More power surges through me—his and mine and—
“Raleigh! Stop!”
But it’s going to happen. He’s not giving me my body back and—
I shriek, try to brace myself for the impact. Try to move my arms up to shield my head.
Try to—
Glass shatters around me.
I scream.
The world tips on its side, and I fall, try to hold onto the wheel, but can’t.
My head smacks against something—hard—and pain rebounds through my legs. Something grainy, sharp, abrasive, rubs against my face, eats me. The engine whirs, seems to get louder.
I try to turn—can’t. Pain. My legs are higher up than my head, my body all twisted, jilted, and I feel blood rushing to my head. But my neck’s all, all bent…feels….
A lone bark…somewhere.
My breathing, heavy and thick.
The dog.
My terrier.
No…no, not the dog, not him.
I try to turn, try to—manage to move my head, but then sharp batons of pain grip my neck. I let out a cry. My vision blurs, murky—like I’m underwater.
Underwater….
A soft whimper brings me back, and then something shifts inside me. A heavy click, and my vision gets sharper, stronger. Colors swirl toward me, start spinning. I clamp my eyes shut as the nausea takes hold, as it….
Let go.
The voice in my head startles me. My eyes spring open. I see things in glimpses. The orange dust, the trees looming up and…a snap so big it echoes in my ears, my body, my soul.
A snap as if something’s irreparably broken.
And I see the snap. See it.
It is a ceramic rod in front of me. And it snaps cleanly in two. One perfect line, separating its two halves.
Cold air whistles past me.
I try to move my arms and—
My left one—can’t feel it—think it’s twisted around behind my back… My right one’s in front of me, but it looks strange, floppy. And my ribs; jaggedness, darkness. It takes me a moment to realize the vehicle’s on its side; the left side of my face is against the beaded glass of the passenger window, inches above the ground. The rest of my body is caught above me, my knees somehow wedged around the gearstick, my feet stuck in the driver’s footwell, up in the air. My body is strewn across the two seats, angled down, and the engine’s making a strange noise that reverberates through me.
Pain in my head, sharp, sudden. I wince, taste blood. And feel it. My face, the left side, my temple to my chin, wet, sticky.
My lungs strain, my chest makes a wheezing sound and—
Raleigh.
He’s out there, nearby—I saw him. He was right there. He’s going to come over, and I won’t be able to fight him, won’t be able to stop him from taking me back.
My heart speeds up. My head’s going to burst, too much pressure. And then the car creaks—the frame? And there’s something slipping over me with soft fingers…liquid….
A sour smell fills my nostrils, strong and tangy and—
Get out, S’ven!
Something jolts in me, and I try to move, try to lift my head, but nothing happens.
Not my body.
Not connected.
But I’m here, and—
Can’t move.
Trapped.
Fear builds in me, and I feel the way it makes my head pound harder and harder, feel my breathing get faster, until I’m breathing too fast, and I can’t get enough oxygen. And then the smell changes. It grows, the intensity grows and—
The dog whines. And I see him now, don’t need to lift my head. He’s…he’s right there, in front of me, in the passenger footwell: a mass of matted brown fur, shaking, trembling. He moves a little, whines. Then he emits a shrill sound that breaks my ears, and I’m gasping.
Get out.
Don’t know whose thought it is. Mine or Jed’s….
No. That’s not right… Jed’s not in my head. I’m the only one in my head, the only one who owns the thoughts in my head….
Get out. Get out. Get out.
But I can’t.
Heat washes over me.
Then I feel a tingling—as if fine feathers of steel are brushing over me. My spine? My legs? I can’t—
Another ceramic rod breaks in my mind, and I look up, to my right—able to move my head a little—see the spiderweb-shatter across the top edge of the windscreen.
Feeling shoots into my right arm, and more blood rushes to my head. My arm—I get my arm to lift up, slightly. Feel…feel something strange in it.
Then I hear the footsteps. The footsteps I knew would come, and every part of me darkens, darkens like a black beetle scurrying along.
Raleigh.
A thousand thoughts fly through me. And I reach for the dog, twisting forward, something digging into my stomach and chest. I press my right hand over him, feel his damp fur, use every ounce of my willpower to do it. More pain flares over me, but I ignore it. What is pain? And it all numbs in a matter of seconds, far too soon and—
A shift of energy. A new balance. My hand tingles faster, harder.
I don’t know what’s—
The dog moves.
A doleful eye looks at me. I stare at him, and he’s close. So close. That eye is inches from my own. Staring into me.
Eyes are the route to the soul.
“Seven!”
Raleigh’s voice. No. His voice. Corin’s. No. Torturing me, even when….
“Go!” I whisper to the terrier, as he lifts his head, as life—the full spectrum of it—floods back into his eyes, as he—
As he twists into darkness.
Thick, black darkness. darker than the darkest parts of the night sky.
Hot breath over my face.
Thank you.
My eyes close.
“No!” Raleigh screams in Corin’s voice.
