The Order of the Elements 01 - Breaking Point (60 page)

Phoebe could see creatures being shoved out of the way at the entrance by something invisible, and she knew that was where he had gone.

She advanced on the entrance, determined to follow Zuriel until she had her revenge. Two fighting figures blocked her path, and she gazed at them curiously. She couldn’t recognize either of them. She lifted her sword, ready to cut the throat of one of the fighters and then dispose of the other, when a voice broke through her anger.

“Phoebe, no! It’s me! It’s Hector!”

The person speaking threw off the grilock he had been fighting with as he pleaded with her to recognize him. Something was trying to break through her consciousness. He wasn’t trying to fight her.

“Phoebe, please.” He grabbed her arm as she hesitated; his touch was familiar. “Phoebe, come back to me.” His touch was soft, and he was vulnerable. His eyes were kind, and suddenly the blind anger left her, and she remembered who she was and what she was doing.

“I’m so sorry!” Phoebe shook her head as the last of the anger left her.

Now that her demon was gone, she could feel all the slices and bruises on her body. She was drained and exhausted and confused. How was Hector still gripping her arm and not smashing it? His skin was soft and supple. And she could feel his emotions. His talent wasn’t being used.

Phoebe hesitated. How could he suddenly trust in this situation? Especially when she had been ready to cut his throat. Didn’t he realize how dangerous she was? Her anger was single-minded, and he had been in her way. She could have just as easily killed him as listened to him.

“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just get out of here!” he said.

“Okay,” Phoebe agreed. She could figure out Hector later; right then they had to make their way out. She could still make it home to Dorian. She surveyed the room and saw that it was almost clear of creatures, and none of her friends looked too seriously hurt. Hector dropped her arm, and as he did so, a searing pain went through her from her back to her chest.

The moment of hesitation had cost her.

Looking down in a daze, Phoebe saw three claws protruding out of her chest, and her breath started coming quickly. Hector looked horrified as he saw blood starting to run down her front. There was a blast as the claws were ripped from her chest, and she started to fall. Ethan had killed the grilock that had pierced her chest before realizing what was going on.

The room became still as Phoebe’s friends got rid of the last of their enemies inside the cavern, and Lucy sealed off the opening with the large rock so no more could enter. It wouldn’t hold for long, but long enough.

Phoebe fell to her knees as her vision put everything around her in slow motion. She saw her friends rushing to her side. She tasted blood in the back of her throat. Ethan and Hector caught her as she fell backward and laid her back gently, her head resting on Hector’s leg as he bent over her. His skin gave way under her head and was soft and cushioned.

She had never considered death before, not in the sense that she did now. She had seen death: Eyes fell flat as life left them, bodies fell limp, never to move again, and blood poured from wounds that were unable to be mended as she watched helplessly. Countless amounts of deaths, played over and over again, in memories she couldn’t bear to think about. Now, in this moment, she had a new sense of what it meant to die. A sense of death being a finality. An ending. Where the pages stopped turning because the story ended.

All the faces around Phoebe were covered in dirt, grime, and blood. Tears poured down Cynthia’s and Lucy’s faces as they examined her wound. Jared and Ethan debated on how they could help her while Evan held one of her hands. Hector cradled her head as he wiped blood off of her face with the hand that wasn’t covered in blood from her back. He repeated the same word over and over again.

“No, no, no, no, no,” he said as he gently wiped her face.

Sadness, grief, anger, and denial swirled around her. Her friends tried not to think the words as they examined her bloody and broken body, but she could hear them—the words that told her no hope was left. Weak and injured, bleeding onto the stone beneath her, she could still hear everything. Yet, at that precise moment, the blackest hour, she found her hope. Why she found a reason to hope at that particular instant, she wasn’t sure.

She found peace, all the way to her soul, in the fact that she would no longer have to worry about living without Dorian. Her heart would never be shredded in that unbearably painful way again. She may have already lost him, but as long as he lived on, that pain was bearable.

