It’s like I’m frozen.
Like it can’t happen to me.
I’m just…here.
And I watch.
Watch, transfixed as the army of Enhanced—so many of them—shoot the Gods and Goddesses. And they shouldn’t be dying. They shouldn’t be. They’re Gods and Goddesses. But the bullets are killing them, and the Dream Land isn’t strong enough, not now it’s tearing, torn open—gaping black holes. And the Seers are reacting, in pain, can’t breathe—
Like me. I can’t breathe.
And as the Seers are falling, the Enhanced are killing more and more Gods and Goddesses, and they’re shooting the walls of the Dream Land, the very fabric and—
It’s my fault.
I let Raleigh in here. He followed me. He brought his army.
I ripped the worlds, broke into the Dream Land, and they—they all followed me and—
Traitor.
And the voice is right. I’ve ruined it. Without the Dream Land and the Gods and Goddesses, there’ll be no more new Seers, no more warnings, no more—
Death’s face looms in front of me, and he’s screaming at me, but I can’t make the words out. Not properly. Something about the augury and solitary confinement.
Then…then something tears.
A sickening tear.
“Seal it, Seven Sarr!”
Bang.
I look up. It’s caving in. The Dream Land is caving in, falling in on itself and—
“Get out!” Raleigh yells and his voice is so loud. “She’s not summoning them! We’re going to die for nothing!” And then his army is disappearing. He’s throwing them out of the world, and they’re just disappearing and—
And then there’s a black hole, a black hole that grows. A black hole that gets bigger and bigger. It reaches the edge where two Untamed Seers are, and then the Seers…they just disappear. They’re sucked into the darkness in the blink of an eye and then the black hole is heading for a group of Gods and Goddesses. They’re ripped away, and pain rips inside me, jagged, broken. Their deaths are quick and—
Run!
And I’m running, trying to outrun the darkness because I know if the hole takes me, then I’m gone. And I can’t go. I’ve got to end the war, got to save my people, got to try, and—
Got to get out. The Untamed Seers, we need to get out—we’re the only Untamed Seers, the Dream Land can’t survive this—
Icy water lashes across my back. I turn, see the edge of the hole right behind me and—
Screams fill my ears.
How do we get out?
A flash of blinding light.
Two Gods left. Only two. Death and—and Life, I know it’s him. Instantly, I know. He’s small, very small. Blond hair. A kind face.
And they’re coming for me, Life and Death, but they’re struggling. I see the effort, the pain—feel the pain…and they’re dying… Huge great holes appearing in them, holes as black as the external one.
They reach me, and Death is dying.
I feel it immediately. They both are. Pain emitting from tiny, tiny holes, like grains of salt, dissolving, spreading, contaminating water and purity.
Fine gold whispers of thread twist from Death’s mouth. They form shapes, loosely at first, but they get stronger, bigger. Leathery lumps that twist and twist, yet they look graceful against the backdrop of the Dream Land ripping. And the shapes are words, Death’s words, and they fly away, escape the black hole, and they’re slipping between a seam and—
And they’ve gone.
“The augury will stand even without any Gods or Goddesses alive,” Life yells, gasping.
The augury?
But Death’s in the augury? I look at him. The augury can’t complete without him. He can’t call me back if he’s not there. And that’s the only way the war ends—he’s told me enough times.
“Death has sent his words forward to call you back to his realm, even though Death will no longer be there.” Waskabe’s voice rasps into every part of my soul, spreading pain, and I think of those twisting shapes—his words? “The augury will still stand, even when we’ve fallen, and you will go to Death’s harrowing realm—his cage for you—and reside there alone. Death owns you now, and Death will still own you. Death’s commands are waiting.”
A blast resounds through the land.
I flinch, cry out, and the Gods both scream. Their pain fills me.
“Seven Sarr, make sure the Untamed win, for Death’s realm will know if they don’t, and your suffering in his solitary realm will be greater if you fail.”
