Illuminate

by Tracy Clark

  “Go on,” Edmund said to Finn. “I want to hear.”

  “The Two of Cups. The card I saw showed a man and woman pouring water from their own vessels into a joining stream. The card is supposed to signify—”

  “Reconciliation of opposites,” Edmund said, nodding.

  “Yes. Every time I looked up reconciliation of opposites, it would always turn up alchemy. In alchemy, the metamorphosis necessary for true enlightenment is to recognize the duality and to join them, to take opposing forces and combine them. I kept thinking that it doesn’t get more opposing than the Arrazi and Scintilla.”

  “Convenient theory when you’re the one who’ll benefit from Cora’s light being sucked into your own,” Giovanni said, clearly disgusted.

  “You were right to be thinking along those lines,” I said to Finn. “Right now, we are duality expressed in human form. But we didn’t start that way. I saw them…us. We were once more evolved beings, the physical and spiritual embodiment of yin and yang, who came to demonstrate that we can unify duality and advance mankind, but we were corrupted.

  “Arrazi, Scintilla—neither one is better than the other.” Even as I said it, and met Giovanni’s doubtful glare, it was hard to believe. The things we’d seen, experienced…

  “We’re both necessary if we want to end this. The truth about three is the union.” I looked pointedly at Finn. “The reconciliation of opposites. We are supposed to bring the light and the dark into balance and demonstrate to the world that we are one. My dad was right. We can heal the planet of its imbalance. Our job was supposed to be to help the world see that they have both inside them and can save themselves with the balance of their disparate halves.”

  “Don’t listen to her blasphemy,” Cardinal Báthory hissed. “Like Eve, she seeks to poison you all.”

  I stood and pointed at him. “I want you to shut up. Quit pushing that tired crap.”

  I turned away from him, weary of the dogma and hypocrisy. I faced a bigger challenge than him. Up until then, the biggest challenge of my life had been a quest for the truth, to discover the reason we were what we were. That paled in the face of the task of convincing two opposing races, enemies, of the unbelievable truth.

  We literally had to be willing to join energies, unite, and die in order to save the world.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Finn

  Everyone stepped out for a moment while I dealt with the wrinkled sack of self-righteous man in front of me.

  The more I thought about it, the more dots he connected. Ultana had returned from a trip to Rome the night Saoirse started turning Arrazi. Xepa’s party was held in Christ Church, and we’d entered the church through a hidden tunnel where Ultana was handed an invitation by a priest. Ultana herself had implicated the church. In fact, those were her last words.

  As long as there is a God on their altar, they will never stop hunting you.

  At the time of the party, I’d wondered how she’d garnered such privileges from the church. If this cardinal was the one Ultana reported to, then it was proof that someone deep inside the church was involved.

  “Arrazi scum,” he hissed. He dropped to his knees, closed his eyes, and began murmuring prayers in Latin. The show angered me enough to throw my energy at him like I was tossing an anchor into the black sea.

  “Without me to stop them,” he gasped, “your fellow Arrazi will act on my last order. They will kill every last Scintilla.”

  I halted my devouring of his aura long enough to consider what he was saying.

  “And after they’re dead, your kind will die as well. I’m the only one who can stop it.”

  What was he saying? He was going to use the Arrazi and then turn on them? Was that his plan all along?I pulled him to his feet, deciding on a different fate for him.

  “Finn,” Cora’s frantic voice made me jump. “Ehsan texted again. He says a line of cars is snaking down the highway, headed this way. We have less than an hour. We have to go!” Her gaze slid over the cardinal, who was wheezing and holding his chest. “What about him?”

  “I’ve got a new plan for him,” I said, hoping Edmund had been taping our interaction moments before. That guy’s camera was like another limb. But if the cardinal was the only one the Arrazi would listen to, then taking him back with us might prove valuable. I said to him, “If you say anything to the Arrazi other than what I tell you, that highly painful experience you just had will be magnified until you feel nothing ever again.”

