Relinquish: Book II of the Rising Trilogy (29 page)

Bastien shudders, blood bubbling from his lips. Pain pinches his features. His hands shake as he touches the spike protruding from his stomach. Gurgling moans rise from his throat as he locks his gaze on me, beginning to glaze over. “Illyria…” He stretches out his hand toward me.

I can hear the wet wheezing in his chest and feel numbness wash over me. Blood pools beneath him, thick and bright. I watch as it begins to seep toward me. When I look back at Bastien, his eyes are unfocused and his chest lies still.

“Bastien!” I start forward, but Aloysius steps between us, blocking my path. Tears burn in my eyes and I grit my teeth, fighting to comprehend that he is really gone. Rage burrows into my chest as invisible sparks vine around my hands. I glare at my husband. “You will pay for this.”

Twenty-Four

I rise slowly from the floor, ignoring the pain in my lower leg as I stand. The air sparks around me. The glass shards on the floor begin to clatter against the tile. The hair atop Aloysius’s head lifts, flapping in the rising winds.

The sound of the gale drowns out the screams below, though the flash of laser fire can be seen against the walls. I ignore it all. Aloysius is all that matters—my anger… my revenge.

His eyes are wide and glazed as he looks back at me. His face ashen and drawn with fear. I can feel my powers rippling across my skin. Aloysius backs away. I follow, stalking after him as he stumbles on the edge of the rug and knocks over the bedside table. He skirts the wall, nearing his weapons cache.

His fingers fumble over the keypad and the door hisses open. He grabs the first thing he can find and turns to face me with the laser pistol pointed at my chest. I roll my eyes. “Why did I ever fear you?”

With the flick of my wrist, I bat aside the first shot. It ricochets off the wall, searing a hole through the white gossamer curtains draping from the ceiling. The second and third leave scorch marks across the bedding and walls. The blanket catches fire. I can see the flames flickering in Aloysius’s eyes.

I step toward him and he cowers back. His needling jabs at my mind are laughable now. “What are you?” He gasps as my hair begins to rise from my shoulders.

“You know…” I tilt my head. “I don’t really know.”

I clap my hands together in front of me and the windows shatter in a rain of glistening glass. My husband is thrown back off his feet. He slams into the wall and slumps to the floor. Small cuts line his forehead, making his eyes look as if they are weeping blood as I leap forward and snatch a jagged shard of glass and press it to his throat.

His eyes widen as his hands claw at my arms. I press my weight against him, watching as a seam of blood appears along his neck. His mewling sounds turn moist as I dig in deeper, feeling the layers of his skin peel away. Warm blood flows over my hands, but still I press, ignoring the splatters against my cheeks and neck.

His throat gurgles as his grip on my arm slackens. His eyes glaze over, unseeing. With a cry, I slice the glass straight across his neck and toss the shard away. A sheet of blood pours from his neck as his head collapses against his shoulder.

I rise to my feet and back away, my hands quaking. I can feel his blood on my face, clinging to my hands, and frantically wipe it away. I’ve never killed a man in cold blood like that before.

“Illyria!”

Slowly I turn, blinking to clear my vision as two men burst through the door. One has crimson staining his tousled blond curls. The other stands tall and strong, like a beacon of hope. I sink to my knees, tears streaking from my eyes as Eamon and Kyan rush forward.

Eamon takes me into his arms, cradling me as I cry. I can hear him calling my name, but it sounds distant. Kyan kneels beside me, but his gaze is focused on Aloysius.

“It’s okay.” Eamon soothes, brushing his hand down over my hair. “Everything is going to be okay.”

I shake my head, pushing away from him. The sight of my bloody handprints on his chest makes my lips begin to tremble.
I failed.

“Bastien,” I whisper and point toward the bed.

Kyan rises fluidly and rushes around us. He goes absolutely still, his expression filled with remorse as he turns back to look at me. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry?” Eamon says, looking between us. “Sorry for what?”

Kyan closes his eyes. “He’s gone.”

My shriek is long and mournful as I collapse into Eamon’s arms, knowing I’ll never see Bastien’s smile again, never hear him call my name or hold me in his arms. He is gone… and it’s all my fault.

I feel as if my heart is on the brink of imploding within my chest, but it doesn’t. It refuses to die, leeching poison into my body, chilling but nonlethal. As my body begins to quake, I pray I could join Bastien in death.

“I can’t believe he’s really gone,” Eamon says,
stunned. I can see him staring at Bastien’s feet and feel rage swell in my chest. Rage at Aloysius and at the fates.

