“Um…”
Turning away from me, Joshua touches Ketchup’s arm. There a breathless moment of silence before Ketchup shrugs. “I don’t know, bud, but I’m sure he’ll be back with her soon. He’ll keep her safe.”
I didn’t hear anything, but Ketchup certainly did. Struggling to catch up, I demand, “He’s speaking to you? In your head?”
Ketchup looks up at me, frowning. “Sure. He’s been doing it since Oscar handed him over. You haven’t heard him?”
“Not until just a minute ago when he spoke to everyone in the entire room!”
After considering what I’ve said for a moment, Ketchup shrugs. “I can only hear him if he’s touching me. Because I only have some of your power, I think.”
“What on earth is…?”
I never get the chance to finish.
The bad lady is coming, Joshua says.
Whimpering and frightened squeals erupt throughout the room. I want to join them in their cowering. Ketchup stands slowly, Joshua in his arms. He gestures for Gyan and Verity to get back, but they only go far enough to be standing directly behind him. I want to tell them to hide, but something rolls through the room that leaves every Godling’s insides twisting as their hunger rises. It’s a sensation I’m all too familiar with. I’m the only one. Fear makes the kids huddle together even more. Joshua has gone still as well, but seems more curious than scared.
What is that? he asks.
“It’s a Richiamos,” I tell him.
Joshua frowns, but seems no more worried than before.
We need Aunt Annabelle.
The sickening feeling intensifies and several of the kids begin to cry. I can’t focus on them right now, not if I want to save them. Keeping my gaze locked on the steel reinforced door of the safe room, I divert only a portion of my attention to Joshua while the rest zeroes in on tracking the Richiamos’ progress.
“Why Annabelle?”
Annabelle and Uncle Zander, he clarifies…sort of, but they’ll come together.
I start to ask why he needs them, but the flood of pain that washes over me drops me to my knees. Ketchup moves toward me, but I wave him back frantically. Gasping for each breath, my voice is choppy as I speak. “It’s…okay. Let…your…hunger feed,” I tell the kids. “Accept the…pain. Take it…away…so it can’t…hurt you…or her.”
Easier said than done. Joshua is the only calm Godling in the room. Half the kids have their hands over their ears or mouths or eyes. Most are sobbing from the pain, their wild hunger, or terror. One girl is rocking back and forth with their arms around their knees and face pressed to her legs. Even Verity and Gyan are holding onto each other as they whimper.
Accepting the pain should be easy. It’s the exact same process to begin healing someone, but every time I try to take in the retched pain, memories of Ivy assault me. I think of how I hated her, how she betrayed Zander, the lies she was fed, the torture she endured, and the last seconds of her short life. Guilt threatens to shut me down. Control eludes me. I can feel the Richiamos coming closer, but I can’t do anything to stop her approach. Not even knowing it’s Isolde leading her here can snap me out of my spiral.
Aunt Van, Joshua says, I need you, too.
“We all do,” Verity whispers from where she’s doubled over on the floor.
“But I’m not strong enough,” I whisper. My power isn’t back to full strength after healing Ketchup. My bullet wounds are healed, but not perfectly like they would be if I’d been able to heal them with power. The sight of the scars shake me every time I see them. How am I supposed to protect all these kids on my own?
Not on your own. I’ll help you.
When I look over at Joshua, he’s smiling. I’m ninety-nine percent sure he understands exactly what’s going on, yet he isn’t afraid. Why not? I am! I’m terrified Isolde is going to bust in here and kill all these kids, kill Ketchup, then drag me off to be sliced up and experimented on until she figures out why we’re so messed up.
“What…?”
The wall next to the door explodes. I barely register that fact before I’m thrown into a stone pillar. My head swims as I slide to the floor. Some part of me is screaming at my body to get up and do something. My head is too sluggish to send out the commands. A hand grabs my shirt, and panic grips me when I think it’s Isolde come to drag me off.
“Get up, Van,” Ketchup growls in my ear.
