But for a while we could pretend.
I said quickly, “What do you say we go for a stroll around our city? Take in the sights one last time? The three of us.”
Dani turned and looked from me to Alina, back to me, and back to Alina again. Then she said slowly, “I’d like that.”
I got another slice of heaven for a few hours that day. We walked around our deserted town and talked and reminisced. It was stiff at first between Dani and Alina but my sister and I are so much alike that Dani didn’t stand a chance.
We detoured into the Dark Zone, stood outside 1247 LaRuhe and swapped stories about it. We climbed Dani’s water tower and looked out over the city as she told us about the night Ryodan first “offered a job.” Then she filled me in on all I’d missed with the Hoar Frost King. We dropped by Alina’s old place and Dani showed us a couple of her favorite hidey-holes and we finally ended up at Chester’s standing forty feet away from what was now an enormous roiling black hole, descending into the dug-out pavement beneath it. The entire sphere, except for a tiny walnut-sized blot of absolutely still blackness at the center, had become a whirling ergosphere. We held on to one another, our jackets flapping briskly in the breeze it was throwing off.
“Do you hear it, Mac?” Alina said grimly.
The music was horrifying and I more than heard it. I felt it in my bones.
I knew then.
Whatever happened to this planet was going to affect far more than merely our world. It was going to have a catastrophic impact on our entire galaxy.
But it wouldn’t stop with our galaxy. It would spread beyond that.
This Song of Unmaking would slowly but inevitably unmake everything.
It would take time. But it would happen.
And it was my fault.
I felt the blood draining from my face. I looked at Alina.
“What?” she demanded.
I shook my head. “Just didn’t expect it to be so big. The song hurts me. Does it you?”
She nodded.
I lied, “I forgot to get a couple of things for the party. See you guys later?”
They nodded and I hugged them both fiercely and whispered “I love you” in their ears before we went our separate ways.
Over the course of my many encounters with Cruce, I’d attempted repeatedly to describe him in my journal, as V’lane or as himself. I’d used words like: terrifyingly beautiful, godlike, possessing inhuman sexuality, deadly eroticism. I’d called him lethal, I’d called him irresistible. I’d cursed him. I’d lusted for him, even writhed beneath him. I’d called his eyes windows to a shining Heaven, I’d called them gates to Hell. I’d filled entries with scribblings that later made no sense to me, comprised of columns of antonyms: angelic, devilish; creator, destroyer; fire, ice; sex, death.
I’d made a list of colors, every shimmering shade of black, raven, blue, and ice known to man. I’d written of oils and spices, scents from childhood, scents from dreams. I’d indulged in lengthy thesaurus-like entries, trying to capture the sensory overload that was Cruce.
I’d failed at every turn to truly capture him.
Because I’d been describing his body. Not his essence.
If I was good and he was evil…or perhaps if I was Light and he was Dark…had I done enough to try to bring those two together in truce?
No. I’d written him off as a lost cause.
Are we being tested? I’d asked the DEG.
Always, was his reply.
I stood in the empty museum because it was the site of one of my encounters with V’lane, and because BB&B was sacred and I wouldn’t summon Cruce there.
If I could summon him at all.
But I was damned well going to try. Despite what it might cost me.
I sat on a small pedestal that had been looted of its artifact long ago, probably shortly after the walls fell. Holding my journal, I made another series of notes because writing things down helps me think.
Cruce was proud, vain, ruthless, deceptive, a consummate liar, powerful, power-hungry, cunning, and committed. He’d manipulated and set into motion the very events that had precipitated the king creating the Sinsar Dubh and the destruction of the walls between our worlds and led us straight to our current disaster. He’d tried to control me. He’d used me every chance he’d gotten. He’d raped me.
But as Aoibheal had said, he was patient, wise. He’d seemed to sometimes actually have genuine emotion. As V’lane, he’d told me that Cruce was the renegade, rogue warrior. He’d hidden and pretended to be someone else for more time than I could even conceive of, patiently pursuing his goals. And he had constantly maintained, despite the lack of any perceivable gain in it for him, the contention that he cared for me. Wanted me.
I’d seen that truth in his face, as I stood near the black hole at Chester’s and both Barrons and Cruce had regarded me with identical expressions of hunger and desire.
What had Cruce said then?
You alone speak to the finest of all that I am.
That was my mission—to bring out his finest now. By any means necessary.
No boundaries. No refusals. Even if it destroyed me inside and out. And it might. Because if Cruce gave me the song, it was entirely possible my using it would kill Barrons but leave me alive. And it would definitely kill my sister.
If I made love to him willingly, would he give me the song? Would avenging himself on Barrons be amusement enough to entice? If he agreed, would he keep his word?
I closed my eyes. If he was willing, could I go through with it?
Yes. This wasn’t about me. I was expendable. The universe wasn’t. I’d pay any price to save it.
“Cruce,” I said softly. Then more strongly, “Cruce, I need you. Please come. At least listen to me, I beg of you. I’m begging, do you hear me? Once, you liked that. I see you now. I see the wrongs that were done to you. I see the chances you had and the chances you were never given. I’ve wronged you. I never let myself be open to you. I’m sorry.”
