Iridescent (The Ember Series)

by Carol Oates

“Please, don’t look.” Sebastian disapprovingly hissed out through clenched teeth, but he was no match for her in his weakened state.

  Candra gasped for breath, the sound echoing around the hollow chapel. A coating of thick, dark blood almost entirely covered Sebastian’s back. It congealed on the torn fabric around the short stumps of pearl white bone and shredded muscle protruding from where his wings should have been.

  “You fell,” Candra whispered, her voice eerily calm as the smooth glass-like surface of a lake with a storm brewing in the distance.

  “No. I planned to. I’ve thought of nothing else for weeks. What I told you that day we flew; I swear I meant it. I wanted to walk away from it all for you.”

  Candra tugged his shirt upward, wanting a closer look. If she could see the damage, maybe she could heal it. Sebastian shifted about, although his movement had no force. She froze. A deep puncture wound about an inch in length poured blood in a steady flow. He’d been stabbed.

  Candra brushed tears from her eyes and fingered the stone in her hand. It weighed so much more than it should, made heavier by its innate uselessness. It was already too late. “But you couldn’t really give up.”

  “No,” he agreed with a sad smile. His eyes tightened in pain, but he made no other physical display, although Candra knew he must have been in agony. “I’m not a man. I never will be.”

  “No one’s perfect,” Candra tried to joke, but the words caught in her throat, threatening to choke her.

  Sebastian smiled, and his eyes closed, almost like he didn’t possess the energy to smile and hold his eyelids open at the same time. Candra brushed his hair away from his face and tucked it behind his ear. It had grown long again.

  “We’ll be okay. All of this will be over soon.”

  “I had to give you a chance.” Sebastian’s mouth barely moved with the utterance, and a small trickle of blood spilled over his chin. His head lolled to the side slightly, and Candra scrambled to her knees in desperation, shaking him harder than was probably wise, given his injuries.

  “No. No,” she screeched, not daring to take her eyes from him to see the others. “Open your eyes, please.”

  Candra imagined a great fissure inside her chest splitting. She wished she could fall into it and disappear. Then his eyes opened. There was no gold. His irises were a flat brown, the color of mud.

  “I love you,” she told him, battling against the bleak certainty settling around her. A seething rage slithered into her heart and soul, blackening everything it touched, like a disease spreading through her, like the blackness that corrupted the city and beyond was slipping inside her and taking root. What did any of it mean to her without him? How could she protect everyone if she couldn’t protect just one person? “I will always love you—always.”

  Sebastian tensed. “Don’t do that.”

  Candra pressed her lips together to hold back the scream crawling up from her lungs.

  “You can’t give up. Make my death worth something.”

  A sob she couldn’t restrain burst forward. Sebastian’s fingers combed up into her hair, tightening and forcing Candra to look at him. He’d said it: he was dying, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. The blood on the blade was his. He’d been beaten…tortured, his wings hacked away, and stabbed by the Creation Blade. A wound even a curleax couldn’t heal. He was bleeding to death right in front of her.

  “After they took my wings, I still thought I was clear. I fought, but there were too many, a giant ball of limbs and pain. One of them found it on me. He was a crazed kid; he didn’t even get a look at it—just a weapon to him. He got me in the back before I wrestled the blade off him again. I killed him, and none of the others saw. I switched them, you see. It worked.”

  Candra shook her head, biting down on the raw skin inside her cheek until the sweet tang of her blood mingled with Sebastian’s.

  “I will find you again,” he whispered. “I swear. Even if I have to cross time and space, if I must claw my way from the bowels of hell or endure a thousand lifetimes of nothingness. It’s no more than I deserve. I have committed despicable atrocities, the worst of which was denying my heart.” He paused and closed his eyes a moment to suck in a gurgled breath.

  Candra desperately wanted to shush him. She wanted to beg him to conserve his strength, even though she knew in her heart that it was already too late and it was better to allow him to say what he needed to say.

  “This can’t be the end. I don’t believe that anymore. What I feel for you is too strong to fade away to nothing. I will have my moment before the Arch. I must be good…I must be worth saving, because you loved me.”