I try. Pressure at the back of my skull confuses me, confuses my power. My hunger laps up the throbbing there, but my power is slower to respond and I can’t seem to heal it fast enough. A wet, slobbery hand presses against my cheek as another touches my head more gently. Then something yanks my power into motion. Some other force enters me, but before I can fight against it, my head clears and I jerk up to sitting.
Verity stumbles backward and lands on her rear end, staring at her hand, then Joshua. “How did you do that?” she asks.
Some inkling of what just happened begins to form in my mind, but another blast hits the wall and I throw myself over Ketchup and the kids to keep the bits of stone from hitting them. Screaming erupts from every direction. Dragging myself up to standing, I face the destroyed wall and glare at the cloud of dust obscuring it. The beginnings of a hole from the two blasts is now big enough for a small person to walk through.
Which was exactly the point.
A small, sneaker-clad shoe emerges first, stumbling to step over the uneven rocks. Bruises mar the shin that follows it. The sight of them puts me on edge just as much as my hunger doubling in intensity. Pale hands grip the edge of the hole. When a mop of unbrushed black hair appears in the empty space, my stomach clenches, and the pain she’s emanating feels a million times worse.
Of course Isolde would use her against us. It’s only fitting, right? Tears burn my eyes, already irritated by the dust from the blasts. I never even liked Ivy all that much, even at the end, despite what she did. That doesn’t mean I want to be the one to kill her sister. What choice do I have when there are two dozen little Godlings relying on me to save them? It’s her, or them, and it has to be them. Them includes Ketchup, Verity, Gyan, Joshua…innocent children whose parents might have done horrible things under David’s rule, but shouldn’t be condemned for choices their parents made.
Isolde doesn’t get to decide who lives or dies. Maybe the Godlings aren’t real gods like they want to believe, and Ketchup is right that I can only do what I can do, but I can do this one thing. I have to. Failure has followed me like a cloud my entire life. Failure to live up to expectations, to follow rules, to control myself, to learn fast enough, to be strong enough. I refuse to die the same way.
Someone knows the girl is here, Joshua says. Someone is tracking her.
“How do you know that?” I ask quietly.
Because I see their power linked to her, and it’s not bad. It’s…someone I know, I think.
Hope gains a tentative hold on me. “Zander,” I whisper.
Joshua’s eyes brighten and his head bobs up and down. Sonya reacts as well, her gaze snapping up to mine. Terror wars with recognition, hope, and tears. “Please,” she whispers, “save me from her.”
Shifting and rustling behind me put me on alert. I swivel toward the kids and blanch when I see them all on their feet, hunger quickly overtaking them as they face Sonya. Unprepared for a threat like this, they’ve reached the edge of their control. Any minute now, they’ll tip over the precipice and mob her. Sonya knows this as well as I do. My shoulders shake as tears cascade down her cheeks.
“How long can you hold out?” Isolde’s voice taunts from the other side of the wall. “Long enough for Zander to get here? Of course, there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to withstand her any more than he could Ivy. Oscar, though, maybe he’s the strong one?”
She says those last two words so smoothly, like she’s taking her time tasting each one. It makes my skin crawl. Sonya squeezes her eyes shut at the mention of Oscar, which tells me everything I need to know about Is
olde’s plan. Sonya is Oscar’s match. My brother, whose judgment is questionable at the best of times, is no doubt rushing to this location. Every Godling is by now. He’ll come for Isolde. He’ll come to save Joshua. He won’t do either. What he will do is find Sonya, the perfect meal for his hunger, and he won’t be able to resist. Suddenly, the Godling kids on the verge of going feral are the least of my concerns.
Killing Sonya will wreck Oscar’s mind beyond what anyone can heal. He’ll lose control completely, permanently. He’ll unleash his hunger, his power, and more likely than not, kill everyone in the room.
If anyone survives, they’ll be forever damaged. Joshua, who will witness it with both his eyes and his power, will inherit his own missing pieces. The next generation of Godlings will be terrified, grow up fearing their hunger, hating the Eroi, becoming soldiers instead of healers.
