“The Dark will care about your life,” I added. “Jessica, too.”
Linda’s hand finally dropped from her forehead, but she didn’t look at me. “You trust her so much, and you’ve only known her a year.”
“A year and two months.”
Her eyes met mine. “You can’t love that quickly.”
“We have one word for love.” I smiled when I thought of Jessica. “But we have no words for how it grows over time.” Every moment we had meant more, and as time passed, each moment grew into another. “Does your love for Darthon still grow?”
Linda froze.
“I think you should consider that,” I said and stepped away from the wall. It was time for me to leave. I had done the last thing I needed to do before the Dark went into battle, and now, all I had left to do was prepare to fight. This time, I would win, and I wouldn’t hesitate, but I didn’t take two steps before Linda grabbed my arm.
“Why?” She let me go almost as quickly as she had touched me. “Why help me?”
Instead of facing her, I stared at the willow tree I hadn’t sat under in weeks. “I learned one thing from Robb.” The tree was the same place where I had almost died. “We were all born into this.” I couldn’t help but remember all the times I spent with Robb, too. The way our childhoods melted together was a cruel reminder of our fate. “But we still have choices to make.”
I stepped away before I said anything else. I couldn’t risk showing my emotions about Robb to her, the girl I was trying to get on my side, the girl who was supposed to be on his side. If she saw my face, she would know how I felt. In all of my suffering, I had my friends and family, but Darthon only valued his violence. Robb had been alone more than I had ever been, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell her I needed him to be alone when he died. It was a horrible decision, a selfish one, something I would live with for the rest of my life, simply because I would live and he would die, but I had no other choice to make. He had to die so I could live, but—more importantly—he had to die so the Light and the Dark could live in peace. Harmony would only come with destruction.
“Not anymore.” Linda’s shout flew over me.
I spun around, but kept walking backward, away from her, toward my family. “What?”
“It stopped growing a long time ago,” she shouted louder.
Her love for Darthon. It had stopped growing, and in my mind, that meant she had stopped loving him.
“You’re going to have to prove that,” I shouted back.
She did the last thing I expected her to do. She jogged toward me, and she kept walking by my side as I increased my speed. “Then, you’ll believe me when I tell you the truth.” Her words came out as fast as our strides.
“Try me.”
“She went back today,” Linda’s voice dropped. “Jessica is in the Light realm.”
48
Jessica
“I knew you’d come back,” Darthon’s voice met mine milliseconds after I transported into the realm. It wasn’t difficult. In fact, it was easier than I had anticipated. All I had to do was think about it, and I was there. Even then, I hadn’t transformed. I had remained human, but Darthon wasn’t.
His golden hair was the first thing I saw, but I forced myself to stare at the pits he had for eyes. “I’m sort of predictable, aren’t I?”
His elongated arms folded in front of his chest, but he towered over me. Every part of his stance told me that he was expecting the unpredictable. Even he knew my arrival wasn’t as simple as he wished.
I wasn’t on his side yet.
After all, I was remaining a human, and both of my powers simmered deep inside of me. I had come for a reason, though, and I wasn’t leaving without completing my last mission.
“There’s something I have to know.”
“And what would that be?” His shoulder pressed against the stone wall, and I searched for familiarity in his movements. Would Zac lean, or would Robb? I thought both of them would, but they should’ve been in school, too. If it came down to it, Jonathon would be able to tell me who was missing that day, and we would know. No matter what, I had to know for certain.
“Who are you?”
His lips stretched into a smile, but the right corner twitched. “Why would I tell you that?”
“Eric would.”
Darthon’s mouth opened. Then, his lips flipped into a grin. All of his teeth were spikes. “I’m not Eric.”
Eric’s name on his lips caused my nerves to race, but I curled my fingers into a fist. When I felt his heartbeat in my palm, I could breathe again. “I know you’re Zac or Robb.”
Darthon’s eyes slid over me. “And?” Not even a denial.
“And you’ve wondered why I haven’t taken your side,” I clarified. “Eric would sacrifice his identity for his people.” I waited, and waited, and waited some more, but Darthon didn’t budge.
“I will gladly tell you when you’re on our side,” he spoke slowly enough that every word dragged out like a sentence. “I would bet Eric didn’t even tell you his name in the beginning.”
It was true. I had figured it out on my own, over months of time spent together. With Darthon, I only had days. Horrible, drowning days.
“Is that what you wanted?” Darthon asked as he pushed himself off the wall. He took two steps toward me before he stopped. “Is that all you want to know?”
“I want to know how to use my powers fully.” I forced myself to stand my ground. I couldn’t step away from him. I wouldn’t. Not until I got what I wanted. “I want to know everything about the Light.”
“Both of those are pretty simple,” he stated. As he walked, his back muscles shifted his shirt. “Come with me.”
I followed him, but not for long. The entire realm shifted, and the floor melted into wooden ground. Bookshelves surrounded us, and every spine was marked with golden thread. The titles glittered in the dim light. The dust made me sneeze. We were in a library.