“No.” I grunt as I push out of Eamon’s arms. I swipe my arm across my cheeks. “I won’t let him die.”

Kyan grabs my arm as I go to past him. “He has already passed over. It’s impossible to bring him back.”

“Not for me.” I shove him away, sending him toppling over Eamon.

I stand before Bastien, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. I can feel my power crashing around me like waves in a torrent. The wind whistles through the shattered windows, whipping my hair into my face, lashing against my eyes. The lights begin to flicker overhead, the pillars in the four corners of the room cracking.

“Kyan, her eyes!” Eamon calls out.

“I know!”

I’m barely aware of Kyan as he circles around to stand in front of me. I don’t look at him. I stare at Bastien’s lifeless body, at the pool of blood he lies in. So much blood.

“Illyria, think about what you’re doing. You have to pull back.”

“No,” I shout into the wind. “That’s exactly what I can’t do!”

I lift my hands out to the sides, my toes rising off the ground. A warmth begins to rise up from my extremities, drawing lines of gold along my veins, glowing beneath my clothes as they converge on my heart.

“What is she doing?” Eamon shouts, but Kyan doesn’t answer as he begins to back away. The instant the lights connect, my entire body jerks and the winds stop. A brilliant light fills the room, so bright it feels like I’ve harnessed the sun. I’m vaguely aware of the air rippling in front of me, a protective shield I subconsciously threw up before the blast. Glancing down I see Eamon and Kyan cowering on the floor but safe within my protective bubble.

I can no longer hear the screams or the sounds of laser fire in the palace yard. All I hear is pure, unadulterated silence.

“What have I done?” I stare down at Kyan.

He rises slowly, his hands visibly shaking. “I don’t know. I think… I think you’ve somehow stopped time.”

I look around me in amazement and realize he is right. I can see glass hovering in the air just beyond my shield. The flames mounting the curved headboard of the bed stand still. I look up to see the white curtains that drape from the ceiling have been blown sideways and hang motionless in the air.

Stepping lightly over the glass-strewn floor, I peer out the window and gasp. “It’s not just in this room. The men below are frozen too!”

“How is this possible?” Eamon asks, rising shakily to his feet. He brushes his hair back from his face, revealing a deep cut along his right cheek.

“I have no idea,” Kyan mutters, sounding out of breath. “I’ve never heard of such a thing before.”

“Why are we the only ones not affected by this?” Eamon rises onto his toes to look out the window nearest him.

Kyan glances around and then rises to meet my gaze. “Because she’s shielding us from it.”

I turn and walk toward him, showing no sign of pain as the glass slices into my feet. “If I stopped time, does that mean I can reverse it as well?”

Kyan blows out a breath, shrugging. “I honestly don’t know. It would appear at the moment that you can do anything you want.”

I glance down at Bastien.
I will save you.

“Hold on tight,” I whisper aloud.

“To what?” Eamon says, but I ignore him.

Closing my eyes, I wrap my powers about me, feeling them cocoon me, fluid and deadly. This time, the darkness is different. There is a light, vivid in its intensity. I open my eyes and realize I can still see it.

I gasp, stretching out my hand. Like specs of dust floating in the wind, my hand passes through the bronze-colored particles. They feel gritty against my fingers, and I laugh.

“What’s going on?” Kyan asks.

“It really is like sand.” I grin as I turn to look at Kyan. “Time. I can see time.”

The line fluctuates, weaving among itself like a
curtain being held together by an infinite darkness, illuminating each tiny grain. Kyan moves forward and I gasp as he steps right through the curtain. I realize by the way his brow furrows that he is confused. “You can’t see it, can you?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real. Try pushing back on it and see what happens, but for goodness sakes, be careful, Illyria. You have no idea what you’re doing. One wrong move and you could kill us all.”

I bite on my lip and refocus. I stretch out my hands, taking a step forward until I can feel the glistening particles and gently push back. The curtain recedes ever so slightly.

“Oh my gosh. She’s doing it!” Eamon cries a moment later. “Keep going!”

I take another step and push again, this time with a bit more pressure. All around me things begin to shift, slowly at first, but there is definite movement. I can see a ghost of Eamon and Kyan as they burst through the door. I watch the crimson glass shard fly back into my hand, watch as my muscles uncoil and the line across Aloysius’s neck diminishes until it is completely gone.

Eamon and Kyan turn in amazement as the blood rises from Aloysius’s clothes, watching as the glass knits back together in its frame.