It’s only then I realize Isolde’s plan isn’t to storm our proverbial castle and conquer us. It’s to make sure the war never ends, make sure the Eroi never again become subservient to Godlings, mere trainers instead of rulers. Never mind that the Eroi’s true purpose makes them the linchpin of our success. That’s not the kind of power she wants. She walked into this assault knowing she would likely die, and considered it worth the sacrifice.
I lunge for Sonya, and have her back pressed against me with a knife to her throat before anyone can blink. My hunger scavenges her, sucking in everything from the miniscule hurt of her bruises to the deeper wretchedness she’s soaked up from others like a sponge and stored away for someone like me to access and take away. Except I can’t be her savior. I can’t let Isolde win, or Oscar implode. I can’t let the war continue to destroy our worlds. Sonya’s body quivers as she sobs in recognition of my choice, but my gaze is focused on Isolde’s silhouette darkening the hole in the wall. Haughty, eager, she watches me intently.
“Ivy said you would save me,” Sonya whimpers.
Pressing the knife more firmly against her skin, I shove away any thoughts of guilt or pity. “I can’t save you and my family. I can’t save you and end the war.”
Her sobs intensify, but she’s nods in defeat. “Can you make it quick?” she begs.
My grip on the knife falters. Sonya must feel it, but doesn’t take advantage. Where would she go? There’s no running from Isolde. For either of us. Tightening my fingers around the hilt, I apologize for what I’m about to do in the only way I can. Unleashing my hunger fully, I struggle to keep some kind of control as it pulls every last drop of agony from her body. Tension melts away from her and her sobbing changes from terrified to joyful. The little Godlings in the room stumble back, shaking their heads in shock and relief that their torture is momentarily gone.
Isolde watches warily, but is so intrigued, she risks stepping through the blast hole to get a closer look. “There is no Gift, is there? It was just something Egidio made up to trick people into thinking the war could end. I spent my life searching for it, dedicated my life to those who wanted to destroy it and let this war come to its rightful end on its own, but it can’t really exist. If it did, you would have killed me by now. You took all her pain, which should have fed the Gift enough to destroy me, but I’m still here.”
My teeth grind together as I fight against agreeing with her. I believed him, believed in the Gift, believed I was the gift. I believed I could save the Godlings and end the war by showing them a better way. I believed I was special.
That was a lie. The rest…I don’t know.
Can a weapon really end violence and hatred like Egidio promised? How can something pure cause so much destruction? Why would selflessness bring more death? The Mark…the three trials…they always seemed a little childish, but now they reveal themselves as outright lies. Speaking without speaking, seeing truth in power, sharing inner light…
Numbness spreads through my body as I remember hitting my head and feeling the secondary power rushing in to bolster my own. I remember Verity’s shock, how she looked to Joshua for an answer. It didn’t make sense then, but my thoughts begin to coalesce as more instances flood in.
Converse with the source of life without speaking.
See the truth of all power and guide it toward goodness.
Share inner life with those worthy of harnessing its potential.
Reaching for the source of my power, I don’t try to move it, but follow it deeper, all the way to the epicenter of my life force. I gasp as I feel the connection, the power coming from life. Life creating power.
Ketchup can only hear Joshua’s mind-speak because I left behind a portion of my power when I healed him. Joshua knew the thread of power tracking Sonya was good. He was the one who leant Verity’s power to me when I couldn’t heal my concussion on my own. His insistence that he needs Annabelle, Zander, and me says he has a plan, that he understands something I only have an inkling of so far.
He knows Isolde is wrong.
Turning to look at him, the question is poised on my lips, but I can’t ask it without putting him in danger. While I debate what I should do, Joshua claps his hands together happily.
Daddy’s coming!
Noise erupts in the hallway, from both directions. The war we all knew was raging outside has finally made its way to our not-so-safe room. I know I only have seconds left to make my decision about Sonya, to spare her life and risk Oscar’s and everyone else’s, or to end it now and go after Isolde in the hopes that her death will at least free the other Richiamos from her torture. One life in exchange for so many others. It makes sense.
