Why would they even want you back? the voice slithered. You were nothing but a burden, remember?
My steps froze, and my outstretched hand paused in front of the light wall as the scene changed before me.
“So sad to think she ended up just like her grandmother,” a voice from the past echoed throughout the chamber.
“It would probably have been better if she wasn’t around. Her parents were known to be troublemakers,” another voice said.
I swallowed as I watched Silas staring at my home. It looked more disheveled than when I had left Barracks. Every part of me prayed that I would open the door and let him in. But I didn’t. Instead, he turned toward the blonde woman standing beside him.
“Things are better now,” she said to him as she took his arm. “You’re free to do whatever you like.”
Silas clutched the woman’s arm and smiled. “Yes, I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time.”
“Silas,” I whispered. A piercing pain jolted through my body as another crack embedded itself in my heart.
See? the voice returned. They don’t want the burden back.
Before I could react, the scene changed again. No longer were Silas and the woman standing before me, but a mirrored image of myself. I took a step back. So did the image. Taking a breath, I stepped forward to where I was before and studied myself. My once beautiful hair was chopped and ragged, accentuating the grime that covered my face. Dark circles deepened under my ice blue eyes, making my appearance gaunt. Dried blood stained my neck, and the purple stains from the wine glowed brightly. I reached my hand up to my cheek. Is this really what I look like?
Yes, horrible, isn’t it? the voice asked. I couldn’t help but agree. If you looked like her—the blonde woman appeared next to my tattered appearance—maybe Silas would have come to Heart Reign. Maybe he would have saved you from your fate. But instead, he let you go. He didn’t want you. Just like Nana didn’t want you. And Lyle. He left, too, didn’t he? Nobody wants the leper named Adelaide Tye.
“No,” I said, feeling the tears burning in my eyes as my own words were thrown back at me. “No, that’s not true.”
It’s not? The voice was closer, sliding around me, constricting my thoughts with its own. Are you sure?
I opened my mouth to respond again but stopped. I never had any proof that Lyle was still alive or that he would have wanted me to save him, anyway. He did leave me. My heart weighed down with agony at the thought. And Nana never tried to care for either of us when our parents died. She didn’t want me, either. And Silas. It was true; Silas didn’t come to Heart Reign. He didn’t care what happened to me during the festival.
He just wanted it to be over with, remember? the voice crooned in my ear.
“Yes,” I said, realizing everything it was saying was true. “Yes, you’re right. No one wanted me. But they would want someone like her.” I looked at the blonde woman standing tall, confident, and beautiful next to my image in the mirror. The green shade thickened over my eyes once more.
Yes, the voice said. They would. And you can give that to them. You can be her. All you have to do is take her hand.
I reached my burned hand toward the shimmering wall of light before me. The blonde woman did the same, a small smile forming on her lips as her hand extended beyond the light. Without hesitation, I reached toward the light wall. Smoke rose from my fingertips, but I pressed on. I wanted Lyle to come home and beat me at chess like he used to. Then Silas could come over, and the three of us could join Nana for dinner, all of us eating together at one table. We could talk about anything and everything: books, the market, the weather. We would laugh together, cry together—it didn’t matter as long as we were together. But for that to happen, I needed to become someone they would love. My hand began to disintegrate, but the pain was nothing compared to the joy I felt when I considered being someone other than myself.
When I was inches away from the beautiful woman’s fingertips, the joy began to subside, and the pain hit me like a boulder. I cried out as the fiery torment reached my forearm, the stench of my burning flesh and smoke from Lyle's sweater racing through my nose.
Only a little farther, the voice prodded.
It was now or never. Taking my stance, I readied myself to take the full plunge into the wall when my shoulders were grasped by a pair of sturdy hands, jerking me back and slamming me into the ground.
Chapter 29
I fell backwards, my spine hitting the stone floor. I groaned before the pain in my arm resurfaced, causing tears to barrel down my cheeks. I looked down at my arm and was greeted with a charred limb instead of flesh.
"What's wrong with you, girl?" the wheezing voice from before asked. "Having gotten this far, I’d think you would know a trick when you saw one."
My heart quickened. “Lyle?” I asked, looking around. Was that him? Hope sparked within me. He cared about me and wanted to come back. I tried to stand to get to him, but the pain in my arm was too great. Crying out, I stumbled back to the ground, clutching my burnt arm to my chest.
A pair of dark brown boots entered my line of sight. Tears streamed down my face from the pain in my arm. The stranger crouched next to me. I looked up at him, only to see a pair of bright blue eyes rimmed with green staring down at me. I blinked a few times, finding a familiarity in those eyes. “Lyle, is that you?” My heart pulsed lightly. A grin began to form on my lips until I realized it wasn’t Lyle. He hadn’t come back.
Another shooting pain pierced my heart, and I knew it had cracked once more. I cried out, sobbing and clutching my arm. I couldn’t care less if this stranger killed me right now. I just wanted to be rid of all the pain.
The man stood up, walked behind me, and pulled me into a sitting position, not acknowledging my cries. His hands were gentle but firm as they steadied my shuddering shoulders.