I grit my teeth and close my eyes, feeling my arms begin to quiver with effort. Time may be reversing, but it is going much too slowly. I push with all of my might, feeling sweat cling to my brow as my knees begin to feel weak. “I’m losing it!”

“Just a little more,” Kyan says, rushing to Bastien’s side. “I only need you to get to him to the moment his heart last beat to save him. If you can give me that, I think I can save him.”

I nod and a scream rises from deep within me as I push, leaning into the rippling curtain. It feels cold to the touch, like the burn of ice. My hands are numb, my legs muscles screaming in agony as I brace myself for another push.

“Tell me when, Kyan. I don’t know how much longer I can hold this.”

“I only need a few more seconds…” he says in a distant voice.

A great rumbling roar fills my ears, drowning out my screams, like standing at the base of a giant waterfall. I can feel Eamon’s presence beside me, but I can’t hear or see him. I am lost to the temporal abyss.

Just as I feel my knees buckle, I feel strong arms wrap about my waist. “I’ve got you,” Eamon shouts. He leans over my back, pushing for me. “Just keep your hands out. I’ll do the rest.”

“You’ll have to time this perfectly.” I grunt at Kyan. “I have to release you from my shield so you can be in sync with Bastien. You’ll be trapped in time for a second, and then I will conceal you again.”

“If you lose control, he won’t make it,” Kyan warns.

Colors burst before my eyes as I nod, feeling Eamon’s arms tighten about my waist as he pushes forward. “Illyria, now!”

It all happens in the blink of an eye. Amazing when you think about it, considering I have time within my grasp. I draw the shield back just as Kyan’s glowing hands press down upon Bastien’s chest. A second later, I wrap the shield around both of them.

“I’ve got him, Illyria. You can let go now,” Kyan calls to me.

My arms shake so badly that my teeth are chattering. Eamon tugs on me. “Illyria, let go. It’s time.”

“I… I can’t!” Terror rises up in me as I begin to feel the gravitational pull of a vortex before me, unseen but very real. “Kyan, help!” Eamon roars beside me.

“I can’t. I’ll lose Bastien if I let go!”

I can feel myself being drawn forward, out of Eamon’s arms. He grabs at my waist, fighting to lock his arms in place to anchor me down. “I can’t lose you,” he cries. “I’m sorry!”

Blinding pain rips through my head and I cry out as we’re thrown backward. Eamon grunts as I land atop him, rolling end over end. My head strikes the far wall and darkness closes in on me.

“Illyria? Kyan, she’s hurt!”

His face swims before my eyes in the fading iridescent glow. The curtain billows and crests behind him and then vanishes from sight. I groan and close my eyes, praying I held on long enough. My head lolls to the side as a cool void envelops me.

Twenty-Five

A blanket of warmth covers my body, calling me forth from the darkness. I don’t want to go back. I’m at peace here. There’s no pain. No sorrow or misery. Only infinite serenity.

A voice calls to me.
Illyria.

I become aware of my eyelids and attempt to open them. They slowly flutter, and as my vision begins to clear, I see a man kneeling over me. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I grunt, raising a hand to touch the bump rising on the back of my head. I grimace and lower my hand. “Never better. What happened?”

Kyan reaches down and presses his hands to my head and a blissful warmth steals away the pain drilling through my eye. “What happened?”

“You passed out… for nearly an hour. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to wake you. You seemed lost somewhere else.”

“I was,” I say, remembering the void.
Time… I was lost in time
, I think silently.

“I worked on you for quite a while. Apart from your head, you had nothing physically wrong with you. I was worried you sapped your powers again.” He places a hand beneath my head and slowly eases me to a sitting position. I raise my knees and hang my head, willing the room to stop spinning.

“How do you feel now?” His gaze sweeps across my face.

“Fuzzy. I…” I scrunch up my nose as I try to remember what happened. “I don’t really remember much.”

He nods, as if he expected this. “When you lost control, your shield slipped. Somehow you managed to conceal us, but you were left unprotected.” He fixes me with a grim stare. “I won’t pretend to understand how you controlled time. Your powers are stronger than I even imagined, so I can’t predict what effect this may have on you.”

“I’ll be fine. Just a little woozy is all.”

“Too woozy to see a friend?” I look up at him, confused. As I turn to look where he points, I gasp. Eamon kneels beside Bastien, his hand pressed against the rise and fall of his chest.

“Oh!” I crawl to his side, my hands trembling as I reach for him, but Eamon pulls me back.