A howl of rage echoes down the hall and I recognize Oscar’s voice. I know he feels Sonya’s presence, even with her pain depleted, his hunger is screaming at him to come get her. Sonya is just one girl. How can her life be more valuable than anyone else’s?
“I’ll be the end of him,” Sonya whispers. Pain is already flooding back into her, faster now as the hallway fills with wounded, terrified people. It won’t take more than a few seconds before she’s a beacon to him, a siren calling him to his death. “Kill me now if you love your brother. He can’t survive killing his match. It will destroy what’s left of him, and then he’ll destroy everyone else.”
She doesn’t flinch when the tip of my knife breaks her skin. Peace slackens her posture, her acceptance resonating within me. In her eyes, I’m blameless. In mine…Oscar isn’t the only one who’ll be broken by the wrong choice. The knife clatters to the ground and I step back. More than one pair of shocked eyes stare at me, but Joshua sighs contentedly.
“What are you doing?” Sonya begs. She grips my arm, trying to shove the knife back into my hand. She can’t seem to understand why I won’t take it. “Please! It’s too late to save me. You have to kill me before he gets here or you’ll all die!”
Terrified, despite my surety that I made the right choice, I step back from the broken wall and pull her along with me. “No more fighting,” I say.
Bodies seem to tumble past the opening in the wall, some still fighting, some running. Blasts of power mix with gunfire and more sections of the wall are blown inward. A horrible rage-filled scream echoes down the hall seconds before another blast hits, and suddenly the wall simply doesn’t exist anymore. Radiating power, fists literally glowing with it, Oscar stalks into the room and his gaze goes straight to Isolde.
Chapter Thirty-One: Judgement
(Oscar)
Fury boils beneath my skin. So many dead Eroi. None killed with power. Too much of a risk. Not my sanity. Risk that I won’t have enough left to kill her. I want to, need to. More than David. More than anyone or anything in this world. She threatened my family. She deserves to die, painfully, horribly. Something I can make happen.
Which she knows.
Yet, she is wearing her false smile as she faces me. “Where is your lovely wife?”
Power swells as I take notice of the bundle of pain behind me that is growing more enticing by the minute. There is something about it. It’s difficult to ignore. It tries to pull my focus from Iso
lde, but I can’t…it’s not as important. But it’s so delicious….
“Did you find your precious little Emily?” Isolde taunts.
Daddy, where’s Mommy? Joshua asks. I don’t answer him. My words and focus are for Isolde. Only her. If only I could just ignore the growing spark of inevitability. “Your games are childish,” I growl at Isolde.
“Yet you still play them.” Her smile widens. She pretends no fear, though I can taste it hovering around her. Not fear of me, though. There are still battle noises from the hall. Her heels click against the debris-strewn concrete, strangely loud in my ears. Power hums in my veins as she approaches and runs a polished nail down my chest. “I suspect you saved her, but that wasn’t the point, now, was it?”
“There is no point to your madness.” Her fingertips trail along my jaw, tensing my body to nearly snapping my physical control. The exponential growth of pain next to Van is doing even more to erode my control over other things.
Isolde laughs, and doesn’t look away when Zander and Annabelle stumble into the room amid gunshots and explosions. Oddly, a group of children follows them, ones I don’t recognize, which means they are likely Richiamos, but he has already drained them of pain, mostly. That suggests he saved many Godling lives, which is good, I suppose. That realization seems to spread, especially to the bundle of pain next to Van, but her reaction is confusing. I can’t focus on it. Isolde is too important.
Both Zander and Annabelle have the guns trained on her the moment they are on stable footing, but thy will not be the ones to kill her. Noah adds his a second later, blood dripping from his temple and shoulder, but I won’t allow him to kill her, either. No one seems to know what to do when Isolde begins a slow walk around me, fingernails trailing lightly over my neck and shoulders. Killing her will set off a roomful of hunger-crazed Godlings. Even Zander looks to be on the verge of losing control after all the fighting he’s done and all the pain he’s taken from the Richiamos. Not killing with power means it has built up with nowhere to go. It is eating all of us from the inside out. Isolde knows this, knows it will only take one spark to set off a nuclear end to this encounter.
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