by Suzi Davis
Aed laughed, the sound hard and cold, echoing around the field. Everyone shifted uncomfortably. We were in the company of two madmen and it looked like Jeremy and his allies had only just realized it. Nathaniel still lay crumpled on the ground at Aed’s feet, his fingers loosely holding Bridgette’s. Bridgette herself now sat straight and proud, considering David emotionlessly. I briefly met her eye and she nodded. Her thoughts were so clear, I thought I could almost hear them in my mind. Be strong, she whispered in my mind’s ear. You can do this.
Aed’s laughter abruptly cut off as he noticed the unspoken communication between us.
“Well, you certainly know how to throw a party, brother,” Aed remarked to David. “Your revenge is sweet but certainly flawed.”
“Oh?” David arched a brow.
“You wanted to force Grace’s hand, so that she would have to be responsible for the death of all that was left of Sebastian: my death. But Grace would never have been strong enough to kill me herself. There is only one weapon that might bring me to my knees, and even though she carries it on her person now, she makes not the slightest move to use it,” Aed remarked quietly. He watched me the whole while that he spoke. My body tensed, my muscles froze. He knew.
“Don’t fool yourself, Grace,” he purred, stepping closer to me. I still couldn’t move, I could barely breathe. I wondered if it was because he didn’t want me to or was I paralyzed by fear? “You came back to me, just as I commanded. You deny it but you know it’s true. You could never harm me, not when I wear your lover’s face. Not when I am all that you have left of him. How could you be expected to destroy that?”
“I’ll do it, I’ll kill you,” I warned, my voice barely a whisper. I slid one hand to my hip, gripping the warm hilt of the knife beneath my shirt and the other clutched at my necklace, desperately drawing strength from it.
“Do it then,” he challenged. He held his arms open, his palms face out. “Kill me.”
I pulled the knife out. In my peripheral vision I saw Jeremy move forward. David tensed but Aed didn’t flinch in the slightest.
“Stay back,” he commanded. His eyes glowed feverishly. “Not you,” he beckoned to me. “Come closer. Show us all just how fearless you are, how selfless. Let’s end this, Grace, once and for all.”
I moved closer, enticed by his words, hypnotized by his eyes.
He reached out slowly and clasped my wrist in one of his strong, warm hands. He squeezed tightly, the gentle pressure familiar and eerily reassuring. Without ever breaking eye contact, he guided the knife point to his heart, only releasing my hand once I held the knife directly over his chest, the point digging into the fabric of his clothes. I knew I should do it, I knew this would be my one and only chance but for some strange reason, I couldn’t bring myself to push the blade in. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t strong enough.
“Do it, Gracelynn. Kill me. You know I don’t deserve to live. Kill me,” he whispered, his voice no longer taunting and cruel, his words softened by his strange passion. I gazed back into his eyes and was shocked by what I saw there, a faint glimmer, a distant glow, a forgotten shade of blue. I nearly dropped the knife.
“Do it. Do it now,” he urged. He grabbed my hand, pulling the dagger firmly against his chest. The tip pierced through his clothes and found his skin, blood began to well around it.
“No,” I denied. “I can’t.”
From behind Aed, David laughed.
“You see! She is weak, she’s a fool. This child is not fit to lead anyone. She has led you to nothing but your deaths at our hands.”
“Kill…me!” Aed hissed through clenched teeth. Again a glimmer of blue flashed in his eyes. And I knew I couldn’t go through with it, it was no longer even a possibility. I could never, ever harm this man because somewhere, deep inside him, Sebastian was still alive, at least in some form. A spark of hope flickered in the black void inside of me. A shadow of light crossed my heart.
Aed didn’t truly want to die, but Sebastian did. Sebastian would rather die than live like this. Sebastian would rather die at my hand and save me from Aed, than risk living and seeing my demise. But Sebastian was not beyond saving as he must believe. I could no longer believe it. I knew what I had to do. I let the dagger fall from my hand.
“I love you, Sebastian,” I said softly.
Aed’s eyes widened. David snickered but I ignored him.