Darthon waved his hand over the nearest shelf. “This is every text we’ve ever written, anything we’ve ever collected.” Hundreds of books circled us. Hundreds of texts I never even knew existed. The Dark had a library, too, but Darthon’s collection made the Dark’s room look like a simple stack. “You can learn everything here whenever you want to.”
I stared at the array of papers until my eyes landed on the single desk that sat in the corner. It was covered in books, and I wondered how much time Darthon had spent studying every single word. An entire lifetime wouldn’t be sufficient, yet he had already tried.
Darthon sat on the desk, and his torso blocked me from seeing his latest read. “Once you’re a light,” he spoke, “you can manipulate this realm just like I do.”
I stepped toward the nearest shelf and touched a leather-bound book. I half-expected it to disappear beneath my fingertips, but it didn’t. The bumpy ridges rubbed my skin. “Do these explain what we are? Where shades and lights come from?”
“Of course.”
I only looked away from the books to stare at him.
He placed his hands on either side of his hips. “We come from the Highland, another realm much like this one.”
I had never heard the word before. Not once. I hadn’t even heard Eric mention it, and I knew why.
“The Dark doesn’t know this,” I guessed.
“Not anymore,” he said, confirming the amount of history that had been lost over the hundreds of years the bloodlines had lain dormant. “We keep them out of here.”
I pulled my hand away from the book to prevent my temptation to take it. “Why?”
“They followed us here from the Highland,” he said. The Dark and the Light were more alike than I knew. “The Light broke through, and they came here to learn, to explore the humans’ abilities, but the Dark—” A growl escaped him. “They tried to stop it all.”
“Why?”
Darthon’s eyes slanted into a glare. “So many questions.”
My ears burned beneath my curls. �
��Do you want me to take your side or not?”
He stared, and for a moment, his chest didn’t even move. He didn’t breathe or budge. “The Dark thought we destroyed the Highland when we broke through.” Darthon was telling me everything I wanted to know. “They didn’t want us to destroy the humans, too.”
I knew enough about the Dark’s past to know how many wars had erupted. Thousands of people had died, but it was impossible to know which wars were caused by the Light, by the Dark, or just the humans. I had to bet the books around us would explain it, but I hardly had the time to read. Not yet.
“Did you destroy them?” I asked. “The humans, I mean.”
“Not intentionally. They did as all good creatures do,” he said. “They fought for a better cause, and we created that cause, and we will continue our cause when the Dark is gone.”
I had to bite my lip to keep myself from screaming at him. Not only had he admitted to his agenda, he had told me the one thing that stayed with me ever since I had left the first time. Darthon would kill me, too. He may not have even realized it, but he would in the future. If I were left to govern the Dark, I wouldn’t let him affect the humans. The war would never end. If it meant gaining knowledge, Darthon would rip the Earth apart. He would kill the humans, too. He was too desperate to win to see my true intentions. Or, worse, he simply didn’t care. I was his weakness, too, just as I was Eric’s, but I was starting to realize mine—the people—and I knew humans were the reason my bloodline was created.
I took a breath so my voice wouldn’t shake. “What about the people?”
He blinked, but it was almost as if his eyes never closed. His elongated eyelashes drew a thick shadow over his eyelids. “What about them?”
“What are you planning on doing to them?”
“With them,” he corrected and locked his eyes with mine. “We will teach them.”
I didn’t respond because I didn’t want to know what he planned on teaching them. In the end, it would only kill them just as it had others in the past. Either way, I had lessons of my own to learn.
“Jess,” he sighed my name as he slid off the desk. When he straightened, his height caused his glowing hair to appear as a beacon. “What did the original voyagers gain by sailing across the ocean? What did Lewis and Clark gain by mapping the West? What did astronauts gain from space?” He pointed to his scalp. “Expansion is gain. Deepening knowledge is a necessity.”
I swallowed my nerves. “Even if it causes war?”
“Even if people die.”
“Even if it destroys their world?” I asked.
“It won’t.”
“Then, what happened to the Highland?”
A rumble escaped his throat as he rubbed his forehead. “How do I explain this?” he muttered. “This is sort of a myth, Jess. It’s based on faith, and it’s an intricate part of our culture.” His hand dropped from his face. “No one has actually been there,” he said. “No one that I know of anyway.”
“Because it was destroyed,” I pointed out the singular fact he had yet to explain.
“You sound like a shade.” His eyes shifted into onyx slits. “You speak as if we’re monsters.”
“Because monsters destroy,” I interrupted, “and your legend says you did.”
“Destruction happens everywhere,” he argued, his voice slowly rising. “The humans had war before we arrived. We didn’t cause that.” His fingers shook at his sides. “There will be death no matter what.”
“And there’s no glory in that.”
He leaned his lower back against his desk as a smile crept over his face. “You say that like you know what it’s like to execute someone.”
“I do.”
The smile fell off his lips.
I didn’t give him a chance to speak. I would be in control of our conversation. “I want to prevent as much death as possible,” I said. “And joining your side seems like the best way to do that.”