  Candra nodded in agreement. “I do love you still. I will love you always.” She wished she could believe his words. She wanted to believe she would see Sebastian again. She wanted to cling to the Arch’s words that nothing ever truly ceased to exist. Her heart wouldn’t allow her to hope right now.

  “Take her out of here.” Sebastian instructed at full volume, keeping his eyes fixed on Candra’s. “Don’t let her watch.”

  Candra wrenched her face away and spun around viciously, practically snarling at Draven, who had stepped forward with Brie just behind him.

  “Don’t you dare,” she screamed.

  They both froze mid-step, and Brie gasped and sucked in a breath that made the tendons in her neck strain. Candra knew she was glowing; she could feel the light all over her, flowing through her body like molten lava, ready to destroy anything that threatened to move her. It wasn’t like before, when the Arch had forced the light to the surface. This time, Candra had found a way to tap into that strength, to use it for her bidding. She panted harshly, her heart thrumming behind her eyes and in her ears, filled with a hopeless dread. The sound was hollow, the fissure inside her tearing her apart. She felt as if she was pushing against an immovable force—death…death got them all in the end. They were all equal in its eyes. Like air, death was nothing tangible but always there, a shadow they all lived under.

  Draven looked at Candra with such grave eyes, almost as if her warning caused him physical pain. She couldn’t think about that now; she couldn’t worry about Draven. She thought that if a hand had torn her heart from her chest in that moment, they would find it cold, as cold as Sebastian’s quivering skin. There was simply no room in there for anyone else. Not if she wanted to make it through the black tunnel she found herself in.

  “I’m staying,” she told Sebastian, pulling him across her chest to lie in her arms.

  He nodded a little but didn’t speak. Her trembling fingers traced up through his hair, smoothing it away from his forehead and hushing him as if he were only drifting into slumber. The iridescence had left her skin, and she looked like a normal girl once more, not a young woman holding her angel lover until death stole him away. Death was the only inevitable.

  She was vaguely aware of whispers and a door closing—the others giving her space to say her goodbyes.

  He never spoke again, and only a few short minutes passed before his quiet heart stopped and the last hushed breath left his lips. The world fell silent. Black shadows and amber light thrown by the sun through one of the leaded windows cast beams over his still chest. They seemed to have a sentience and energy, laced with unavoidable menace.

  His head rested on Candra’s forearm, eyes closed and his expression serene. He looked younger and more beautiful than ever. The edge of anguish that always seemed to haunt his features had finally been erased. She leaned down, placing her lips over his, feeling their last warmth already fading, and caressed his cheeks with the backs of her fingers.

  Candra’s only thought was that this couldn’t be it; death couldn’t be all there was after they had been through so much to be together. Candra remembered all the nights she had woken from nightmares to find him sitting by her bed with his iPod playing and his eyes on the ceiling. She had watched the slow and steady rise and fall of his chest until it calmed her. She had rarely seen him sleep sound
ly, not until the first night she’d spent in his arms. He looked just the same now as he did then—her sleeping angel.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  TIME WAS AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE, and it moved on even though it seemed impossible. For most, time passed in endless searching for the one thing that would complete them, yet escaped them. Most never came close to figuring out what that one thing was. Candra had figured it out.

  Sebastian made her complete, not in a way that meant she was less of a person before him but in a way that made her always want to be better, to try harder, to never give up. Sebastian was the carrot dangling in front of her, forever pushing her forward in moments of weakness. He was the blanket, wrapping comfort around her when she felt the chill of loneliness and fear. He was the book she peered into a thousand times, until she knew the scent of the pages and the imperfections in the printed ink, yet presented her with fresh ideas and new adventures at every occasion. He was unexpected.

  Brie came back after a time and draped a comforting arm around Candra’s shoulder. Neither of them said anything—there was nothing to say. Words wouldn’t bring Sebastian back. Candra’s eyes stung from tears, and her chest ached dully from the heavy sobs that wracked her body for however long she had been sitting there. Pins and needles raced up and down her legs from sitting still but hadn’t reached the point of being painful, so she guessed it couldn’t have been long.

