Invincible (The Aerling Series Book 3) (16 page)

Chapter 18

Nothing Good

(Olivia)

“I don’t want to go,” I whisper as I lay
next to Mason. I don’t know if Sloane and Hayden are asleep or not, but I don’t
care. Pulling closer to Mason, I press my face against his chest and close my
eyes as his arm tightens around my shoulder.

“I know.” That’s all he says. I know there
must be more burning on his lips, but he won’t let himself say it. Telling me
to stay…we both know that would be a mistake. The answers we need aren’t here.
Only the Father can sort this out.

Mason turns just enough to press his lips
to my forehead. I want to be strong and brave and put on a good face, but I
can’t. I’m too worn out from this war to pretend anymore. All I want is to be
with Mason, to be safe again. What really breaks my heart is that I don’t know
if I’ll have that even if I do everything right. If we figure out this mess and
save both worlds, will Mason just be pulled away from me again? Forever this
time? This seems to be a battle of wills, the Father and Mother against the
rest of the Aerlings, but I’m terrified that Mason and I will be the ones
stripped of choice.

“Stop thinking about it,” Mason whispers.
“Rest. You’ll need it for tomorrow.”

“I can’t. There’s nothing else in my head
right now.”

Mason rubs his hand up and down my arm
slowly. “I’m not thinking about tomorrow,” Mason says. “I’m thinking about a
thousand tomorrows from now, of what we’ll be doing in five years.”

“Neither of us has any idea what will
happen over the next week, let alone five years from now,” I say with an edge
to my voice I can’t contain. “They’ve taken that away from us.”

“They’ve taken nothing,” Mason argues. He
doesn’t say anything else for a while, and I don’t respond, because if I do I
know the only thing to come out of my mouth will be negative. Mason kisses my
head again. “What you said back at the cabin, about me having to decide…”

Another pause from him. This time I’m not
so patient. The cloying anxiety of waiting for his answer refuses to let me
wait. “And?”

“When I thought Tū had taken you away
today…even though I didn’t think he’d hurt you, I knew right then that a life
without you just wasn’t possible for me.” Mason rolls onto his side so he is
facing me. “Even though it might be the right thing to do, Ollie, I just
can’t.” His breath hitches and he swipes at his eyes. “Holding you back is a
horrible thing to do. I know that. I should be stronger, or better, or more
selfless, but I’m just not. I
need
you. I need you more than the air
that makes me who I am, that gives me my power and my life. Maybe I need all of
that right now, to save both our worlds, but I don’t need it to be happy. I
just need you.”

His lips brush against mine, and in the
dark I don’t need to see his tears. I can feel them being pressed between our
faces, mingling as the fear and hope pour out of us in the face of so many
unknowns. In the face of another parting that will put us both in danger. A
million thoughts are racing through my mind, even more emotions all trying to
get out at once, but Mason pulls back and speaks before I can say a word.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. I
haven’t got a clue what we’re going to find out and how what we learn might
change things,” he whispers, “but if I get stuck in the Aerling world in the
end and I can’t give up my power for you without dying, it will mean never
being physically closer than this. I just…I need to know if that will be enough
for you. I can’t ask you to give up on the dream of having a family. You have
to tell me right now if you can live with that. If not, I’ll understand, Ollie.
I will. I would rather spend the rest of my life missing you than knowing I
took something like that away from you.”

Holding his breath when his words run out,
Mason waits. My heart is breaking and leaping at the same time. Breaking
because I know he what he’s suggesting is a very real possibility. Leaping
because I know he’s choosing our love over everything else. Speaking over the
emotion choking me is not easy.

“Having you…in my life…will always be enough,”
I say haltingly. My heart hurts at the thought of not being with him. It’s more
than the Aerling-Escort bond. This goes beyond teenage lust driven by hormones.
I stood on the brink of death, willing to give my life for his. That’s not
something you can ever take back. He is my heart and soul and I will never
choose anything other than spending my life with him.