“Sebastian is dead. I killed him, you fool,” Aed growled. All traces of blue had disappeared from his eyes and they were back to a hard and deadly black. “If you want to live, you will never, ever, call me that again.”
“He’s a part of you as much as you’re a part of him,” I argued. “You don’t have to choose to be Aed or Sebastian, no person is all good or all bad, you can be both; you are both.”
“You lying bitch!” Aed declared. “Stupid girl! How dare you insult me by implying that any part of that coward exists within me still?”
“Now that she won’t move against you, what should we do with her?” David mused. “Do you still want her now that she has shown her true cowardice, or will you discard her and execute her as she deserves?”
“Do your own dirty work, David,” Aed snapped. Jeremy and the others flinched at his harsh and deadly tone.
“She has bound me with her filthy magic not to harm her, might I remind you,” David frowned. “You must kill her yourself, brother. Use the dagger and let her blood bleed out from her heart so that her magic won’t carry forward with her into her next life.”
“Very well. I tire of these games,” Aed muttered as he bent to pick up the dagger. He straightened quickly and pressed the blade against my throat. I made no move to stop him.
“No!” Bridgette protested, speaking for the first time. A swift kick in the gut from David silenced her. Cold fury flowed through my veins. I squeezed my hands into fists. Though Nathaniel remained motionless, I thought I saw his muscles tighten and flex.
“Don’t be afraid,” I whispered fiercely to Aed. He frowned, obviously thrown off guard. “I see all of you now, I know all of your past. You never have to be afraid of the past again, once you accept it and leave it behind you, it will no longer haunt you. Aed will be powerless.”
“Shut up!” Aed hissed. He pressed the dagger against my throat. I felt a trickle of blood run down my neck.
“Not her throat, her heart!” David instructed from behind him.
“Shut up!” Aed roared.
“I know you’re in there still,” I breathed as quietly as possible. I could tell Aed was listening to me, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on mine. Something stirred deep in the shadows of the gaping void within me. I knew I was close to breaking through to him. “Please, I love you. Come back to me.”
Aed stepped even closer. He towered above me, the knife biting into my throat, burning with pain. He bent his head down to whisper menacingly in my ear.
“Kill me,” he begged, the plea embedded with unspeakable hatred and self-loathing. His pain tore at my heart.
“I’m sorry, I can’t,” I whispered back. “Death might be easier but I’m going to force you to live with this, to live through this. That is the only punishment you deserve.”
I heard Aed sigh, a familiar exhausted and exasperated sound. His breath tickled my ear, sending shivers down my spine. The void inside me shrank, a new, gently glowing light filling it, filling me.
“Do it! Kill her! What are you waiting for?” David screamed in frustration.
Aed immediately pulled away from me, turning with fury in his eyes.
“Do not presume to tell me what to do,” he warned, the knife spinning in his hand with a flick of his wrist. I could no longer tell who was in control, Aed or Sebastian or were they now one and the same?
“Are you threatening me?” David demanded incredulously.
“Do I need to?”
“If you won’t kill her, let me,” Jeremy volunteered, his eyes eager. He held his hand out for the knife. “Or let me have the brunette
,” he suggested, his eyes lingering on Bridgette suggestively. “I’d love to have a little fun with her before we slit her throat. I wonder how many ways we make her scream?”
“Now!” Nathaniel yelled, suddenly coming to life.
The thin man and the woman who stood slightly behind Jeremy leapt forward at Nathaniel’s command. They grabbed ahold of Jeremy, pulling him backwards and onto the ground before he could properly react. A blade flashed through the air as it swept across Jeremy’s throat. His blood, scarlet red and steaming hot, sprayed onto the muddy ground.
With an animalistic cry of rage, Nathaniel charged at David. He threw himself at him with a roar of fury, his hands reaching for David’s throat, a solid blast of air already forming before him. David moved so fast, he seemed to almost blur through the air. With an unshakeable, deadly calm, his hand clenched around Nathaniel’s throat, crushing it with the added strength of his magic. A sickening crunching, gurgling sound escaped Nathaniel’s lips as his windpipe collapsed, his hands loosely clawing at this throat as he lost all control of his magic.