  Brie’s comfort brought on a fresh wave of fat tears that rolled unbidden down Candra’s cheeks. Gabe knelt down in front of her and tentatively reached forward to move Sebastian’s lifeless body off her lap.

  As if her brain suddenly switched back on, she realized they were here to take her away.

  “No.” She struggled with Gabe’s hands, removing them from Sebastian. Brie hushed her and tried to pull Candra’s hand.

  Gabe sat back on his heels and was joined a moment later by Draven, Nathaniel, and Sandal. Candra looked to Brie, her voice too choked to speak yet. Brie’s eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, the skin across her cheekbones taut with a scattering of red blotches. Candra could tell that she’d been crying heavily. The black hole that seemed to take up occupancy where her heart should have been wouldn’t allow her to empathize. No matter how irrational it seemed, she didn’t want to share Sebastian, not now…and she couldn’t put herself in Brie’s position. The only thing her mind allowed her to take in was that he had been here and now he was gone forever. The one thing she had left of him was his body lying limply against her own.

  Candra looked up. The others watched her as she sat on the floor, rocking Sebastian’s lifeless body in her arms. Their shared pain gave her no comfort, and none except Draven met her eye. They all believed Sebastian wasn’t a soul within a body but a soul manifest. There was nothing to go on; his soul had perished. What the Arch had told her gave her reason to believe that might not be true. Perhaps Sebastian still existed somewhere out of reach. Irrationally, Candra wanted to die too. She wanted to know the truth. A blistering wail shook her body, and she continued to rock him, whispering pleas for Sebastian to stay with her.

  “Please,” Candra managed to force out, although it sounded more like a heavy breath than a word. She wasn’t sure what she was asking for. There was still a small part of her hoping this was just another dream, and any moment now, she would wake up at home in bed. Perhaps she wanted time, a chance to go back and make different choices. If only she hadn’t given up on him so easily. If she had doubted his lies and pushed for the truth that day at the lake, he wouldn’t have done this. They could have found another way together.

  Brie’s face crumpled into a frown for barely an instant before she regained her composure and sniffled, shaking her head sorrowfully. None of them could give her what she wanted.

  “Candra.” Draven quietly placed his hand over hers, where it still gripped onto Sebastian’s shirt. “He wouldn’t want this for you. You know he wouldn’t.”

  Nausea twisted Candra’s stomach into knots, and she cramped violently. Draven tightened his navy eyes, trying to read her. He swallowed, and his jaw clenched, making the muscles in his cheek jump.

  Candra resentfully accepted he was right. Sebastian hadn’t wanted her to see him die, and he certainly wouldn’t want her wailing over an empty husk. His body was already decomposing, turning cold and hard. A tiny misshapen circle of bluish flesh had already appeared at the front of his ear. Everything that had been Sebastian was gone.

  “You don’t want to see what happens next,” Brie said, smoothing Candra’s hair away from her face. Sandal came around the other side of Candra and slipped her arm beneath hers. Candra made to move; she wanted to fight them and searched inside herself for the shimmer of light to come forth, but she stopped herself. The power of the Arch wasn’t something to abuse.

  She looked down to Sebastian and saw how his body was changing. His complexion seemed to take on an almost glassy sheen, as if he were made of porcelain rather than a flesh-and-blood being.

  Sandal repeated Draven’s words. “He wouldn’t want you to watch.”

  “What’s happening?” Candra’s abdomen spasmed, and all of a sudden, she panicked about losing what little food remained in her stomach. This wasn’t right. It was so far from right that Candra couldn’t wrap her head around it. This wasn’t meant to happen. Sebastian should have lived through this with her.

  “What happens to us all,” Sandal answered.

  She didn’t fight them when Draven and Gabe lifted Sebastian away. Nor did she fight Brie and Sandal when they helped her to her feet and hurried her toward the arched door of the vestry. They passed Nathaniel standing back, seeming reluctant to interfere.

  “I’m sorry,” Candra told Brie, clinging onto her as if she too might disappear at any moment.

