It was my only chance.
“SURRENDER, IN-SHINAR. TAKE YOUR PLACE.”
I love you, Curran. I love you, my son. I love you both more than anything. I love you, Julie. There is no way out.
I raised Sarrat and stabbed myself.
My father screamed.
I felt the blood rush out of me and twisted the blade. There we go. I’d cut the abdominal aorta. Death would be quick.
I dropped to my knees, pulled the ruby out of my armor, cradled it, and fell on my side. My father’s face swung into view. He was weeping.
“Why? Why?” He pulled me to him, cradling my head in his arms. “You had everything, Blossom. Why?”
His face was turning gray. His fingers shook. He cried out. I felt his magic fighting for his life, hungry, looking for any source to feed itself. I knew that hunger. It was blinding. He would grab at any magic just to keep himself alive, and I had a source of magic handy.
I opened my arms. They were too weak to restrain the anchor anyway. He saw the ruby. He reached for it.
Take it, Father. Take it and use it.
His skin was the color of crumbled concrete. If he’d had a second to think, he would’ve stopped. But he didn’t have a second. We were dying together, and my father wanted to live. It made him careless.
His fingers closed about the glowing gem. The crimson glow melted over him. He fed on the ruby, absorbing every drop, until everything that made the anchor what it was had been fused with my father.
I struggled to say something. Nimrod leaned over me.
“I win, Father.”
The anchor couldn’t exist without its realm, and it sought to return to it at all costs. My father had absorbed it. They were now one.
A void opened behind him. I only saw the edge of it, but I felt it. It grasped my father and swallowed him whole.
One moment he was there and then he was gone. And all was good.
We’d won. Conlan would live. Curran would live too, if he was still alive. I’d done it.
My blood was all over the ground. I thought it would hurt. It didn’t hurt.
My aunt grabbed at me, frantic. “Stay with me. Hugh! Get Hugh!”
“Too late,” I told her.
Erra stared at me, her eyes wild, and thrust herself at me. Pain smashed into my body, wrenching a scream from me. She was trying to feed her magic into me to keep me alive.
“No,” I whispered. I didn’t want her sacrifice, but I didn’t have the strength to fight her. She paled and vanished. Magic flooded into me in a cool rush.
It wasn’t enough. Julie was crying. Someone was holding me. The light dimmed. Darkness came.
I wish I could hold Conlan one last time.
I wish I could see Curran. To hear his voice. To hold his hand. To not be alone before I go.
I wish I had just a little bit more time. There were so many things I wanted to do. I would give anything for just one more day.
I love all of you.
* * *
? ? ?
DEATH WAS A mist.
I walked through it at random, not knowing where to go. It pulled on me, and I let it.
I was fading. The essence of me was fading, unraveling softly into the gray mist around me.
Let go, the mist whispered. Let it all go . . .
And then it parted. I stood on a vast plain, green grass under my feet. Golden sunlight streamed from a blue sky. In the distance, herds of wild beasts grazed, big shaggy shapes.
I felt a presence behind me and turned.
A colossal lion walked toward me across the plain. He was black, and his wings were folded over his body. His big golden eyes brimmed with magic. It glowed all around him, coating every hair of his fur. He was a god.
He reached me and lowered his head.
I raised my hand and put it on his nose. He had come to say good-bye. I would get to see him one last time.
The lion opened his mouth, showing me gleaming fangs.
“LIVE,” he said.
Silver magic erupted from him and into me.
PAIN.
* * *
? ? ?
AGONY TORE MY body into shreds and I screamed, writhing. There was something solid under me.
“I’ve got her,” Hugh’s voice said.
He was on top of me. I was alive.
I swung and punched him in the jaw as hard as I could. He toppled over to the side. I rolled to my feet.
Curran lay next to me on the bloody grass, human and unmoving. I crawled on my hands and knees to him and grabbed him. “Curran? Curran?”
He opened his eyes, saw me, and smiled. “Hey, ass kicker.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Yes. Very tired, too.”
“What did you do?”
“I resurrected you,” he said.
The pain blossomed in my stomach and I collapsed on his chest.
“This was the plan the whole time,” he said. “My plan and your aunt’s. Enough divine power for one miracle.”
I curled into a ball, holding on to him. If this was some sort of near-death hallucination, I would resurrect myself just so I could punch fate in the face.
“Sorry it hurt,” he said. “It’s my first time.”
I kissed his chest. He petted my hair.
“Last time, too,” he said. “I don’t have any divine power left, so let Hugh heal you, because if you die now, there is shit I can do about it and I’ll be really pissed off.”
I just held him. Slowly it was sinking in.
“I promised you this morning wouldn’t be the last time,” he told me. “I keep my promises.”
Someone else was screaming. I finally realized it wasn’t me and turned around. My aunt sprawled on the grass, shaking with seizures, naked, mad as hell, and very much alive.
“Oops,” Curran said.
I cried. I lay on his chest and cried.
* * *
? ? ?
I SAT ON our porch and watched Conlan play in the grass in the fading light of the evening. He pounced on lightning bugs like a big human kitten. Curran sat next to me, his arm wrapped around my shoulders. One week had passed since the battle.
With both Neig and Roland gone, their troops had scattered. We’d won, but we’d lost so much. We buried Adora’s ashes on the small hill behind our house. I’d cried at her funeral. I cried every time I thought about it.
Christopher got caught in the dragon fire, too. He didn’t die, but he lost a wing. None of us knew if it would grow back. He mourned his flight the way people mourned the death of a child. Desandra lost her beta couple. They were friends and her grief was still raw. Jim lost his sister. The witches lost Maria. The power drain had proved too much for her. Of Curran’s elites, only five remained.
Saiman never came back from the battlefield. He’d always been terrified of physical pain, but for some reason he had assumed his true form and run into the thick of the slaughter. Maybe he’d panicked, maybe he’d become enraged, maybe he’d been trying to protect someone. We would never know. They brought his body to me. He’d been pierced with four spears. I grieved. He’d left a will. He wanted to be buried in Unicorn Lane. We followed it to the letter. It was the least we could do.
Curran the God didn’t make it. None of his divine power remained. His hair no longer grew unnaturally fast, although he’d kept his added height, for how long was anybody’s guess. He’d lost the mystical awareness of us. His divinity had enabled him to know where Conlan and I were at all times, but he couldn’t preternaturally sense us anymore. He said it felt like he’d gone blind. It was a death, of sorts, but I couldn’t have been happier about it.
There was another death I didn’t mourn. Sharratum also died on that battlefield. When Curran resurrected me, I no longer felt the pull of the land. The claimings hadn’t survived my death. I was once again just me. I’d kept my power, but I was now free of Atlanta and the portion of Kings Row.
Ghastek had come to me after the slaughter. He’d seemed lost. He’d told me I would always be the In-Shinar. I told him that he was still my friend, but now he was free.