“MacKayla. At last.” His voice arrived before his body and I knew he’d been watching from somewhere beyond, for some time. I wondered why he could still sift. How was that even possible?
A faint outline appeared, filled in and solidified.
He wore no glamour but stood before me, unvarnished Cruce, the formidable, towering, iridescent-eyed Fae prince with majestic black velvet wings and kaleidoscopic tattoos. Then his wings were gone and he was wearing tight-fitting black leather pants, steel-toed boots, and a rugged sweater. His long black hair was bound at his nape, his sharply chiseled face stunning. His eyes flickered and changed before settling on warm gold.
A chaise appeared and he waved his hand toward it.
I moved in silence, sank down onto it, and he joined me there, took my hand and knit his fingers with mine.
We said nothing for a long, strange time. Just held hands, and I looked at him and he looked at me.
And I realized something. If you look at someone long enough, it’s as if their face sort of peels away. You start to notice tiny things you never noticed before.
Whether the lines on their face tell a story of laughter and love or dissatisfaction and envy.
Whether their eyes are filled with life and emotion, or flat and empty.
With a Fae, it’s a little trickier because they can don glamour, but I was the Fae queen, and I was a sidhe-seer, so I sought my inner lake and demanded it show me what was true. Did Cruce feel, as his eyes indicated, or was he empty inside? Could I reach him? How fine was his finest?
My lake wasn’t there.
It took me a moment of inner reflection to realize I’d never found my lake. That inky, water-filled grotto had always been the Sinsar Dubh’s abode, not mine. My lake wasn’t dark, it was clear ten feet down to a shade the color of tropical surf, and the surface glinted with sun. My lake wasn’t filled with shadowy figments and tendrils of dank moss and relics I couldn’t identify, it swam with brilliant runes and wards and all kin
ds of knowledge I’d never known I possessed.
Again I said, Show me what is true.
And again I saw the same thing. Cruce wasn’t one of the bad guys. I’d tasted monstrosity. It was the Sinsar Dubh.
“If I’d met you first,” I said softly.
“You might have loved me,” he finished for me. “And if you had loved me,” he said, and stopped.
“You might have changed.”
He gave me a bitter yet beautiful smile. “You did not even try to summon me. Not once did you look up at the ceiling or sky and call my name. That is how little you thought of me.”
“It was that simple? You were merely waiting for me to ask?”
“It took you too long. Now it will cost you.” His golden gaze rested on my lips and his eyes narrowed. “I can die and—for however long sentient life continues—go down in history as the bastard that doomed the entire universe. Or I can die a martyr and go down in history as the champion that saved it. When nothing is left but your legacy, it begins to matter. Either way, very soon, my history will be written. It is all that is left to me. My name.”
“You were never going to let us die. You planned to come back.”
“You were supposed to ask me!” he snarled, then collected himself and was again the imperious, mighty War.
“I did. I’m here,” I said quickly. Our peace was fragile. One wrong move and it would be broken. I could feel anger rolling off him in thick, suffocating waves. I could feel his sorrow, his despair, the fragility of his commitment to die our champion.
But it was there.
He cupped my jaw, tipped my face up and stared down at me.
“Neither of us is getting what we want, Cruce,” I said quietly. “You know I have no desire to lead the Fae race. I’ll hate this. But I’ll be a good queen, I promise.” Until I found some other Fae I believed could handle it. And if he really gave me the song, it might be a small eternity before I found a Fae I felt I could trust to wisely use such enormous power.
“Better a bad day in Hell than no days at all,” he said bitterly.
I agreed with him on that score. “What must I do to persuade you to give me the other half of the song?”
“Be less impatient for it. These are my final hours. What would you want in yours?”
Wariness flickered in my eyes. He shook his head and gave me a chiding look. “Harming you was never my desire, MacKayla. I wanted you at my side while I ruled my people. I would have led them well.”
I agreed that he would have made a fine leader, and told him so.
“The bargain price for half a song is a kiss. One kiss that convinces me utterly that, were circumstances different, you would have chosen me. A single kiss that evokes the finest within me. That and your word that you will not wield the song for four human hours from the moment we part.”
“Why?”
“Sh.” He placed a finger to my lips. “Because I said so. Is that not what your Barrons used to say to you so often? Cede me the same respect. What did you say to him that day? ‘Because I asked you to, Jericho, that’s why.’ Trust me, MacKayla.”
I exhaled deeply.
Then I slid my hands around his neck and leaned in. As my eyes began to close, he said, “Eyes open. I am not your Barrons and will never be. Nor would I wish to. I am Cruce of the Tuatha De Danann, High Prince of the Court of Shadows. And you are MacKayla Lane O’Connor, Queen of the Court of Light. Convince me on another day you would have chosen me as your consort.”
I convinced him. I’d kissed him many times before, taking his True Name into my tongue. I saw things so clearly now: good and evil didn’t exist, there was only power and choice. Power went where you willed it, wrong or right, dark or light.
And before he vanished, he passed me the other half of the Song of Making, as he’d said he would, leaving his final words lingering in the air.