  “It’s okay,” Brie said back, her voice husky. Another sign she had been crying. “You didn’t do anything to be sorry for.”

  “I mean I’m sorry for you,” Candra explained as they made their way around the back of the altar. “I know you loved him too.” She still wasn’t sure she could make herself mean it, but it was the right thing to say.

  Brie smiled tightly. The tendons strained in her slender neck when she gulped down tears she clearly didn’t want to cry in front of Candra. “I feel so stupid. I was a warrior once, a soldier of heaven. I’ve killed, for goodness sake. I shouldn’t be crying. I should be strong, for you and for the other Nuhra out there.”

  Candra paused at the arched door. “Crying isn’t weakness. Crying shows compassion and heart.”

  “Don’t look,” Sandal gently warned her when Candra attempted one last glance before she went through the door. Over the place where Gabe and Draven stood, a rainbow-colored dust cloud caught in the breeze coming through the still-open door.

  Brie nodded and squeezed Candra’s shoulder before they entered the room. Lofi stood immediately. Her seat by the desk scratched across the tile floor and echoed in the stone room. Her long hair had come loose from her upstyle and hung in long pink tendrils down the side of her ruddy face.

  “I’m sorry.” Her eyes darted anxiously between Candra’s and Brie’s. “I couldn’t watch. I couldn’t see him like that. He’s…he was family.”

  Brie let go of Candra and went to Lofi, wrapping her in a hug. Candra watched them crush together and shut their eyes, holding back tears and blocking out the world. She felt separated from it all. She wasn’t a part of their grief. They had known Sebastian so long. His time with her had been a drop in the ocean in comparison. The concept of eternity was too much for her to comprehend. All she knew was that it might never include Sebastian.

  Candra swayed, imagining eternity without him stretching before her. She stood on the edge of an abyss, looking into fathomless blackness, and finally understood her purpose. She would never see heaven; she was never meant to. Heaven was a place reserved for humans and angels. She was something else, something made to hide the Arch so he could send Lilith back to her prison. Love had only eve
r been a boon along the way, not her destination.

  Their love hadn’t been just about ridiculous smirks and meaningless words. With their love came truth, an ability to see the world clearly, both good and bad. Sometimes, the truth had the power to devastate, and sometimes, it showed the way.

  “I’m fine.” Candra shrugged off Sandal, who tried to help her into a seat. She didn’t need to sit.

  “You should rest,” Brie suggested to her, releasing Lofi.

  Candra stepped away. “I don’t have time to rest. We have to plan.”

  Brie’s eyes narrowed, as if the statement confused her.

  “We can’t just sit here and wait,” Candra said dubiously. They were safe inside the building for now, but it would eventually make them sitting ducks. “Look how far that’s gotten us. I won’t just sit here and wait for the city to burn.”

  “We don’t even know what we are fighting. We don’t know how to fight her,” Brie retorted, crossing her arms and taking the stance of a mother scolding a child.

  Candra sighed. “That’s not true. You know what Lilith is. You haven’t been completely honest, have you?”

  “Neither have you,” Draven answered from behind her. “You knew about the Creation Blade.”

  Candra turned to see him enter the room, backed up by Gabe. “And you knew exactly where Sebastian was, didn’t you? Both of you knew.”

  “Sebastian made a choice. I warned him this could go wrong.”

  “You need to give that to me,” Candra ordered blackly, and a tingle rushed over her skin. She concentrated on the well of energy inside her, keeping it at bay.

  “No.”

  The atmosphere inside the small room thickened, and Candra stood straighter.

  “Sebastian died to get this blade. What are you going to do? Hand it back to her?” Draven demanded.

  Candra approached Draven slowly, ignoring the others in the room. “It can release all those souls inside Lilith—including Ivy’s. Then I’m going to send Lilith back where she belongs.” She narrowed her eyes. The air inside the room suddenly seemed stifling. Candra took a breath, and perspiration gathered over her top lip, making her skin itch. Every inch of her skin felt grubby, and her patience had reached its limit. “What? It never occurred to you that if the blade can open a gateway to heaven, it can free those souls inside Lilith? I won’t lose anyone else.”