Even as she took all of this in, all the reasons she should give up as her own heart was giving up on her, she still hoped.

“Faith,” the voice whispered in her ear.

Phoebe’s breaths were getting shallower as she gasped for air. Rain still poured over her, but it was becoming softer as her power drained out of her body. She lifted her hand to Hector’s face and rested it lightly on his cheek. At this motion everything fell silent, except for the banging and scraping on the other side of the rock blocking the entrance. Her friends—no, her brothers and sisters—who had fought so bravely beside her now watched her, waiting for her to speak.

They were Phoebe’s hope. Love, acceptance, support, friendship, loyalty, strength—all this they had offered her and more. How could she not believe that they would do the same for anyone else they came across? They were everything that was good and pure in this world, and they would find a way to carry on without her. They would never stop fighting. She had faith in them. She had faith in Dorian. She had faith in Cassius.

“Ethan,” the voice said again.

Yes, Ethan too. She could feel it. His talents, dormant for so many long months, had awoken and waited for his own faith in them to bring them out. Phoebe knew he could still save them. They would make it out alive.

“You have to get out of here,” Phoebe said as her body started to go numb.

Hector shook his head furiously. “No, I’m not leaving without you. None of us are.”

Phoebe glanced around at the rest of them. Cynthia and Lucy were huddled by her legs, holding onto one another. Jared was still trying to think of something to do to get her out. Ethan was holding her arm tightly as he also shook his head when she looked at him.

“Don’t be thick. You have to; otherwise you’re all going to die. You have to get back, please, for me,” Phoebe said. Blackness started to surround her.

Ethan shook his head slowly. “Phoebe, we can’t. There’s no way. They have us surrounded.”

She tried to swallow as she continued to stare at Ethan. How could he not feel it? “You can do it, Ethan. Believe…in…yourself. Get them…home. Save…them. I…know…you can.” She gasped. “Just…believe.”

“Faith,” the voice whispered in her ear again.

“Have faith,” Phoebe repeated.

Her hand fell from Hector’s face as the last of her strength left her. Her heart was beating awkwardly, trying to maintain its normal rhythm even though it had been pierced through. Yet it kept its awkward beat, sending what little blood was left in her broken body to her brain to give her enough time to say goodbye.

“Just…focus on what you want…more…than anything. Have faith that…no matter…how crazy it sounds…you can do it…” Phoebe instructed Ethan. Her voice was fading.

“Dorian.” The voice wouldn’t let her forget anyone. Phoebe vaguely wondered where this voice had come from. It sounded just like a child.

“Tell…Dorian…that….” She struggled for breath that wouldn’t come.

Lucy nodded in understanding as tears fell down her cheeks. “I’ll tell him.” She would know exactly what to tell him.

Sapphire’s heartbeat, which usually drummed along right beside Phoebe’s, was now fading. Her heart ripped a little more as she knew Sapphire’s death couldn’t be avoided any more than hers could. Ethan’s and Jared’s eyes were now shining. Phoebe looked around at them again and settled on Hector; he was blinking furiously.

“I am going to miss you all,” she croaked as she smiled. She turned one last time to Ethan. “Faith. Want it…more than…anything.”

Tears started falling down Hector’s face, and he leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. He was feeling. Sadness and pain, of all the emotions he could be feeling, she did not want those to be the ones she last felt from him. But it seemed unavoidable at this point in time as she had no energy left to try to make him smile.

“I love you all,” Phoebe barely whispered.

The light drizzle on her face faded.

Ethan’s hand closed more tightly around her arm as she started to fade, and he squeezed his eyes shut and started muttering to himself. Phoebe stared into Hector’s eyes one last time. She could see a golden light surrounding her, bathing her in its warmth as the scene around her faded, and she fell into the darkness.

If she could only hear Dorian’s voice one last time. A rush of air surrounded her.

“Phoebe!”