And it’s the last thing I hear, the last sound from the world of the living, because his scream goes on and on; and everything else that once was the world—my labored breathing, the whimpers, the Pajero’s engine—melts away. There’s only his scream as the teardrop of ice silently smashes the petal, the last petal, and strangled life swallows me.
And then—then….
Then there is nothing.
I am a thousand fragments, fallen.
* * *
A man is screaming,
another cries,
and my mother feels my death;
She knows, she feels it—the chasm inside, raging—
because she feels all her children’s deaths.
It should’ve ended in fire.
* * *
Life.
Death.
Always in opposition, always fighting.
Each is jealous of the other.
Life and death, and death and life.
And the seconds after the snap, once the door has clanged shut,
and the last of the tolling bells has struck.
* * *
Long ago, I sprinted through the sands.
The wind kissed my face,
and my mother ran behind me, with Five and Three.
And my father peeled his hand from paper,
and ridges of paint marked his life.
* * *
We were happy.
In life.
* * *
But you can’t choose
between life and death, when your earth-energy has gone.
When it’s taken.
When the branches finally meet.
* * *
When you step from one world to the other,
you mustn’t look back.
* * *
And I never told Corin I loved him.
My Corin.
In life.
I love you.
Hope and the long sleep.
I failed.
* * *
Seven, says the voice.
I am in a cave. A beautiful cave
.
The air is a shimmering turquoise, and thousands of beads of light dance across the rocky ceiling. Everything looks blue, green, turquoise, that magnificent shade. It warms my heart. And the water glistens with the color, the beauty. The water by my feet.
The cave is long and thin, magical, and water flows through it, around my ankles.
I am wearing a short, turquoise dress—because everything is turquoise, and it’s the most beautiful color ever.
Wind chimes play in the distance, caress my soul.
“Seven,” says the voice, again.
I look up, and a woman is coming toward me. An old woman, but she looks familiar. Familiar, yet forgotten.
The light gets darker. A tunnel of turquoise darkness, but there’s light somewhere at the end of it. I know that.
The woman holds her hands up as she nears me, splashing in the pool.
“Don’t come this way yet, Seven. Stop. You mustn’t complete the journey.” Her voice echoes, and her tones are soft, so smooth.
She looks like my mother. But she’s got Five’s eyebrows. And—and she’s tall, tall like me. Very tall.
“My name is Vala Sarr. I am the first Sarr Seer,” she says. “The original Seer. The first trusted by the Gods and Goddesses to change things. My line has built its power, getting stronger with each generation, a collection of power that is waiting for you, soon to be unlocked… But you were not supposed to die now, Seven. Find Waskabe. Leave the path you are on, and find him. Find him before you reach the end of this path. Don’t let him collect you. Find him before he comes for you. You have time, your soul is lingering. But be quick. For only Death can save us all now.”
The light is bright, horribly bright—and, everywhere I look, there’s just whiteness. Whiteness that burns. Whiteness that eats me.
Too hot… My skin, it burns and screams. And—
And there’s a table. A table a hundred feet in front of me.
Death sits at it.
One chair is vacant.
My skin stops burning as he turns to me—his full, cloaked figure—swiveling around on the chair. Instinctively, I try to look away—mustn’t see his face.
“Look at me.”
My breath hitches in my throat.
“Look at me.”
I look at him. I look Death in the eye. Only he hasn’t got an eye—hasn’t got either of his eyes. There are just two dark pits there, and the skin’s all papery. Looks thin, like it’s showing the blood underneath. Dark blood.
And his face. It’s—the shape, it’s…it’s narrow, so narrow.
“You should not be here.” His words are quiet, almost neutral. Not angry at all. Death stands slowly, points at me. His finger reminds me of Rahn’s. Skeletal. I stare at the joint of the finger. At the space where the two bones nearly meet, but don’t. The gap. The end part of his finger is just hovering. “But you are here.”
It gets colder. A lot colder.
“Do you like it?” Death asks.
He stares at me pointedly—somehow manages, even though his eyes are just pits—and I know he’s waiting for an answer.
“Like it?” My voice wobbles.
“The peace.” He gestures around us, and the white light intensifies. I wince, narrow my eyes. “Death’s plane is very peaceful at the moment, is it not?”
I frown, feel pressure start to build in my head.
“And you’ll belong to Death very, very shortly,” Waskabe says. “Your screams will fill this void, rewrite the music, as torture rises and rots you… A new kind of peace, made of your screams.”
I’m dead. I’m here…and…this is where I’ll be when he collects me? This is his realm? I look around, but there’s nothing here. It’s just the whiteness that’s too bright, and Death and his table.
The mask of betrayal hangs over your aura, like gold cobwebs, rusting. Your body will rot under Death’s command, long before your soul is allowed an escape from the decaying flesh of your ribs.
“Death does not like traitors.” His voice is too relaxed—too casual—makes my chest go all jumpy.
I turn and look around me, look for something—anything but the white light. But there isn’t anything. It’s just nothingness.
Nothingness and Death, sitting at his table.
“Sit down,” Waskabe says. A command. Not a suggestion.
I sit. The wooden seat is hard.