  Giovanni skidded back into the cave. “The weapons…” he said, with a desperate slice to his words as he looked around. I didn’t blame him. The Scintilla had no real defense against an onslaught of Arrazi. Judging from the stacked boxes and crates of guns and ammunition, however, we couldn’t possibly move it all fast enough. The only gun we had was the one Cora had used.

  Cora tilted her head back in thought. “Okay,” she said to Giovanni, “Dun and Edmund, go back to warn the others. Take the cardinal’s car. We’ll get some of the weapons and be there as quickly as we can.”

  Giovanni stopped Dun as he started out of the cave’s entrance. “Until we get there, all they’ll have are their sortileges. Tell them to work together to use them.”

  “What about running away?” Dun asked. “Hell, I’m tempted.”

  “They will hunt us down. They’ve been given an order. We fight or we spend our lives running. And Dun,” Giovanni said, his voice even more grave, “keep Claire hidden. No matter what.”

  “Part of me thinks the weapons are a bad idea,” Cora said. “It’s incredibly aggressive and threatening in the face of what we have to do.”

  Giovanni harrumphed in response.

  “Didn’t you hear anything I said back there?” she said. “We have to join with the Arrazi. We have to convince them to—”

  Giovanni was already tugging on the lid of a box, trying to open it. “What, Cora, to die?”

  “The only people who care about saving the world are fake ones in the movies. Most people care about what’s personal to them, saving themselves and those they love. How do you think you’re going to talk the Scintilla into abandoning their survival instincts? It’s crazy. You know who’ll be on board? The Arrazi. We offer ourselves up like sacrificial lambs, and they’ll line up to devour us.”

  I listened quietly to their debate, but I had to admit, I saw Giovanni’s point yet also wanted to refute it on a personal level. “I’m willing to die to end this,” I said. “But I’m not willing to take your life, Cora. I can’t do it. I can’t kill you.”

  She blew out an exasperated breath, and her voice dropped low, sad. “I know what I saw. If I can’t even convince you two, how am I supposed to convince everyone else? It’s why we were created. We’ve been searching for a reason, and now we know that reason, and you two want to blow it off.”

  I squeezed her hand, ignoring the dart of Giovanni’s tough stare. “I want to blow off any idea that involves your death.”

  Her crackling green eyes—full of sadness, despair, but also fierce determination—pierced mine. She was on the verge of crying. Her hands clutched the front of my shirt, and I was sure she could feel my heartbeat through the fabric. “You think I want to die?” That one desperate question hung in the air of the cave and pressed down on all of us.

  “We do this, or everyone dies. Wrap your head around that. My father might not have had the whole picture, but he was totally on the right track. Everything in this world is falling apart, and it will get worse. Humans are destroying one another, and they’re destroying the planet. But, Finn, you have to believe me, we can fix it.”

  “We just have to be willing to die together,” I whispered. I’d do anything for her, anything. I’d die myself. But she was asking me to take all of her beautiful energy. Cora was essentially begging me to kill her. And what if it didn’t fookin’ work?

  Her forehead dropped against my chest, and Giovanni turned away, busying himself with weapons. “You and I will have to be the first.
With hope, the others…” She looked at Giovanni. “…will follow.” Her face tilted up. “We have to be one. We’re the example. For this to work, we have to join.” A sardonic puff of a laugh slipped from her lips before she said, “Trust me enough to die with me?”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Giovanni

  I’d give anything to have seen the vision for myself.

  We’d all heard the words that flowed from Cora like she’d channeled a wraithlike entity—and the message was beautiful. Prophetic. And I fervently wished it to be untrue. Cora was so sure. Conviction hammered iron into her words, her voice, and her eyes as she looked up at Finn. That killed me. Partly because I knew what it was like to have her against my chest, looking up at me, and it wasn’t me she was looking at now.

  I unclenched my fists and moved some handguns into a box with a few rifles, wondering which box it was that I’d seen the knives and whether to even bother. Finn and I each lifted one side of the box to test the weight. It would be cumbersome getting it down the hill to the car, but we’d manage. “We have to hurry,” I urged.