“You have to be sure,” Mason pleads.

Kissing his lips lightly, I whisper, “I’ve
been sure since the moment we met. Before I understood how deep my feelings for
you were, I never planned on leaving you behind or going my own way. Even if we
were never more than friends, it was going to be you and me until the end in my
mind. You seem to think this is something new for me to consider, but it’s not.
I made my choice almost thirteen years ago. I’m not changing my mind now.”

“But things have changed since then,”
Mason says

“Yeah, they have.” I pull him closer so
there is barely any space left between us. “Before, life was repetition and
pranks and goofing off. I couldn’t even decide on a major because it didn’t
really seem to matter. Now, I’m not burying my head in the sand anymore. Life
matters. Love matters. Caring about something bigger than myself matters.

“Mason, this is what I want. I want to
spend my life with you, not only because I love you so much it kills me to
think of leaving tomorrow and not having any promise that you’ll be protected,
but because this is what I want to do with my life. I don’t want to drift
through life anymore. I want what I do to matter. With you, I can do that. It
might cost me my life. It might mean never having the perfect life I’ve
pictured. I might mean losing everything. I might mean all of that, I don’t
know, but I do know it will mean making a difference in a lot of people’s
lives. Ours included. I can’t walk away from that any more than I can walk away
from you.”

The expression on Mason’s face is
impossible to describe. I don’t think he’s ever looked at me with so much love
and pride before. His hand slips behind my neck as he pulls me in, closing the
last of the space between us. I know he’s done arguing with me about this when
his lips touch mine. The hesitation and fear is gone. The wondering and
uncertainty no longer make him hold back. This kiss is one of resolution. A
promise. We’re in this together until the very end, no matter how soon that may
come.

“Not that I don’t appreciate that you two
have worked things out,” Hayden drawls, “but I
can
hear you.”

Mason pulls back, but we’re both grinning.
“Sorry, man. Didn’t mean to wake you,” Mason says.

“Oh, you didn’t,” he grumbles. “Not much
chance of me sleeping tonight. Not when I’m going to be sucked into a vortex of
death in the morning.”

“It’s not that bad,” I argue.

Hayden sits up halfway to glare at me in
the dark. “That’s not what Mason and Sloane said. No air while we’re traveling
between worlds? What’s up with that?”

“It’s the barrier,” I say. “It’s meant as
a test for Aerlings. If they aren’t connected to a wind spirit on Earth, they
don’t survive the trip. Their power kind of, well, rubberbands back to Earth,
taking out the Caretakers who failed them. Escorts can get through because of
the mark we’re given as babies. Our power is linked to both the human world and
the Aerling world. I have more than others, so it protected Robin without me
realizing what I was doing.”

“So I couldn’t do the same thing?” Hayden
asks.

Shaking my head, I say, “No, only
Tāwhiri’s power allowed it. It’s almost as if…”

I sit up as a thought hits me for the
first time. The rest of what I just explained, it wasn’t something I learned
from Sloane or anyone else. The first time I crossed the barrier, desperation
and instinct made my powers kick in subconsciously, leading me. The second
time, I remembered what I had done before and everything was clearer. I could
take the same steps consciously, controlling them more finely. It was like the
Montgomery’s and Parker’s said all along. I would know what to do when the time
came. The power was given with the exact code written into it for getting
Aerlings home. The only thing the Escort really had to do was be willing to
make the sacrifice.

Pondering the way my power works, how
having power given to me directly from Tāwhiri changed what I could do
just enough to bring Robin across…understanding slaps me across the face in
that moment and I want to kick myself for not having seen it earlier.

“So, did you just zone out, or are you
going to share what’s got you looking like a mackerel?” Hayden asks drily.

Turning to Mason so abruptly I startled
him, I demand quietly, “Did Tāwhiri seem at all freaked out about Robin
when he showed up?”