“No!” I screamed, but Nathaniel was already dead. David cast his limp body aside, a smug, self-satisfied expression on his face. I couldn’t believe I had ever thought he was handsome, that I had ever been tempted by him. He was pure evil.
“Stop!” I commanded to the tall, thin man and the woman, who were still attacking the lifeless and bloody form of Jeremy. I felt like I was about to throw up. “Just stop.”
“Stop,” Bridgette echoed, her voice barely louder than a whisper. Her face was white, completely bloodless. She looked like she was in shock. She crawled to Nathaniel’s side, reaching for him with a trembling hand. She checked his pulse, but there was no need. Slowly and tenderly, she closed his unseeing eyes and wiped a splatter of mud from his cheek with her thumb. With the lightest touch, she swept his messy hair aside to press her lips against his forehead. Tears began to gather in my eyes.
“Too much for you to stomach, Grace?” Aed commented, sounding bored. He glanced over to Jeremy’s mutilated corpse emotionlessly. “Nathaniel might have commanded them a little too enthusiastically. Mind control can be a dangerous game when you don’t know the rules. You!” he snapped at the man and the woman crouched to either side of Jeremy’s corpse, their faces now splattered with blood. “The one who attempted to command you is dead. You obey me now and only me, or you die. Understand?”
They both looked confused. The man hesitated, then spoke.
“Nathaniel bound us with his magic, but it was not him we were asked to obey.”
“I don’t care if he bound you to obey Grace or himself or even the pathetic child! He is dead, his magic dies with him, you are now mine to command.” And with his words, David released a steady stream of the Lost Magic, twisting around and trapping the minds of the two people before him to do his bidding.
Their eyes glazed over, their faces blank. Slowly they both nodded, like mindless zombies.
“Look at all the bodies that can be piled at your feet,” David accused. “All this death and destruction, all because of you, Grace.”
“What have you done?” Bridgette suddenly growled. The sound of her voice was terrifying. The power commanded behind it immeasurable, and awe inspiring. I could feel the Lost Magic pouring into her like never before. The amount of power she was drawing on was limitless. I hadn’t thought it possible to control so much of the magic. She slowly rose to her feet.
“Sit back down, child, before you get hurt,” David dismissed. His eyes flickered nervously to Aed who was subtly shifting his body in front of mine.
“Careful,” Aed warned, his voice low and soft and strikingly familiar. “You can’t win against us. I don’t want to kill you.”
The wind began to rise, howling all around us. The sky darkened and lightning flickered at the edges of the field, striking the tops of the trees. Magic poured from Bridgette, filling the air, crackling with its own electric pulse and still she fed more and more into the air all around us. What was she doing?
“What have you done?” she screamed, her eyes wild with grief as she looked down upon Nathaniel’s lifeless body, laid out on the mud before her.
As the wind swirled all around, wisps of fog began to stretch down from the sky, unfurling as they hit the ground, instantly thickening and solidifying into a dense, gray cloud. The boundary between the living and the dead blurred.
“Don’t leave me!” Bridgette screamed, her plea echoing all around us. The fog continued to pour down from the sky. It was so thick now that the rest of the meadow had already disappeared. Beyond our small group of six, there was nothing but a wall of solid gray. A light began to grow in the distance, as bright and as warm as the sun. “Come back!” Bridgette screamed. “Nathaniel, come back to me!”
“What is that?” David asked, squinting into the fog. “Where are we?”
There was a blinding flash of light that made us all flinch. When we reopened our eyes, an apparition stood before us, bathed in warm, soft light. We all stared in speechless wonder.
“I’m here, Bridgette, it’s ok now,” Mags greeted softly. She smiled gently at Bridgette, her eyes full of pity. Bridgette sagged down to the ground, a loud sob bursting from her lips. “I’m so sorry about Nathaniel. I’m sorry about all of what you had to go through. But you have finally reached your full potential, you are about to finally meet your destiny as I once promised you would.” Mags turned to me with a grateful smile. “Thank you, Grace. You have brought her here. Your obligation to the spirits has ended. And in return…”
She turned slowly to face Aed, her skin glowing with a warm, otherworldly light. She smiled at him, radiating such peaceful, pure joy.