Blinding light bursts forth, and every part of me burns, and Death’s words resound through me. I twist and—and my body, it’s….
Darkness and light.
Hissing fills my ears and—
And I see it all as if I’m not part of it myself, but I am. I’m divided, and I’m one. And I see it.
See it…and it’s too much, watching Life and Death get ripped apart as they’re sucked into the raging, storming cavity. My eyes shut. I can’t—
Can’t take it in.
“The augury will still stand, even when we’ve fallen!”
Hissing fills the air, and I’m suspended in it all, the last one here.
Everything rushes around me, leaving only blackness behind, marked with a pinpoint of light for each God or Goddess’s grave. Life and Death burn the brightest, in the center.
And there’s no one left.
The Gods and Goddesses—they’ve gone. All of them.
The bison screams—and I can’t see him, just hear his screams. Shrill, loud, pain. And it’s gone.
The Dream Land has gone.
I stare at the world as I fall. Far away, I sense two Seers, and I reach out, pull them closer. They were getting too far away, and we need to be together—we have to be together. When we’re together, the hope in the world gets bigger.
Divided, we are nothing.
And so I hold them close, these two Seers, and our powers recognize each other, and there’s a moment of understanding, of—
The augury will still stand.
And then I see my body. Far, far below. And I fall toward it. Hurtling. Crashing down and—
My real body?
Corin’s leaning over me, down there.
And I can’t look away. Not from him. Not from me.
From us.
Two people, together.
Silver strands around us. Tightly binding him to me.
I crash back into my body, land heavily, and—
Corin’s breathing hard, saying something. He’s covered in blisters, and I reach out, cup my hands around his face, watch the blisters heal and disappear.
His eyes widen.
And I stare at him.
He stares back. The silver strands have gone.
My lips burn and buzz. I look past him, toward the fire. Raise my hand, to make it go out, to make the land return to normal.
But it doesn’t.
The fire gets bigger. And it burns, and the screams—the lost screams—fill me, lacerating and slashing.
“What’s happening?” Corin’s eyes remain wide.
Then he looks to the sky, where there’s darkness swirling about, but, as we watch, the darkness gets lumpier. Somewhere, far away, there’s a deafening crash. We flinch.
“The…” Pain resounds through me. It’s gone. Gone. Gone. “The Dream Land’s gone… They’re dead…the Gods and Goddesses are dead.”
All of them. And…and they’re all dead. Gone. The Gods and—
But the augury will still stand. Death sent his words to his realm, to call me there…to command his plane.
Your body will rot under Death’s command, long before your soul is allowed an escape from the decaying flesh of your ribs.
“What?” Corin stares at me. “Sev? The Dream Land’s gone? It can’t just go… It’s…” Then he turns his face back to the sky, shakes his head.
The hairs on the back of my neck rise.
Behind Corin, I see movement. And it’s like the world expands because I immediately see them, become aware of them: Esther and Taras and the blue-eyed Seer. They’re all here. Taras stands slowly, rubbing his side. Scratches cover his face. The blue-eyed Seer is looking around, uncertainty and shock on her face. I stare at them, the two Seers, remember how I pulled them to me. Everything in me goes cold. Are we the only Seers left on our side? Did the others get out?
Then I see my dog. My little terrier. My heart nearly stops. He’s cowering, cowering by some rocks, his back curving sharply up and down, all four legs pressed together. Trying to make himself smaller. His fur looks darker—darker with soot—and he’s emitting a strange high-pitched noise that whines and wobbles. The fear in his eyes arrests me. He’s looking down, but toward me at the same time.
I rush toward him, and he flinches. My dog. My own dog. Tears pierce the corners of my eyes, and I gulp, swallow, start shaking. I crouch down, space between us, and call to him. hold my hand out.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, and I stare at him, trembling.
“Sev,” Corin says, but I ignore him.
To my right, I’m aware of the blue-eyed Seer stepping toward Esther, asking her who she is and where we are. And I detect their words even though the fire—my fire—is roaring and hissing and crackling and—
The fire.