My insides were pounding, but we were both frozen. In our silence, I wondered what he was feeling. When he crossed his arms, I knew he was reading me.
“Why should I believe you?” he asked.
“Because they tried to kill me.” The truthful words were the easiest to say.
Darthon didn’t look surprised. We were connected, after all. Even though my cheek had healed, I had to bet his cheek had slit open when mine had.
“So, that’s why you’re here,” he said under his breath as if he were speaking to himself, but his eyes explained the opposite. “Do you want to know how to be a full-light?”
I nodded, knowing that complete absorption was the key, but not knowing what it entailed. No matter what, I had to do it.
Darthon unfolded his arms, stretched one out, and curled his forefinger. “Come here.”
I did. My legs moved forward, and I crossed the room in four steps. I counted every single one, every breath I took, and hoped it wouldn’t be my last.
He never moved, even when my toes pressed against his. I was close enough to feel his warmth radiating off his chest, and every part of me wanted to know how his scar looked, stabbed into his flesh.
I had to tear my eyes away from his shirt to prevent my temptation. He smiled when I looked up at him.
“You were never Named by the Dark for a reason, Jess,” he said. “You didn’t pick a side, but if you pick ours, we can give you one.”
“Is that absorption?”
He nodded.
“Then, do it.”
His hands wrapped around my arms, and his fingertips pressed against me. The pressure felt as if he would break my skin, but I didn’t move away. The electricity held me there like gravity.
“Iris.” My name was so close to Ida. “It was your mother’s Light name, and you can carry it now.”
The Light power filled my veins just as it had before, but this time, the sizzle was liquefied. The hovering wisp was the strength of a warrior that held it carefully, something that laid dormant until it needed to be used fully. It filled every inch of me.
I stepped back, and my hair flew in front of my face. My brown curls were white strands of snow. The ends glittered like silver, and I touched them to make sure they were real. Just like the books, it didn’t disappear. My physical appearance had changed. I imagined my eyes were just as hollow as Darthon’s. The way he stared at me was anything but hollow. He grinned, and it lit like a hundred stars.
For the first time in my life, Darthon looked magnificent. My powers even changed my emotions. All of my hate for the lights began to simmer away, but I turned back into a human before it could consume me.
A gasp broke from my lungs, and I stumbled back. I had to grab the bookshelf to keep myself from falling over.
“So quickly yourself again,” his voice was as warm as the aftermath of the powers.
“It’s overwhelming,” I dismissed. “I’ll turn back when I’m needed.”
“Good.” Darthon didn’t step toward me. “Being a light suits you.” His low whistle broke his sentence apart. “Of course that will change when Eric dies.” The words were lined with delight. “You’ll be a full shade again.”
“Can I still be a shade now?” I asked, hoping I had the ability to shift until the end came.
“Yes,” he answered, but it sounded like a threat. “Why would you want that?”
“Don’t you think I should lure Eric out?” My lips curled in a sneer.
Darthon didn’t squint at me this time, but his eyes moved to my hand. “It hurts you, doesn’t it?”
My ring. I didn’t have to ask him for clarification. The jewelry was already burning my skin.
“You can take it off,” he suggested, “and it’ll all be over.”
I stared at him, but gritted my teeth. When my fingers curled, the pain wasn’t as bad. I kept my hands fisted to stand the feeling. I would not take it off.
“It will kill him,” Darthon confirmed. “I figured out how he stayed alive.” But he didn’t know that I was well aw
are.
I stepped back, slowly inching away from Darthon, but the room moved. The walls bent toward me, and the floors lifted where I stood. Darthon’s section squeaked as it moved backward.
He stared at the movements. “You can change it now.” I had caused it all. “But I don’t know why you would put more distance between us.”
I saw him coming even before he made the decision. Like a vision, his movements flickered before they even happened, and I jumped to the side as he lunged at me. He never got the chance to touch me. The bookshelf fell, and he slammed against it.
Even as a human, I moved everything. My powers were beyond his, just like they were beyond Eric’s.
As he stood up, I raised my hand, and a glass wall shot up from the floor. Darthon hit it, but the wall didn’t shatter. It pulled and pushed like liquid plastic, and it clung to his skin like chains.
His face reddened as he shouted, “You picked me.”
“I didn’t pick anyone.” My fingers parted, searching the air for the electricity that brought me power. My red rain was already falling. “I didn’t pick you or Eric, or anyone.” My voice rumbled out of me. “I picked both of the sects.”
Darthon froze as if I had ordered the realm to hold him in place. His face didn’t twitch or shift, but I searched one last time for any sign of his human side. I saw nothing in his eyes.
“I will teach your people everything you didn’t when you’re gone,” I promised as I left him behind, knowing he would find a way to fight in the realm I would eventually call my home.
49
Eric
I left Linda behind. Even though I had promised her safety, the Dark’s safety had ended. Jessica went back to the Light realm, and it was confirmed when I arrived at the shelter. The elders were already suiting up, and fellow shades were dressing in war gear.
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