Death looks at me. Something deep inside me starts to burn. The burning gets stronger, stronger until I’m sure there must be something visible on my arms, some external sign of the pain I’m in.
I look down.
“Do you feel it?” He leans forward, then touches my arm. Coldness zaps through me. I flinch. He laughs. “This isn’t your real body. You want to see your real body? Your real body is down there.”
He looks at the top of the table, and, instantly, it’s no longer wood; it’s an image. I blink, and then the colors and shapes make sense to me.
A vehicle on its side, trees twisting around it, the driver’s door open, sticking up.
A dog—my dog—barking.
And—
And a man cradling a girl’s body, next to the Pajero.
My body.
Raleigh.
A bitter taste fills my mouth as I watch.
“I’ve locked your soul’s roots there. You’re divided. Both here and there. Soon, when I have officially collected you, you’ll feel the full pain of your broken body down there—as it lies bleeding, as it rots, as it swells—and here, you’ll feel Death, Waskabe, me.” Pain flickers through me. “Because that’s what happens to traitors. Double pain.”
A pause.
“This is a bit of a disappointment, Seven Sarr. An anti-climax, you dying early. And Death is not happy with this. Did Death not tell you that you must die at the end of the war? Once the suffering is over? That it is a set point in time and that that is the only way this war can end? And did Death not give you the chance to prove yourself after your traitorous actions aligned you to the enemy? Yet you did not make sure the Untamed were victorious, did you? Instead, you bound yourself to them and then thought you would take your own life to save yourself.”
Take my own life?
“No,” I say. “I didn’t,” I say, but he raises his hand, and I stop speaking.
“You, Seven Sarr, by dying, chose to condemn your people to endless suffering—because the War of Humanity will not end now. The war will never end now. You were born to end it, and you have been selfish. You have failed. You may not have saved the Enhanced and given Death a reason to torture you for infinity, but you have written an infinity of misery—a worthless existence—into the future for your people. Always hiding, being hunted, on the run. Predator and prey. Eternal suffering… Death does not like suffering. Suffering is just as bad as extinction. And your selfishness has caused all this.”
“No.” I manage to speak, but it’s difficult. “No—listen. You’re supposed to know everything, but you don’t. I didn’t crash the car—that was Raleigh! He was trying to get control of my body…and I was fighting him…and I never even chose the Enhanced! My soul was given to them, it was beyond my control! You have to believe me—it’s what happened!”
Somewhere, far away, thunder rolls across hills I cannot see.
“Actions speak louder than words, Seven Sarr. And you have died before it was time for your death. And you think you can rewrite the future, make the Untamed suffer forever. You think you can play with their lives, watch their pitiful existence and be happy with that—with your choice. Well, no. You can’t.” He slams his hands down onto the table. “You are not in control here. Not like you thought you were. This is Death’s world, and in Death’s world, Death presides. He is in charge here for ever—even when Death is longer here, this realm will still be his. And you belong to Death, but Death will not have you here now. Death will not let people suffer.”
Pain snaps at my Achilles tendon.
Death watches me, and then t
he papery skin peels from his face—great sheaves of it—and the wind catches it, lifts it toward me. I hold my breath, feel his skin against my face.
Death laughs, and, through the translucent film, I see black blood pouring out of his eye sockets.
“Death cannot return a Seer of his to the world of the mortal planes once the Seer has expired. He can only exchange a Seer of his for a similar person. A life for a life. So, tell me now, Seven Sarr. Whose life should Death exchange you for? Which of those closest to you will die for you?”
I gasp awake, and—
No.
No.
No.
Death’s laughter fills me, and I breathe in air—actual air—into my lungs.
And someone is dead. Will be dead? Is dead now?
Dead because of me.
“Sev!” Corin screams and…and he’s holding me—his head so close to mine—and he’s crying and—
Crying.
It’s not him.
Raleigh. He was here…he made me crash the car…the Mark 1—my Mark 1, my freedom, my escape.
My body jolts, and then Raleigh reacts, wipes a hand across his face, and—
His eyes widen as he sees me. As he sees me looking at him.
“You’re alive?”
Alive.
Alive.
Alive.
The word pounds through me.
Get away. Get away now.
I try to lift my head, but pain wracks through me, my chest, my ribs. I move my head down a fraction, see the blood. I’m soaked, and covered in blood. So is Raleigh.
Somewhere to my right, a dog barks.
My dog.
My terrier.
Get away from Raleigh.
I brace myself for the pain as I lift my arm, as I plant my hand squarely on Raleigh’s chest and push. I expect him to stop me, but he doesn’t. Doesn’t push me back, physically or mentally. Doesn’t—
I feel lighter. Freer.
Freer.
I stop and then I really feel it: the difference.
Raleigh’s control over me. I hadn’t realized it was so heavy, not until now, not until it has gone. Because it has. Gone when I died… Raleigh was only going to have access to my soul until my death, because he didn’t want the connection sustained, didn’t want Death accessing him after my life? Or because he can’t command a dead soul…like Jed.
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