Tell the world the legend of Prince Cruce of the Court of Shadows. Omit the kiss, and paint me majestic. Lead my people well, MacKayla.
He’d given us back the world, the universe.
I vowed that I would.
MAC
For the next three hours, I sat in Barrons Books & Baubles, teeth clenched, doing everything in my power to simply hold in the song.
It didn’t want to stay in.
The moment Cruce passed it to me, the second half instantly inverted and joined with the first as if completion was the only way they could coexist within me, eradicating any concerns I might have had about how to flip and join them.
Also eradicating my concerns about how to wield it.
It wanted to be sung. It sensed the distress of the world and sought to repair it. Right now, this very instant. And if I dared open my mouth, it would come gushing out.
But I’d made two promises I intended to keep: wait four hours, and tell the world the legend of Cruce.
So I sat, lips clamped tightly together, holding it in, watching the clock, trying not to think at all. I was so bloody thirsty. Hungry.
Try keeping your lips pressed together for four hours. It’s damned near impossible.
I sat motionless, breathing slow and even, afraid I might burp or sneeze. Holding my mouth closed with my hand, swallowing yawns. Making funny noises in the back of my throat when I needed to cough.
Thinking of Barrons. Of my sister.
I’d lost them both once, and gotten them both back. I’d never been happier, because I’d drunk deep of grief and it had made my joy all the sweeter.
I was going to kill my sister again and quite possibly Barrons. And probably Christian.
There was no easy path. If I didn’t sing it, everything that existed would eventually be destroyed. But to sing it, I had to kill people I loved.
I didn’t trust myself to see Barrons. I knew if he came to sit with me and we tried to spend these final hours together, I’d fail to keep my mouth shut. And the moment I opened it, he might die. Yup. Not in a hurry to go there.
But Alina I could handle, and I needed to see her. She would definitely die and I needed to have one last chance to say goodbye.
I couldn’t talk but I could text.
Alina, I’m at BB&B, please come.
My screen flashed instantly.
What’s wrong????!
Nothing. Promise. Just come.
She was there in ten minutes. We sat on the couch and I texted messages explaining what had happened, to which she replied aloud.
And when the talking was done, my big sister smiled and hugged me and told me that she understood because, although she’d been confused at first, eventually her memories had cleared.
She knew she’d died in that alley.
She told me her last thoughts as she’d been dying. Her life hadn’t flashed before her eyes like people said it did. She hadn’t thought for one minute about anything she’d done or wanted to do, or about money or fame or success.
The only thing she’d thought about at the end of her life was love. Whether she’d said it enough, shown it enough, felt it enough. And when the dying had gotten really bad, she’d escaped into memories of the vast store of love she’d known, and the pain had vanished and she had no longer been afraid.
She said that was what life was all about and if you were wise you figured it out long before you died. I’d given her more time, a chance to say goodbye to the world she’d known, and she was grateful.
And she was proud of me.
I punched her lightly then and made her stop talking because I was going to start crying and the song would come out.
We sat together, shoulder-to-shoulder on the couch, and played each other our favorite songs for the next twenty minutes until I only had fifteen minutes to go to keep my promise.
Then, heart heavy with grief, I texted Barrons and Ryodan and told them to get Dancer, hoping the song might heal his heart, and meet me at the black hole outside Chester’s ASAP.
“Don’t text Mom and Dad,” Alina said. “I can’t let them watch whateve
r’s going to happen. Just tell them I love them and I said thanks for everything. They really are the best.”
I swallowed tightly and nodded.
Arm in arm, we stepped out into the late afternoon.
SINSAR DUBH
Once again the universe favors me.
I possess a Fae vessel, and all Fae can sense their queen.
As I burst from the brick wall behind Barrons Books & Baubles, I know exactly where It is. I can feel It moving through the streets of Dublin.
The air is thick with the stench of death and decay. In my absence the black holes have grown, and their cancerous enormity excites me but also goads me to expediency. I have scant time to seize my horse, whisk It to Faery, and become fully immortal before the planet devours itself.
Then I will ride the bitch THAT DARED LEAVE ME to another world and spend the rest of eternity torturing It for Its many sins.
Aroused by the thought of reducing It to begging me over and over to kill It—NEVER LET YOU GO, MACKAYLA, LOVE YOU ALWAYS!—I focus on It and command the unboxed but very broken princess to sift us there.
MAC
When we arrived at Chester’s, Barrons, Ryodan, Dani, Dancer, and Christian were waiting for us, a safe distance from the black hole.
The moment I looked at Barrons, I knew he knew everything. Had known ever since it happened.
My damned brand. I wanted one of my own on him. Assuming he survived.
If you think you can handle it, his glittering eyes said.
He’d felt me kissing Cruce, without knowing why. I marveled at his restraint, his patience. There was no accusation in his eyes. No insecurity or brooding jealousy. He trusted that I’d done what I’d done for good reason, and it didn’t change a thing about his feelings for me.
Still, there was an unmistakable territorial possessiveness in his dark, ancient gaze, and I knew once the world was safe, if he still remained, he would need to reclaim me, us, thoroughly. He knew, too, that I had the song and hadn’t contacted him immediately. I was honored by the absolute freedom the man granted me.
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