Stepping over to stand beside Apollo – who was the smallest I’d ever seen him – I stared down at the body.
Talina. My most beautiful half with the kindest soul. Ladre was perched at the head of her table. He was rigid in his stance, his beautiful but alien features tightly held. I knew that the Spurns could not cry, and yet it seemed as if every part of Ladre mourned. His hair drooped down, his skin was moist and there was a shininess to his eyes.
My gaze fell upon Talina. Her emerald hair was almost devoid of color now. Sort of a murky white and gray. Like coral which had died. Her gentle brown eyes were not visible, and I was grateful for that. Her pink skin was dull, and she looked shrunken in, like Quarn had before he dissipated.
“Hey, Talli,” I said, my voice hoarse.
I picked up her hand, expecting the usual coldness to seep into my skin. But there was nothing there. Almost like I held a piece of paper. I felt texture but no life.
In that instant the true reality of what I’d lost crashed into me. My world crumbled even further, and with a howling sob I fell against the table. The pain was all encompassing as it unfurled from inside me. Every memory flashed through my mind. Finding her on Spurn. Joining our powers. Feeling her joy as she swam through the ocean. She would never do that again. Never swim with the current. Never again.
My energy had been low since I had awoken, and the wall of grief which pressed on me made it worse. I held her hand; the sobs did not stop. The pain would not ease.
“I need you to come back to me, Talli. I can’t let you go. We’re a team. The seven of us are meant to be together. We’ve been together since the beginning of time; I won’t let you go now.”
My whispered, broken words continued to rip through me. Tearing at my skin and forcing themselves into the world. I willed it. I willed her to live. I threw out my tether, and tried to find the girls to connect with, but the golden cord just sprang back to me.
I needed more energy.
“Abby, babe, come on. You have to let them go now.” Lucy held me from behind. She just held on and gave me her strength. “Talli would cry herself stupid if she saw how much pain you were in right now.”
“I can feel her, Luce, right in my chest,” I said brokenly. “Why can I feel her so strongly?”
Suddenly a voice cut across the vast space. “I can feel her too, Red.” Brace was hovering by, giving me the space I’d asked for. He was trying to block his agony from me, but I could feel it there in the corner of my mind. “It’s as if her energy is within you still. Like you’re still connected.”
It did feel like that.
“You’d better tell us exactly what happened, baby girl.” Josian crossed his arms across his broad chest. “What did you do in those final moments of locking away the Seventine?”
I had no idea what was going on, but I wasted no time and explained how our energy had drained and how their sparks had slipped away from me. How I’d tried to hold on to each of them, but that in the end they’d fallen.
Josian’s head snapped up. “We need Walkers.”
He shouted the words and I knew he was putting a call out to any who would come.
“I’m here.” I turned to find Jedi standing before us.
He was grim-faced. His emotions hidden behind dead eyes.
“And I,” said Grantham.
I hadn’t even noticed they were in the room. My focus had been on my lost loved ones. The males would have remained behind as support during this time.
Josian nodded once. “With Brace and myself, we’ll have enough power.”
I lurched forward, my hand dropping out of Talina’s lifeless palm. “Power for what? Dad, what’s going on?”
“I have a thought,” he said, “I might be wrong, but if I’m right then we may be able to save your girls.”
Something filtered through the air, like a snapping of magic. There was a sense of rightness in what he said.
“Tell me what to do.”
My voice was both demanding and commanding.
“You need to open that compartment inside, the one which you said can hold extra energy. I believe you might have captured the essence of the half-Walkers as they fell. That’s why we couldn’t find it in their bodies. You have it.”
And maybe that was why the Mother of All couldn’t help them either.
My breathing started to get all rapid and weird. “If it’s there, I just need to release it, and then you’ll infuse them with enough energy to start healing? The way you did to me.”
Josian clapped his hands together. “Yes! That’s the plan. Let’s do it.”
We were surrounded in an instant. The devastated mates. Sacred animals. Walkers. My friends and family. We had one last battle to fight, and I was determined to ensure everyone survived this time.
Chapter 20