Mason’s face scrunches in thought. “No,”
he says slowly. “He never even mentioned it, actually. He just started talking
about us and what we needed to do.”

“Like he was prepared for it, right?” I’m
nearly bouncing up and down, energy buzzing through me like a lightning bug on
crack. “Like he expected this to happen and he was just telling us the next
step in his plan.”

I’m trying not to yell and wake up Sloane,
but my agitation is hard to control. Hayden must sense it too, because he gets
out of his bed and comes over to ours. His glance over at Mason says he’s lost,
but Mason is nodding.

“He knew what giving you his power would
allow you to do.” He says it almost like he’s relieved to have figured it out.
I’m right there with him.

“Exactly.”

Hayden drags his hands down his face.
“What?”

Turning to Hayden, I try to contain my
excitement long enough to explain coherently. “Tāwhiri knew I’d be able to
bring someone non-Aerling across the barrier if he gave me his power. He’d
tried everything else to stop the war, but nothing else had worked. The
Aerlings are too weak to fight anymore. They’ve been stripped of their full
power for so long, they can’t do even a fraction of what they once could. All
his other plans failed, so I was his last resort.”

I stare excitedly at Hayden, but he’s
still just looking at me, waiting for more. “Tū killing the Aerlings was
never the biggest threat. Yeah, he wants us to stop his brother, but even more,
he wanted us to find the Mother.”

“But, he told you that you have to repair
the barrier, right?” Hayden’s whole face scrunches as if thinking this late at
night is a painful process.

“He told us to stop Tū from
destroying the Mother. Cedrick is the one who told us we have to fix the
barrier, not Tāwhiri. I think Tāwhiri wanted the barrier to be
broken. That was his last chance at a plan, to destroy the barrier and send his
two chosen heirs to set everything right,” I say in a rush.

Now Mason seems puzzled. “But if the
Mother and Father are the ones who screwed everything up, why wouldn’t he want
Tū to destroy the Mother? Wouldn’t that fix everything?”

I have to think about that for a moment.
The answer is buzzing around in my head somewhere. I just have to dig it back
up! What is it? Think, Olivia. It’s there somewhere. I scour every last speck
of information I’ve accumulated since all of this started, replaying it in my
head as I search for the clue I know is hiding just out of reach. Oddly, my
thoughts are pulled back to that strangely beautiful valley Tū took me to.
That’s when it hits me.

“It’s the power,” I say softly.

Hayden and Mason look at each other, then
back at me. Neither one says anything.

“When Tū took me, he made a comment
that really bothered me, but now, I understand what he meant by it…at least partially.”
Sitting up more straightly, as if that will help me form my thoughts better, I
look at both guys waiting for an answer. “When I asked Tū how he could
excuse himself for killing Aerlings, he said they were
just power
, like
their lives didn’t matter. Only the power mattered.”

“It’s physics,” Mason says in
astonishment.

Hayden nods, equally amazed. “Energy can
neither be destroyed nor created. The law of conservation of energy.”

I’ve never been particularly good with the
sciences, which is possibly why I’m just realizing this now, but I nod in
agreement. “I think the power of the Aerlings in finite. There’s only so much
to go around…and the Mother and Father hold the biggest portion of it.
Tāwhiri held a lot too, but he was weak when we met compared to what he
once was. Tū, on the other hand, has been gaining strength this whole time
by killing Aerlings.”

Mason looks like he’s going to be sick—so
does Hayden, actually—but they both keep it together. “So, killing another
Aerling…the power…it goes to the person who killed them,” Mason says.

“If Tū defeats the Mother, he’ll take
all her power.” Hayden runs his hands through his hair. “He’ll be unstoppable.”

Nodding slowly, I carry my thoughts out to
the finish. “Tāwhiri didn’t ask us to fix the barrier. He asked us to stop
Tū from destroying the Mother so we could do it instead.”