“He’s sleeping now. We shouldn’t wake him.” Eamon’s voice is low and soft, but I can hear the hesitation in it.

“But he’ll be fine now, right?” I turn to look back up at Kyan. He smiles and nods. “Thank you.”

He kneels down beside me, placing his hand upon my shoulder. “I didn’t think it was possible.” I tilt my head to the side, confused. “You changed fate.” He looks past me to Bastien. “Maybe it is possible to write our own destinies.”

With a pat on my arm, he rises and slips silently from the room, leaving Eamon and me alone with Bastien.

“He’s right, you know?” Eamon whispers beside me. “You changed everything.”

I nod, shifting my hand to grip his. “And I nearly lost everything in the process.”

“But we won.” He turns to look at me with a hint of a smile, pained but no less a smile. “You’re the queen now.”

“But…” I look around me in confusion. I see Aloysius’s body slumped against the wall. “Why isn’t he alive? I turned back time.”

Eamon nods. “You did, but you didn’t protect him when you released it. Everything sort of snapped back into place. We were saved only because you protected us. Bastien too.” He glances down and pulls his hand back from his brother’s chest.

“So I’m… I’m the queen?”

Eamon smiles. “Seems that way. A newly widowed queen to be exact.”

Laughter bubbles up in my throat. Once I start, I can’t seem to stop. A year of pain, misery, and fear could’ve been avoided if I had only seen this outcome. My breath catches. “I understand now.”

I grip Eamon’s hand, grinning like a fool. “I know why we couldn’t see past this room. It’s because I altered time. The path we saw no longer exists. We are forever slightly off schedule.”

He nods, running his thumb across the back of my hand. “I thought that too.”

“Do you know what this means?” I hold my breath. “It means they were wrong. The prophets don’t know everything. We
can
change our fate.”

Eamon lowers his gaze. “Yeah, I thought about that too.”

My happiness wanes as I see the droop of his shoulders. “What? What’s wrong?”

He sighs and pushes up to his feet. He casts a glance back at Bastien before he looks at me. “Now you’re free to love him. There’s nothing binding you to me anymore.”

“That’s not true.” I scramble to my feet, desperate to reassure him. “I’m still bound to you. I can feel it.”

He nods. “Yeah, but it’s not as strong as what you have with him.”

I bite my lip as tears well up in my eyes. I reach for him, but he steps away. “It’s okay. You should be here when he wakes up.”

My heart breaks as he turns and leaves, closing the door silently behind him. I sink to my knees, wrapping my arms about myself as I cry. It starts as a whimper before rising into shoulder-shaking sobs. Strong arms wrap around me and I sink back into Bastien’s embrace, somehow knowing he would be there exactly when I needed him the most.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers in my ear. “I heard everything.”

“I don’t… I don’t know what to do.” My voice cracks as I cling to him, feeling shattered and irrevocably broken.

“I know.” And I know he does.

News of Aloysius’s death spreads through Calahorra like wildfire. Torches light the streets. Music and dancing can be heard all the way into the palace. The gates are open wide, allowing all people to enter as they please.

Standing on a large, sweeping balcony, peering down at the joy in the streets, I smile. Aminah squeezes my hand as she clasps hands with Toren on her other side. Kyan and Zahra embrace on my other side, silent and
strong. Eamon stands beside Toren and Bastien beside Kyan, polar opposites to the very end.

The crown sitting upon my head is heavy, weighted with the hopes and dreams of an entire race. Kyan said I was born to lead. I’m not so sure I believe him, but I’ll do my best to make him proud.

I know somewhere out there, my parents are waiting for me. A tiny smile crosses my lips at the thought of getting to know them. To know all of our lost parents.

I spot Carleon on the yard below, waving obnoxiously at me, his arm slung over Alesta’s shoulders. I frown, glancing at Kyan. “He sure moves quick. What about Anwen?”

Kyan smiles. “I suppose she never thought to tell you. Alesta is Carleon’s sister.”

“Oh!” Somehow I know I should’ve sensed that connection from the first moment I met her. I wave back and then shoo them away to join in with the party.

“So what now?” I ask, sweeping my gaze over Calahorra, newly dubbed the City of the Queen.

“Now”—Kyan reaches over and grips my hand—“you lead.”

I will do my duty to bring peace and harmony to my people. I will work relentlessly to help our two races work side by side to bring healing to our lands, to stop the earth’s destruction that still looms ahead. With my friends at my side, we will create a new world together.

We will be free.