised, and he would not get a chance at
escape. Never in my life had I seen anything sweeter. His eyes darted toward a
red-headed Warrior at the door, and I knew that he was passing along some
message silently, but I didn’t care. The red-headed Warrior was far enough away
to be able to slip out, but the King was not. And he
knew
it. And
that
was all that mattered.

When I finally reached him, I
didn’t hesitate. So much anticipation filled me that my vision seemed to tunnel
in on only him. And of course, because this universe already hated me so much,
that was when it happened.

The enormous Warrior—Andre, I
thought his name was—who hadn’t left his King’s side, moved like a bolt of
lightning, and I felt a crooked smile touch my blood lips as I waited for his
attack. As I
misjudged
the target of his attack.

I saw it all happen. I watched it
all in that same slow way as I was seeing all else, and I tried to stop it. I
moved and I tried to stop it, but even with my incredible speed, I knew I was
going to be too late. That one moment of misjudgment was all Andre needed.

Kayden was fighting off the
Warriors at my back, giving me a chance to do what I’d come here to do, and I
thought that Andre would try and stop me from reaching his King. Instead, he
stopped Kayden.

When the blade went through his
back, I felt as though a dagger went through mine. My mouth fell open and a
scream ripped up my throat that could have woken the sleeping demons in the
depths of hell. Kayden’s golden eyes met mine, and I watched as the sun that
burned in them set for the last time. Forever.

And the next moment, both Andre
and his King’s head lay at my feet.

The sword fell from my hand and
clattered to the floor, where it lay in a pool of red. Tears fell from my face
and mingled with it as I fell to my knees beside my Kayden, and screamed and
screamed and screamed his name.

My small, scarred, red hand came
up and touched his face, and I hoped more than I had ever hoped in my life for
his eyes to spark, for his hand to come up and cover my own where it rested on
his cheek. But Kayden did not move. He didn’t speak or breathe or have a heart
that beat. Not even for me. Not anymore.

And I could hear them
approaching. I could hear the dead King’s Warriors in the room moving in to
finish what had been started, and I stared into Kayden’s sunset eyes and waited
for them to give me my death. I wanted it. I
welcomed
it. Because
staring down at the man I had loved so much, knowing that he would never look
upon my face again, I knew that part of me had already died, and what was left
was a darkness that had no point in going on living.

In this world and the next.

Yes, my love, forever and ever.

I closed my eyes and waited.

Nelly

There had been no time to stop
and gather Lamia like I had done in the Seer’s vision. It was already night and
the battle would have already begun. Still, I refused to believe that it was
too late. Not if I hoped to maintain any sense of sanity through the end of
this, I
couldn’t
allow myself to believe that it was too late.

I was at the Silver City now, and
night had fallen and it looked just the way that it had in the vision–cold and
unfriendly and on the precipice of becoming a graveyard. I raced through the
snow, throwing my mind out like a blanket and covering every single soul here.

I had already fixed one big
problem, and this had given me hope that I knew was dangerous to my soul. The
messenger that the King had sent to tell the Queens in the other territories to
dam up the rivers—a red-headed man with a thick beard—had been exiting through
the invisible barrier between this world and the human world when I had been
entering. I had reached into his mind and erased the task as though it was
nothing more than chalk on blackboard.

And then I had barreled in.

Now I ran faster than I had ever
run in my life, feeling my heart pounding in my ears with every step I took. I
used all of the strength in my mind to find her, and I did.

Something was wrong. Alexa’s soul
was not glowing like the sun, as it usually did. It was there. I could see it
in the third story of the Council Building, flickering like a light bulb that’s
almost run its course. She was hurt. Bad.

I spread my mind out to reach the
people around her, and saw through their eyes what was happening. Alexa was
kneeling over Kayden, whose golden eyes were dull, lifeless, and a sword that
didn’t belong to her was sliding out of the small of her back. The Warrior who
held the sword raised it high over his head, ready to remove her head from her
shoulders, and deliver the final blow.

I didn’t stop moving, but I
pulled all of my mind’s strength around me, wrapped the souls in this world up
in its grasp, and commanded them all to stop what they were doing. Just
stop
.

When I reached the Council
Building, they were all just standing there, swords lowered to their sides and
eyes wide, ankle-deep in the snow and the blood of the fallen. I held them all
completely, knowing that if I told them to stand this way forever, they would
do so. And it was a sight to be seen. To say the least, it was a sight to be
seen.

Blood marred their faces, their
hands, matted the fur on the muzzles of the Wolves. People, both fighters and
not, lay dead all around, their bodies sliced and cut and separated. It was
like hitting pause in the middle of a graphic war movie, right in the midst of
battle, and the destruction was a sight that I will never forget even if I live
to be a thousand years old.

I ran past them all, knowing that
their eyes were following me and not caring at all, just knowing that I had to
reach that building and that room where my sister’s soul was flickering. It
couldn’t be too late. It couldn’t end like this. It just
couldn’t.