  The cardinal kept his back to the cave, pinned there by Finn’s reaching aura. Everyone startled when we heard what sounded like faraway explosions, but within seconds, the ground rumbled beneath our feet, tipping the cave like a snow globe and sending pellets and powder of dirt onto our heads. The shaking threw us all off balance, and I saw Cora grab for a large ammunitions box to steady herself but was tossed backward.

  The quake was much worse than the previous. It felt like the entire world was splitting in two. “Out!” I yelled, sure that getting trapped in that cave was the worst thing that could happen to us then.

  We all made for the opening. Cora pushed through first, and I followed. I turned to see one of the large boulders roll toward Finn, who had pushed Cardinal Báthory out and was slipping through the opening himself. The boulder was on target to crush him. Charged by instinct, I felt the power of my sortilege surge up my body and through my hand as I sent the rock on another trajectory. Finn watched the rock barreling toward him and saw it suddenly veer away. Our eyes met—gratitude—amidst the rumbling and cracking and another sound… Screaming?

  I wheeled around. The absence of Cora was more startling than the fact that the earth was unceasingly tearing and ripping around us. I had a sudden flash of Claire and shuddered to imagine her huddled in a garden shed with Faye and Janelle. The women would do what they could to protect her, soothe her, I knew that. But would I ever see her again? I should be with her. That same protective flare also existed for Cora, and I had no idea where she was, but the yells for help were hers, and I had to find her.

  It was still too dark to see. Everything around us was moving shadow and sound, a funnel of commotion and noise—and somewhere in the middle of it was the girl I loved. As quickly as it began, the shaking stopped and Cora’s voice became the loudest thing around us. She was a bit farther down the hill, and as we scrambled toward her cries, I nearly fell into a split in the beige earth that started as a narrow seam and expanded into a gaping ravine. Finn grabbed my arm just in time, and we both realized that was where the shouting was coming from. Cora was down there.

  “Help me!” she yelled, sounding so much younger and so frightened. “I’m—I’m down here.” Both Finn and I used our phones to light the chasm and peer down, shocked at what we saw.

  It was a narrow gap in the earth, ripped open in the quake. Cora was easily fifteen feet down, maybe more, and wedged between the walls of dirt with her hands pressed on either side of her and her scratched and dirt-caked face staring up at us with terrified eyes.

  “Stay with her,” Finn said. “I’ll run down to the car to see if I can find a rope or any branches long enough. “Shite,” he said, looking around. “Báthory’s gone.”

  “We’ll find him,” I vowed but with a sinking, hollow feeling. “Don’t bother looking for branches. No real trees up here. Just scrub,” I said, to let him know not to waste time. “Go.” I looked back down at Cora and called, “We’re going to get you free. I promise.”

  “It’s so deep, G…” Sounds of her struggling to climb up only to slip back down tore at my heart.

  “I know, bella. I know. Finn’s going to see if he can find a rope.” Without the additional light of Finn’s phone, I could barely see her moving. She was just a voice, speaking straight to my soul.

  “I’m scared.”

  “Don’t be. I’m with you. I’ll never leave you, Cora.”

  Finn’s footfall approached as he ran back up a few minutes later and slid onto his knees next to me, empty-handed. “Nothing.” He sounded frantic. A full minute must have passed as we both tried to think of a solution.

  “What? Tell me,” Cora said, her voice shaking.

  Finn leaned forward, his fingers gripping the edge. “Keep calm, luv. We’re working on a way to get you out.”

  “What way? There is no way. I’m too deep.”

  Silence.

  Finn slammed his palm on the ground. “Bloody Christ!” he yelled and looked at me with tormented eyes. “I’d trade places with her in a heartbeat.”

  Like a bird swooping over our heads and dropping the brick of an answer on my head, I suddenly knew what had to be done. I could get her out. I could save her. “Cora, I want you to put your hands tight at your sides if you can. Keep them there.”

  “Why? I don’t underst—” But she did. She did understand, and that’s why her words left her. “G, no! You can’t. Lorcan’s curse. You do this and you’ll die!”

  “There has to be another way,” Finn said, also grasping my choiceless choice.