“Hello, Sebastian,” she greeted.
Aed frowned, his confusion obvious.
“I… who are you? Mags?”
“Yes, it’s me. It’s time for you to come back now, come back to Gracelynn. She loves you and she will continue to fight for you. She will never give up, Sebastian. Help her. Extinguish the dark flame in your heart and come back to her,” Mags coaxed.
“No, I can’t…” he moaned, the strain clear on his face. His eyes were clouded but the lines of his face were softening before my eyes.
“You’ve never been beyond saving, Sebastian. I love you. Gracelynn loves you. The Jensons love you. Come back to us,” Mags whispered.
Aed squeezed his eyes shut, his whole body shaking. Tears leaked out the corners of his eyes and began to trickle down his pale cheeks.
“I… can’t…”
“Help him,” Mags instructed me.
I ran to his side, my heart swelling with fear and hope. I tentatively touched his arm and he didn’t pull away. My heart relaxed and melted; it felt so good to touch him again after all this time. He slowly opened his dark blue-gray, tear-filled eyes.
“Gracelynn,” he whispered, his voice full of despair.
“It’s ok. I’m here, it’s ok,” I rushed to reassure him, hardly able to believe it was true—he was back. I had Sebastian back.
“I can’t… I’ve done such terrible things. If you only knew…”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t,” he argued. He spoke so softly I could barely distinguish his words. “I… Clarke and…”
“I already know,” I reassured him. I swallowed hard. “I know what Aed did to Clarke and I know about Tanya too.”
“It wasn’t just Aed. It was me too. Clarke will never forgive me, I’ll never forgive myself. But not Tanya—I couldn’t do it, even then, I couldn’t hurt the baby. Jeremy arranged for someone to hold her for us, until I decided what I was going to do with her. She’s in a cabin in Tofino.”
Relief swept through me.
“Clarke will be so happy,” I whispered in his ear. “I shouldn’t have doubted you.”
“But Gracelynn… it doesn’t change a thing. The things I’ve done can never be undone, can never be forgotten.”
“I know, but I’m still
here,” I repeated, wrapping my arms around him and holding him as tightly as I could. I felt him tremble, I heard him choke back a sob. The void inside me vanished and filled and swelled with light as bright and as warm as the sun. I swore that I’d never let him go.
“I love you,” I whispered as I clutched him as tightly as I could.
“I love you too,” he answered without hesitation, his voice thick with tears and sorrow.
“David,” Mags’ spirit turned to him. His face was ashen, his eyes full of panic. He shook his head, his mouth working in silent denial.
“You have fallen so far,” Mags murmured sadly. “You have had so many chances to change your life but you do not ever take them. You almost let yourself love Grace, just as once you almost let yourself love me but then you pull back, you always return to the evil, hateful ways that are so familiar to your heart.”
“Lies! Lies!” David cried, his face contorting with fury. “Don’t fall for the girl’s tricks, Aed! This is all a part of Caoilinn’s game. It’s not real. None of it’s real. I’ll put an end to this once and for all.”
David began to gather the Lost Magic, preparing to strike against Mags. She stared back at him calmly, peacefully, while he gathered enough magic to quite possibly destroy her spirit so that her soul might never be born or live again. Panic overwhelmed me. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t move or think fast enough to stop him. But before David could utter the word, before he could release the spell from his lips, Bridgette stepped between him and Mags. With tears still fresh on her face, she drove the ancient knife deep into his heart.
“You…” he croaked accusingly, glaring at Bridgette with eyes full of hate. “It was you all along.”
“One day you will be born again, but without magic, without power and with the chance to start anew. Until then, I hope you find redemption and forgiveness in the place between life and death. The place I send you to now to join the others whom you have sent there so untimely,” she pronounced stoically. With one last thrust, she drove the dagger deeper into his chest, silencing the beating of his ancient heart forever. David’s eyes glazed over, his body crumpled forward and hit the ground, a pool of dark blood slowly spreading from him. Bridgette fell weakly to her knees.