It’s still around us. I feel the heat promptly.
My dog whines. The flames are licking toward him, and—
My eyes catch movement behind him. In the flames.
My chest tightens.
My mother.
Another Seer here too. But she’s Enhanced—thrown from the Dream Land by Raleigh? And, oh Gods. I didn’t pull my Seers out the land…was I supposed to? I flinch, imagine their deaths. I didn’t save them.
Or maybe they got away… Because Taras and the blue-eyed Seer were already out of it, traveling back, when I found them.
My mother stands in the flames, not far away, and she’s trying to move, but I see the pain and the way it grabs her. And it’s like a net, a net holding her down. And I need to reach her.
I surge forward, yell at Corin to get my dog, that I have to get my mother, but the fire burns my arm, and I scream—it’s burning me now… Shit. I’ve lost control and—
“We need to get out of here!” Corin yells. “It’s going to burn us—”
But everywhere we look, there’s fire. So much fire. A ring of it, around us. No, it’s everywhere. The world is on fire, burning everything and—
A deafening crack splits the sky, and six figures appear.
Rahn. Jed. Clare. Two men I don’t know.
And Three.
The world stops.
My brother. He’s here.
I see him, standing there, looking alive and Untamed and—
His gaze locks onto mine. A deafening boom resounds through the land. We both flinch, as if we’re on the same string and that string has been tugged. A tug that pulls away a layer, that reveals the soul that’s been fighting to be seen, but has been hidden for so long. The soul in his eyes. The pain in his eyes, like the cracked desert floor.
His hands are shaking.
“Sorry,” he says. And the word breaks inside me, swims toward my heart. Sorry, sorry, sorry. A sound for each beat.
And I whisper the word back.
And then the spirits race toward us, and they shriek and shriek as the fire burns them and—
Rahn seizes Corin, who’s struggling with the dog in his arms. I’ve never seen my dog so scared, so terrified.
Three looks toward me—the sorry and the pain still in his eyes—but he grabs Esther, and I see that pain turn to tenderness.
Clare gets me, grinning wildly.
The two unfamiliar spirits lift Taras and the blue-eyed Seer.
Jed goes for my mother. Or he tries to.
But he doesn’t. He doesn’t get to her in time.
I see it all.
A woman falls in flames. She screams, and long, dark hair whips around in front of her face, obscures her features. Orange tongues rise around her. They eat her.
Her scream goes on and on, cuts the night.
And then it’s over.
My mother.
Her vision of the far future. It was her.
Her death?
No! She can’t die—she can’t!
I scream, and then I’m fighting Clare’s grip, and I’m breaking free, and I’m running for my mother again, running through the flames, and they grab me, burn me, eat me, and—
“Seven!” My mother’s shout goes on and on and—
She’s alive? What?
Blinding gold light wraps around me, knocks all the wind from me. Clare screams, and then her arms are like steel and she’s lifting me up…flying and….
“No!” I look down, see my mother, try to fight Clare, need to get to her and—
“You can’t!” Clare yells at me, and she’s shaking, shaking violently… Unstable—she’s unstable. “We’ve got to—”
“Get my mother!” I yell at Jed, and he’s just…floating there. “Get her!”
He dives into the flames and—
Colors fly past me. Shapes bolt and fly. Everything inside me twists. Rushing sounds fill my ears. I look down: the land is a blur and—
We’re moving. Moving too fast.
To my right, I see Three and Esther—and—
My brother. He’s…he’s a spirit too. The Spirit Releasing Words weren’t said and—and he’s trapped.
Oh Gods.
Pain. Pain. Pain. And then—then, for a moment, I see something else. An embrace. Him and Waskabe. Not here, but…but there.
And Death’s cloak covers Three.
Which of those closest to you will die for you?
The exchange.
But Three’s here? Thrown back from Death’s plane when Waskabe died? Thrown back here to help us and—
A blinding flash of gold. Esther shrieks.