Ahh, her subconscious had granted her the last request as her last hold on life broke, and she faded.

40. New

Light shined on her face. She knew this because her eyelids were a warm reddish color. She felt cool and comfortable and was almost positive that she was lying down. She heard a soft voice in the background, but it wasn’t important at the moment. She wasn’t sure if she had done anything to deserve heaven or an afterlife or whatever happened when someone died, but it certainly felt like heaven. The excruciating pain that had been inflicted by Zuriel and the grilock was completely gone, and she felt whole and healthy. She didn’t have even the slightest ache left over from any of her wounds. She felt the cool temperature of the silver chain around her neck and the minuscule weight of the charm on her chest. Soft fabric covered her body.

The soft voice continued, and after assessing that she was in perfect health, she turned her attention to it.

What does it mean to live forever? To be immortal can have several connotations. There are those who can live on through words, stories, and actions. They continually entertain us, inspire us, make us laugh and cry, perhaps even scare us, and, at times, get us to contemplate the meaning of our own, seemingly insignificant lives.

With a jolt of realization, Phoebe recognized Dorian’s voice. This had to be heaven.

Yet how often are we asked to consider the possibility of an unending life? Maybe not one that continues because of the endurance of important or notable deeds or even inspiring words, but a life that simply never ends. What is the difference between the two? You may answer that the difference is that one type of immortality leads to death and the other does not. However, I do not believe that is the most important issue at hand. What worth is a life that goes on forever if nothing is to be gained by it?

Does mortality affect our actions to the point that we feel the need to leave a piece of ourselves behind while those who live forever do not have that worry? Perhaps, but I believe that even immortals shape the lives of those they come in contact with in ways that we don’t notice or even remember. But they still make a difference. So yes, you can earn immortality by actions and words, and you can live on that way. But, given the choice, I would choose the drudgery of a life that never ends if it meant that by sacrificing my own death, I could help others live a fuller and happier life, which so many miss out on.

His voice washed over her, spreading warmth and feeling into her deadened limbs. She didn’t understand why she still had a body if she was dead. She also had no idea why Dorian’s voice was here or how he was so easily reciting things she knew he had never heard before. Phoebe’s theory on immortality was written in her journal, and she hadn’t even pulled that out since the day she arrived in the Haven.

Dorian’s voice quieted, then there was a rustling sound, and his voice began speaking again. As it did, she realized the sound of the pages flipping and his voice were coming from two different sources. The pages flipping she heard through her ears, his voice was whispering through her mind. He wasn’t speaking; she was listening to his thoughts. Then she understood; it was her mind’s way of teasing her into thinking he was there with her. She sighed, but if this was to be here fate, she could think of worse ones.

Darkness is the absence of light. Happiness is the absence of pain. Anger is the absence of joy. Jealousy is the absence of confidence. Love is the absence of doubt. Hate is the absence of peace. Fear is the absence of faith. Life is the absence of death. We are all made of little absences here and there. Truth comes from which absences fill us. Strength comes from how we fill the absences.

“Truth and strength come from how we embrace those absences when we are pushed to the breaking point.” Phoebe uttered her own words with strength and vitality.

Something fluttered and smacked against the floor as something else depressed the right side of the bed—at least that’s what Phoebe assumed she was lying on—and a cool hand embraced hers.

She finally found the muscles that controlled her eyelids as a spark of electricity shot up her arm from his hand. It couldn’t be true. He couldn’t really be here. Had she really done enough good to earn that?

Yet, as Phoebe opened her eyes she was blessed to see the features that she knew so well. Silver eyes, messy, black hair glinting in the sunlight, lightly tanned skin, hard square jaw, and firm, perfectly shaped lips made up only a small portion of the man she loved more than life—or whatever this was—itself.

His smile was hesitant and relieved, but he was distant. He perched on the very edge of the bed with only his fingers touching hers. She almost couldn’t believe it when she saw that her skin was clean and unmarked. It had looked so different the last time she had seen it.