Dire Destiny of Ours (51 page)

"No, no, no!" she shouted, eyes clenched shut with concentration. Her sweaty hand slipped down my forearm to my wrist, wrenching Elyssa's arm again. Her tears rained on my face. Her hands slipped to my fingers. For an instant, they hooked together.

"It's okay," I said. "I love you."

Elyssa's eyes opened wide as she lost her grip.

I plummeted to earth.

Well, about ten feet or so. Don't get me wrong, the impact still hurt, especially since my back landed perfectly on a broken tree branch. I shouted in surprise at the sudden impact.

Elyssa's boomstick levitated lower until she was right over me. She groaned. "I guess it's a good thing I headed straight for the ground while I was holding onto you."

I snorted. "I guess so." Unfortunately, I was too tired and hurt to move. "I'm just going to lie here forever. I'm exhausted."

"Me too." Elyssa toppled off her still-smoking broom and landed next to me with a loud grunt. "Lying here with you forever sounds wonderful." The riderless broom rose a few feet and spun in a lazy circle.

"What happened to your broom?" I asked.

"Serena hit it with a spell when she stole your broom." Elyssa groaned. "I really hope we can capture that over-analytical little imp, because I'd like to punch her in the face."

Daelissa's cloudlet, probably damaged by her attack on me, lost altitude, drifting lower and lower as it diminished in size. It finally settled down not far from us. I heard moaning and sobbing.

"Help me up," I said.

Elyssa pulled me to my feet. We staggered to the cloudlet. Daelissa huddled in the middle. Dark veins laced her alabaster skin. She looked up at me, bloodshot eyes filled with tears. Her hand reached for me. I hesitated, but took it.

Something amazing happened. Daelissa smiled. It was not a cruel smile, or an evil smirk, but a genuine smile. She looked nearly identical to Nightliss in that single, perfect moment. "Thank you." Her voice was a faint rasp. "I was lost, but you found me." She shivered violently. "The truth is too much to bear." Daelissa's grip grew weak. The curve of her lips relaxed, and the light left her eyes. I released her hand and let her body recline on the cloudlet.

I dropped to my knees and stared at her. My eyes wandered the destruction all around us. Bodies piled on the ground, the forest flattened and smoking. How many people had died because of this woman—this Seraphim? Why hadn't I known how to use Clarity before? I could have stopped her sooner. I could have prevented this. None of this should have happened!

Grief welled in me until I couldn't take it anymore. I leaned into Elyssa and cried. She hugged me and shook with sobs of her own.

We had won. We had survived.

The cost had been staggering.

Someone shook me awake.

I opened my eyes and found Shelton and a group of Templar healers hovering over us.
We must have fallen asleep.
For a moment, I thought everything had been a dream. I turned and saw Daelissa's body not far from us.
It's real. The war is over.

Shelton whooped. "I can't tell you how happy I am to find you alive." He chuckled. "Man, you two look awful." He glanced at Daelissa. "The queen bitch looks even worse."

The healers loaded us onto flying carpets and began treating us.

"I'm not feeling so hot," I said in a scratchy voice. Actually, I was feeling very hot thanks to baking in the sun for much of the late afternoon.

Elyssa winced as the healers reset her dislocated arm. "What's the situation?"

Shelton grinned. "Daelissa's army surrendered a couple of hours ago. We've been combing the area for you and other survivors, but digging through all the wreckage and destroyed trees has taken hours of family fun." He glanced at Daelissa again. "What did you do to her?"

I followed his gaze. "I hit her with Clarity."

He raised an eyebrow. "The clear magic that didn't do anything?"

"Yeah. Elyssa figured out what it does."

Shelton gave me an expectant look. "Well, spit it out."

"It reveals the absolute truth to whoever I hit with it." I thought back to Daelissa's last words. "The truth was too much for her to bear."

"Uh, promise you won't ever hit me with that stuff." Shelton grimaced. "I ain't too sure I want to see the absolute truth about myself."

I chuckled. "That's something none of us want to see." We were silent for a moment, then I asked, "How's my family?"

"They're fine." He motioned with his head. "Your parents and sister are out looking for you. I'll let them know you're here." He touched the comm pendant on his Arcane robes and sent the message.

Within an hour, Elyssa and I felt well enough to walk. We went through an omniarch portal to the caverns beneath El Dorado where the Templars placed Daelissa's body in a preservation spell. The large cavern was filled with the wounded and dead.

I found Nightliss staring at the body of her sister, a deeply troubled look on her face.

She looked up as we approached. "My sister is truly dead."

I couldn't tell what she was feeling, so I asked. "How do you feel?"

Nightliss bit her lower lip. "Relieved. Sad. I wish I understood what drove her to be the person she was."

I looked closer at Daelissa's body. She looked like a white marble statue that had cracked from age and weather. I noticed crusted blood on her right hand, and curiosity drew me toward the wound. I motioned to a nearby healer. "Can you remove the preservation spell for a moment?"

The woman nodded. "Of course." With a wave of her wand, the shimmering field around the body flickered away. The healer left to tend to other wounded soldiers.

I examined Daelissa's hand. The wound had closed, but not fully healed before death. "Sorry about this," I told Nightliss.

She peered closely at it. "What is that beneath her skin?"

Elyssa handed me a small dagger. I sliced open the skin, feeling a bit ill as I did so. Once I cleared away the muscle, I found something that made us gasp in surprise.