I hear Corin shout and—
I feel Clare weaken; we plummet several feet. I scream, twist around in her arms and see her eye sockets getting bigger and bigger, too big for her eyeballs. And then one of them falls out. I follow it with my eyes, breathing hard, as it drops far, far below and—
And we’re slowing, and the flames, they’re still here and—
Heat washes over my feet and I look up, see how much higher the others are…how Clare and I are still falling. And she’s shaking, weak, and—
Flames lick my feet.
I scream.
“Feed from me!” I yell, and she starts to protest. “Clare! You need energy! Just—just don’t kill me.”
For a moment, nothing happens and then…then my eyelids droop, and the world darkens until there’s no light left.
It’s quiet. So quiet. A faint hum in my ears. but even that is quiet. It’s like the world’s asleep.
I sit up slowly. Pain pulses through the left side of my head. I stare at the land around me…at the water lapping against the sand a few feet away. At the sea. We’re…we’re at the coast.
And there’s…there are no flames here. The spirits moved us to safety.
“Where are we?” Corin’s voice.
I jump, turn my head. He’s just behind me, looks dazed. Esther’s just to his right and—
And I stare at her. At her heavily pregnant stomach.
She’s….
“What the hell?” My voice comes out about ten times louder than expected, and, behind Esther, Taras and the blue-eyed Seer turn to me quickly. My dog’s crouching next to the blue-eyed Seer, and he watches me warily. My heart squeezes.
Esther touches the…the bump, tentatively. Her face is pale. She’s shaking. “It happened when Three…when he touched me. When his spirit… His spirit’s Untamed. That’s—that’s amazing…if all the spirits are…even the ones who were Enhanced in life….”
Three. I look around. But he’s not here. None of the spirits are. Jus
t me and Esther and Corin and Taras and the blue-eyed Seer and—
And my mother.
She’s lying a few feet away.
A strangled sob escapes me, then I’m running toward her—and…she’s still breathing.
Still.
That vision. It was—it was wrong? My mother doesn’t die?
I reach her, and then I’m trying to lift her up. We’ve got to go—I don’t know how I know—but I do. We’ve got to get out of here. I don’t know what’s happened to Raleigh, but I know—I can feel it—he’s not dead. He got out of the Dream Land in time, so did his people. And they’re going to be after me, still.
Raleigh will always be able to find you.
I reach my mother, and everything inside me rips open.
“Come on!” I yell at her, and I try to lift her up again, trying to get her to stand, try to—
“Leave me. I’m dying.” Her voice is sharp, like a short bark.
I shake my head. “No, you’re not—”
But she nods. “I’m dying, Seven, and, even if I wasn’t, I’m still Enhanced. I’m addicted to augmenters. There may be a small part that is Untamed inside me—a part that gets control when it can—but it is suffocating. It will not survive. I am Enhanced, Seven. And I have to die now….”
“No, you don’t,” I cry. “And you’re not Enhanced. You can resist it! Overcome it. You did before.”
But my mother shakes her head again.
“No, you can!” I yell. “I managed it, and you’re my mum—I get it from you, my powers are from you. I am from you! We’re the same—if I can do it, so can you!”
“I can’t resist it. Not anymore. I will be a liability. You have to go. And I am dying—”
Tears blind me. “But you must be able to resist, if I can—”
I sense Corin stepping closer, and his hand lands on my shoulder.
I flinch.
“Sev.” His voice is soft. “I don’t think it’s about resisting, about being Enhanced or Untamed. Not for her, not now. She’s…” He pulls me away, and I don’t want to be pulled away, because I need to be by her side. But he holds me a few feet away from her. “Look at her, Sev. She’s hurt badly. I’m sorry, but I don’t think she’s going to….”
I stare at him. And then Taras and the other Seer are looking at me. And Esther too. They’re all looking at me, and I know what’s on their faces. What they’re thinking. But….
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