I jumped up onto the building and
scaled it the same way I had the mountain where I had found the Lamia. My
fingers dug into the hard rock and froze instantly on the ice that was coated
there. My breath plumed in and out, in and out, and I reached the balcony and
climbed over and ran into the room where I knew she was.

The Warriors here were as frozen
as the thousands of people outside. My eyes found her at once, and I kicked the
King’s head out of my way as I ran toward her. Her body was sprawled on top of
Kayden’s, blood blooming out of her lower back and making the black cloak she
wore a darker black, falling to the marble floor and mixing with that of her
fallen love.

I fell to my knees beside her,
tears filling up my eyes and blurring everything. My hand was shaking terribly
when I reached out and turned her head gently to me. And that horrible hope
rose in me as her big brown eyes cracked open and settled on me.

“Nell,” she said, and her voice
was weak, broken. The voice of a dying soul.

I bent down and kissed her,
tasting my salty tears as they ran down into the corners of my mouth. “Shh,” I
said, as I ripped off the jacket I was wearing and pressed it against her
wound. “I’m here, Lex. I’m here. Don’t worry. I’m gonna get you fixed up. Don’t
worry. I’m here.”

Alexa’s red hands came up and
gripped my wrists with more strength than I knew she had left. “No, Nell Don’t.
It’s…okay.”

I shook my head, trying to glare
at her and only feeling my lips trembling and my legs shaking. “Don’t say
that!” I cried. “It will be okay. I just have to get you help…to stop this
bleeding…I won’t let you…I won’t—”

“
Please
, Nell.”

Alexa’s hand released my wrist
and groped for something beside her. When she brought it up, she was holding
her Gladius. Her eyes fluttered closed as she held it out to me. “Please,” she
said.

I shook my head, unable to
process what was happening;
refusing
to process what was happening. She
couldn’t mean… No. No way. This wasn’t happening. I was dreaming and I would
wake up soon and this
wasn’t happening.

Blood was bubbling from her mouth
now, and my shaking hand came up and brushed it away. Before I could stop her,
Alexa caught my fingers and pulled them open with weak movements. Then she
placed the handle of her sword between them.

“It…hurts…so much…please…Nelly…I
want…I’m ready.”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t
breathe or think or move. “But I love you, Alexa,” I said. “I can’t lose you. I
love you
too much
.”

Alexa coughed, her face
scrunching up in pain and more blood bubbling between her lips and the fire in
her soul flickering smaller and smaller. “I know…I know…you too…Nell…always…all
of it…for you…do…..this….for me.”

Her eyes widened a little then,
and I knew that her next words would be her last.

“End it…end the pain…
please
.”

My hand tightened around her
Gladius, and I closed my eyes and did as she asked of me. The only thing she
had
ever
asked of me.

But I killed a part of myself
that night, too.

So the Story Goes…

Benjamin—little Benny, to those
that were older than him—sat at the fireplace in his cozy house in a city known
as Two Rivers. His little girl sat on his lap, looking up at him with eyes that
were big and round and brown, like his.

“Daddy,” she said, her sweet
little voice bringing a smile to his lips. “Did you ever
meet
the Sun
Warrior and the Savior? Were they pretty?”

Benjamin chuckled. “No, my Love,
I didn’t. Wish I could’ve. But my father told me the story just the way I tell
you, and the way you’ll tell your children and so on.”

He could remember that long ago
time so clearly, when he had just been a little boy about her age, and would
never have dreamed of having a life like this. Even though many a moon had passed
between then and now, he could still feel the cold ground of the hut when he
thought about it. He could see the purple and black bruises that had been in
the crooks of his small arms, though they had long since faded and his body had
grown into a man’s.

This day was always a big one to
him. Bigger than any other day of the year, save for his daughter’s birthday,
and it always brought the memories of that time back into sharp focus. He did
not tell his little girl about the time spent in the village, for she was much
too young to hear things like that, but he did tell her the tale that had been
surely changed throughout time, as close as he could reckon it from his
semi-firsthand account. He had never known the two girls that gave everything
so that he could be here, holding his child and enjoying his life, most of
those who were saved didn’t, but there had been those that
had
known the
Sun Warrior and the Savior, and word had spread about what they did.

“It’s kind of a sad story, Daddy,”
she said, breaking into Benjamin’s thoughts and pulling him sweetly into the
present.

He smiled down at her and kissed
her head. “Yes, my Love, I suppose it is, but often the most beautiful stories
are a little sad. Come now, it’s time for bed.”

Her small nose wrinkled and her
brow creased. “What about Nelliana? What ever happened to her? Can I meet her
someday? And the Sun Warrior and her Libra, did they go on to the Heavens
together? That can’t be all, Daddy.”

Benjamin stood up and carried his
little girl into her pink room and set her down on her princess bed. As he
tucked her under the covers, he said, “That is all, Sweetheart, because no one
knows what happened to the Savior, and because the answer to the other question
really just depends on what you choose to believe in.” He kissed her forehead.
“Good night, Love.”