Coming back around, he handed me a piece of cloth and waited until I had finished crying. I was still in the Sixth Choice. The mirror wall was still before me, and the blonde woman still stood with her arm extended, waiting to take my life.
The man was right. I should have known it was a trick. Everything had been a trick up until this point, and I still fell for it. Gritting my teeth, I shook my head. After everything I'd been through, Ophidian still won, and I had failed.
"Now, now," the man said, seeing the turmoil on my face as he crouched down and began wrapping my arm. "Don't beat yourself up too bad. Not a day goes by where I don't wish to jump through that wall myself."
I felt nothing of his touch or the cloth. In fact, I felt nothing on my arm at all. All feeling was gone. Just like my hair, I had lost another piece of myself to Ophidian.
Looking up at the stranger, I noticed that his voice caused a deceptive perception of him. From the wheezing accompanying his words, I would have thought he was at least Nana's age. But looking at his smooth skin and light brown hair, the man was not a day over forty.
Wearing worn-out brown pants and a plaid shirt, he looked so . . . ordinary. Every person I had encountered in this realm so far had either been possessed with some motive to try to sway me to stay behind their door or turned into a monster that tried to kill me.
But this man saved me from walking through the light wall and killing myself. None of the other creatures or people so far had done that for me except for Claire, and look where that got her.
"Who are you?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at the suspiciously sane stranger.
"Names aren't important right now," he replied gruffly.
“Why are you here, then?" And why are you so normal, I wanted to add.
"Same as you," he said with a grunt that seemed familiar, too. "Just trying to make it through the Choices."
"Why haven't you?" I probed, still suspicious.
"Can't make it through the wall." He then rolled up the sleeves on his plaid shirt, letting out a rough breath.
I gasped at the sight of the burn scars covering his hands and arms. No wonder he pulled me ou
t. He was trying to save me from the pain he had already gone through. But why?
"Is there any way out?" I asked, my hope almost gone. Even if Lyle wanted to leave and never come back, he was still my brother. I wouldn’t allow him to die at the hand of Ophidian.
He shook his head before letting out a phlegmy cough. "Not unless you stop wanting what you don't have. Which is impossible for me."
"What does it show you?" Considering everything I had gone through up to this point, I didn't care if I was being forward.
"Everything I gave up. My wife, my kid, my home. All for a choice. A really dumb choice."
I nodded thoughtfully. My choices didn't seem to be getting me any closer to happiness and what I wanted, either.
If this man had traded his heart for a choice, like all the others, shouldn't he have turned into a siti by now? Especially since it looked like he'd been stuck behind this door for a while.
Taking a deep breath, I decided against asking him outright about why he hadn't turned into a life-sucking monster.
"Trading a heart for a choice doesn't seem to be a smart decision for anyone," I murmured.
The man glared down at me, and I knew I'd hit a nerve. "I didn't trade my heart," he wheezed angrily.
I stared up at him. "Then how did you get here?"
"By my own dumb choice," he replied, running his hand through his hair. "My heart had already been sealed when I decided that it wasn't good enough."
I gave him a blank look. What was he talking about? Maybe I had misjudged him for being normal. He was probably a creature in disguise, like everyone else in this realm. But my curiosity got the better of me. "What do you mean, ‘sealed’?"
"You know." He waved his hand in the air like I knew what he was talking about. When he realized I didn't, he let out a sigh. "So, it really has changed out there, hasn't it?"
I softened my expression, realizing we were both thoroughly confused. "I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about."
The man sighed again and started unbuttoning his shirt. Fearful of another lecherous display, I reached for my sword with my unburnt hand. There was no way I was going through that Choice again. Just as I was about to grab the hilt, the man walked toward the light wall.
"Look," he said as the emerald light shined on his bare chest.
There was nothing there at first. But as my eyes narrowed, the outline of a circle appeared on his chest. I placed my hand on my own, knowing that they were the same. As I looked closer, I could see that his circle had a line going through it diagonally as if marking out the circle. In the center of the line, another small line perpendicularly intersected the larger one.
"Sealed," he said. "Marked. Mended."
My eyes widened so much, they felt as if they were going to pop out of my skull. The mark of the Mender. The same mark on the sword. It was real.
Chapter 30
I knew the man saw the shock on my face, because he started to rebutton his shirt. "You've seen this mark before?"
I nodded, unable to speak. If the mark of the Mender was real, that meant—
"Yes," the man confirmed, finishing my thought. "He's real."
"But . . ." I began, but my head was so full of questions, I didn't know which would come out first.
"And I was a fool," he said, cutting me off. "He took me in, mended me, taught me his magic, and helped me with everything I had asked. And what did I do? I decided his way wasn't good enough and went to find another way."
"But," I repeated, my mind settling on one question. "How did you get in here if you didn't trade your heart?"
"I could ask you the same question." He motioned to the satchel. I grabbed the strap.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to take it." He held up his hands in surrender. "I didn't have to trade my heart. Ophidian thought it would be pleasant enough that one of the Mender's own would run to his darkness for help." The man let out another sigh. "I foolishly made it through the first five Choices, only to get stuck at the second to last one." He jerked his thumb back at the light wall.