  “I won’t let you,” she said through tears.

  My own chin was trembling. “You can’t stop me.”

  “You stubborn ass! Go with Finn. The unification can be the two of you.” Her words were clipped and choppy through tears. “You can join. Do it. Please. Do it for me.”

  “Either way, I die, Cora. You said it yourself. And I’d rather die trading my life for yours.”

  I didn’t wait for responses, or arguments, regrets, or fears. I couldn’t. I pushed all of my strength and focused every ounce of energy within me to lift her body up. It was difficult. I could feel the tug on my energy, taking everything I had. Slowly. Carefully. I used all my power to pull her from the ravine, and when her face appeared she gasped the air and…no…not gasping…sobbing. Shaking her head no. Pleading with her green eyes. She hung in space, suspended there, biting that beautiful pad of bottom lip while tears made white tracks on her dirty skin.

  Finn wrapped his arms around her waist and tugged her body onto the dirt where we knelt. As soon as her knees hit the dirt, I felt weak and winded. My body tilted, and my back hit the dirt with a thud that rattled my teeth.

  “Giovanni,” Cora whimpered, hovering over me. “Why didn’t you listen?” she cried against my lips. Sweet. So sweet were her tears and her mouth and the unique spirit of herself, which she tried to gift me, but it was useless. Her energy was weak, scattered, and spinning off her ineffectually. “You told me once that nobody does something for nothing. You didn’t have to die for me. Why?” Her question had such anguish in it. It was a guttural cry to the universe from someone who’d lost too many.

  It took all the strength I had to lift my hand to her face and curl my fingers over the ridge of bone at the back of her head. I’d need the last of my strength to comprehend that this was the last kiss. This was time stopping. This was good-bye.

  “Love is not nothing.” Beyond the stars of her eyes, my eyes found the heavens above. “It’s everything.”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Cora

  I was only aware that though Giovanni seemed to slip unconscious, he was still warm, and I didn’t want to let go. I didn’t want to leave him on that hill to grow cold. I didn’t want to tell his daughter that he’d never come back and be her daddy.

  How could I have a life without him in it? Giovanni taught me what I was. Bes
ide him, I got to know my truer self. I sobbed into the crook of his neck and whispered a hundred apologies for the love I never fully gave.

  I never gave him what he gave me.

  “I’m so sorry,” I heard Finn murmur from behind me. He pressed his hand to my back. That one touch was also a reminder. Time. Time was an enemy almost as ruthless as the Arrazi. They’re coming, time whispered. Hurry.

  I tried to stand but wobbled with shock and grief as I looked down at Giovanni’s peaceful face, eyes forever closed. Finn steadied me. Led me silently down the hill, careful where we treaded lest the earth swallow us. It was still a hungry beast. We knew it by the weaker aftershock that hit before we reached the car.

  “Let’s just hope the quake slowed the Arrazi down, too,” Finn said, opening the door for me. My mind wasn’t entirely with my body as we drove. I was disassociated, detached, much like that time in the hospital when my limbs floated against the mooring weight of my head and trunk.

  Of course I was split. Part of me was still on that hill.

  “Nothing I say can make you hurt less,” Finn said. “I know.” The headlights split the darkness ahead of us. “I haven’t been able to tell you—anyone—the Arrazi came to my house. They murdered my mum.”

  My mind rejoined my body like the snap of a rubber band and registered my physical grief, but also Finn’s. “Oh my God. Finn, I’m sorry. Why? What happened?”

  He shook his head like there was no explanation that would suffice. “At least Giovanni’s death had purpose,” he said, tilting his head in regret. “Hers was senseless. They were after me. After the book. What Giovanni did,” Finn said, glancing at me with earnest eyes, “was the bravest and most noble thing I’ve ever seen.” His jaw clenched. “He loved you.”

  My chest heaved with pain. “Yes.”

  The road followed the curve of the river, and we let silence have its palliative say before Finn spoke again. “I hope Nustber shows the Scintilla the video of you touching the book cover. They might be just as hard to convince,” Finn said, pulling me more to the present and preparing me for what was ahead.