"Kiddo!" Dad came up behind me and gripped me in a bear hug.

I groaned as sore muscles protested. "Ow."

He pulled away, a huge smile on his face. "Sorry. I kinda forgot you just saved the world."

Ivy latched her small arms around my waist. "Oh, Justin. I was so worried about you."

"When they broke your cloaking spell, everyone saw you headed for Daelissa," Mom said as she stepped beside Ivy. She kissed me on the cheek. "Thomas told me you planned to detonate a malaether crucible." Her eyes reddened. "I was sick with worry but powerless to help."

Despite my bloody hands, I returned Ivy's hug and Mom's kiss. "It had to be done."

Mom embraced Elyssa. "I can't tell you how happy I was when Shelton told us you were okay."

Dad looked at Daelissa's still form. "Wow. After everything we've been through, I can't believe it's over."

"It is surreal," Nightliss said in a soft voice.

Elyssa nodded toward Daelissa. "Maybe you should show them what we just found, Justin."

I took Daelissa's hand and exposed what was fused inside her palm. Mom gasped.

"Is that what I think it is?" Dad gave me a disbelieving look. "All her notions about Brightling superiority and—wow."

"When Nightliss told me about her family and told me about the odds of a Brightling child being born to two Darklings, I didn't think much of it." I touched the tip of the crystal prism embedded in Daelissa's hand. "She didn't want to be a Darkling so much, she figured out how to implant a prism inside her hand so she could channel Brilliance and look like a Brightling."

"That would explain why we saw her scratching her hand," Elyssa said. "She must have been using so much power lately that it began to irritate her skin."

I shook my head in disbelief. "Daelissa was a Darkling all along."

"Now I understand what Daelissa meant," Elyssa said. "The truth was too much for her."

The realization made me feel awful. "When I hit Daelissa with Clarity, it made her face her own worst nightmare. She saw her true nature."

Elyssa's face saddened. "More than anything else, Daelissa hated herself. Facing every terrible thing she'd ever done in a single moment of lucidity killed her."

Tears trickled down Nightliss's face. "Channeling only Brilliance in a body with an affinity to Murk must have driven her mad." She wiped her eyes. "If only I had known, perhaps I could have convinced her to stop. Perhaps my sister never would have become the monster she turned into."

Dad gave us a sage look. "Well, kids, the moral of the story is this—just be yourself." He chuckled at his own joke.

"
David!
" Mom gave him a disappointed look.

Ivy giggled. "That's funny."

Nightliss seemed lost in her own world as she stared at the body of her sister. "I could have saved her," she murmured. "I just didn't see the truth."

I hugged the petite sera to my chest. "There was nothing you could have done. It's not your fault."

She backed away and managed a small smile. "She is at peace now. I should take solace in that, at least."

Thomas, Leia, Michael, and Phoebe appeared from the direction of the control room a few moments later. Elyssa cried out with happiness and ran to them.

Shelton and Bella came in behind them, broad smiles on their faces. I showed them our discovery.

"Well I'll be a vampire monkey's uncle." Shelton's mouth dropped open. "What a hypocrite!"

Dad chimed in with the moral of his story again and Shelton guffawed. I had a feeling Dad would be using this joke for centuries to come.

Bella sighed. "Sometimes I wonder who the real children are."

Looking around at the people I called family, a deep joy radiated in my heart, melting the fear, tension, and drama of the past few months.
We did it!
I could finally have something approaching a normal life. Despite the prophecy, I had somehow survived.

I spotted Ketiss across the cavern talking to his wounded soldiers and excused myself so I could talk with him. He knelt next to a still female form. My throat constricted when I saw it was Flava.

She blinked and tried to smile, but her face showed deep, purple bruises.

I knelt next to her. "Are you okay?"

"Not dead yet," she said in a raspy voice.

Ketiss stood and saluted in the Darkling way. "You have saved the Promised Land, Destroyer."

"Please, just call me Justin from now on, okay?" I glanced over my shoulder at Nightliss. "Is she off the hook for being a bad guy?"

He nodded. "Our religion was mistaken about her affiliation. Nightliss has proven beyond doubt that she is not to blame for the sins of her sister."

I turned back to Flava. "What you did was so brave. If you hadn't saved me, Daelissa might have escaped. You are directly responsible for me being able to end this."

Flava managed another smile, but talking was apparently too hard for her right now. She had nearly sacrificed herself to save me. She'd told me she loved me. I suddenly wondered if her sacrifice had been the one mentioned in the foreseeance.

"She will be awarded many honors," Ketiss said. "Unfortunately, Cephus's sins against our people have left us with a great deal to sort out when we return." He looked at me uncertainly. "Do you intend to come to Seraphina and aid us in driving back the Brightlings?"

I had nearly forgotten about that, but a promise was a promise. "After I've seen to the recovery here, we will try to solve the problems of Seraphina, starting with Cephus and working toward the Brightling Empire. I would like to see everyone as equals under your law."

Ketiss looked uncertain. "Would it not be better to destroy the Brightlings?"

I realized I had a lot of convincing to do if his feelings were indicative of the greater population. "Everyone has a purpose, Ketiss. We should seek to heal the old wounds caused by millennia of misguided elitism. By uniting the Brightlings and Darklings, all Seraphim will thrive."