Turning his head, he stared forlornly at the wall. "Every day, I want to cast myself into the fire, just to end my torment for the fool I was. For leaving my wife. For leaving the Mender." He looked back at me. "What's your name, anyway?"
"Addie."
"Addie,” he murmured, staring at me with a look of fascination. He studied me closely, making me feel uncomfortable.
I stood and gripped the sword with my left hand, holding the hilt near my face. The mark of the Mender peered back at me. I narrowed my eyes. I knew the mark of the Mender was real; I couldn't deny it was on the sword or on the man's chest. But what about the Mender himself? If he was real, why hadn't he shown up yet? Why did I have to go through this alone?
"You are not alone," the voice said softly in my ear.
"You keep saying that," I muttered, still clutching the weapon. "But it sure doesn’t feel like it." The voice didn't answer, but I figured as much. My heart beat softly, reminding me what was at stake. I didn’t know how much time Lyle or Claire had left. I needed to get to the seventh Choice quickly.
"I think it's time to get out of here. What about you?" I asked the man.
"How?"
I didn't blame him for doubting me. I doubted me, too. The voice from earlier was right. I was a mess, and I knew I didn’t look the part of the hero. My hair was chopped and scraggily, giving off the awful odor of dried wine from the orange door. I knew my neck still had dried blood and a cut from where siti-Silas had taken a bite. And now I had a useless hand and a broken heart. I was exhausted, hungry, and confused. It was only recently that I found the courage to leave my house, much less defeat an evil being. Why would anyone choose me to accomplish something as great as this?
Sighing, I looked back at the sword, then to the light wall. The beautiful woman was still there, waiting for my response. But this was who I was. I was broken and scared.
I clutched the sword and felt its power flow through me, as if telling me I was right. I was all those things, but it was okay. I needed to be scared and broken to be able to see my choice to the end.
Like a river rushing downhill, a surge of strength engulfed the cells in my body. The mark began to glow a bright orange, followed by the white glow of its blade. The air swirled around me, beckoning me into the sword’s power.
The sword's power was great, and I struggled as I tried to grip it with one hand. I could feel the power pulsing through my veins in perfect rhythm with the pulsing of my heart.
Like an invisible force was pushing me forward, I walked toward the light wall. The man stared wide-eyed as I passed him, holding the sword in front of me.
The voice was silent, but the woman stood waiting. With her striking features and tall, shapely physique, she was dazzling in every way. There wasn’t a person in the realms who wouldn’t want her. She was perfect and everything I could ever hope to be.
The sword began to raise itself, and I let my hand go with it. The glow grew brighter against the light wall. The green began to fade from my eyes, purifying my vision of the lie before me. Perfection came with a price. One I couldn’t pay.
I clenched my teeth and gripped the sword tightly as its power grew. It surged forward, piercing the light wall in the middle of the scene. I breathed hard as I watched the figure before me begin to crack. All her perfections were blemished by the shattering light. The fissures were small at first, but quickly transformed into huge canyons across the entirety of the wall. The sound of shattering glass disappeared into the void as I pulled the sword out and ran back.
"Come on!" I yelled to the man, who stared at the cracking light. When I destroyed my desires, I had probably destroyed his, too.
Although painful, I reached out and grabbed his arm as I ran by, pulling him away from the hopes that had tormented him since he first arrived in this Choice.
When I finally thought we had run far enough, an explosion of light and fire caught up to us fr
om behind, pushing our bodies onto the cold, hard floor. My skull crashed against the ground, causing a large crack to vibrate through my ears. I started to think it was my heart, but my vision grew dimmer until . . .
Screaming. So much screaming.
Chapter 31
I woke with a jolt, my head whipping frantically back and forth. Everything was dark. As my eyes adjusted, I didn't see the man or the wall. Instead, trees formed, arching above me, sending me back into my nightmare.
My skin was no longer charred, and my sweater was fully intact. I pushed myself to stand. This had to be a dream.
A large cry broke me from my observations, sending my senses on alert. My body tensed before I slowly turned my head to see the trees parting before my eyes, allowing the cave to come into view.
"Ofavemore," I said, remembering Claire's name for this place.
I swallowed my fear and walked toward the scream. Sorrow, pain, and hatred filled each wail, tearing my heart apart. Each shrill scream for help and mercy made me want to run as far away as I could.
As I approached the cave, my hand glided toward the sword but found nothing but air. I jerked my head down to see that my satchel had disappeared as well. Panic rose in my throat. This could be my nightmare, but it could also be a trick Ophidian was using to take my heart, especially now that I was unarmed. I stood frozen for a moment, not knowing whether or not I should continue.
But before I could decide, my body was thrust forward into the cave of screams. I slammed into the cold metal bars of a cell. Groaning, I reached out and rubbed my head. The clanking and dragging of chains echoed against the walls, causing me to back away from the metal door.
"Addie?" a voice said.
Staring cautiously at the cell, I took a step forward and peered through the bars. That voice. It sounded like . . .
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