Tempest Reborn (33 page)

The barghest took the stone from where it hung at my belly and pressed it into my hands.

‘You must do this!’ he shouted over Morrigan’s angry shouts and the commotion of the battle still raging around us.

I met his eyes, and it was like time stopped. Wanting to memorize every plane of his beautiful, rough-hewn face, I raised a trembling hand and brushed it down over his cheek.

‘I will always love you,’ I told him. ‘Never forget that.’

‘And I you. I’m doing this for you. You must live without me; live for both of us.’

I nodded, pulling him down to me in a kiss. He tasted of love, and regret, and so much life.

Before we had even pulled away, my hand found the haft of the labrys. I’d have to do this quickly, as once the labrys was out, Morrigan would heal herself in seconds and we wouldn’t be able to keep her on the ground.

Anyan’s hand fisted itself in my hair as his forehead met mine.

‘God, I love you. I love you, I love you,’ he chanted, his eyes frightened but determined.

And that’s when I pulled the ax from Morrigan’s chest with a great sucking sound. It took me a second to adjust the grip on the haft, and then I struck.

Anyan’s eyes widened as he screamed, a single, piercing ‘No!’ His power rent the air around him.

The pain, of course, was excruciating. There was a reason shamed samurai ended their lives by self-evisceration. It was a horrible way to die.

My knees buckled as my blood bubbled from my gut. The labrys still pulsing in my hand, I used the dregs of my physical strength to push the silver stone into the wound I’d made.

When bright red splashed against silver, the stone and the labrys began to pulse the same shade of coppery gold. I could feel Anyan’s magic trying to close the wounds I’d made, but they’d been made to serve a magic far older than his, and would not answer the throaty pleas he shouted into the air above me.

With bloody hands, I raised the stone above Morrigan, where it glowed down on her, raising her body up an inch in the air. Her green eyes, slit like a cat’s, met mine. After the first shock of fear had passed from them, they seemed pleased.

‘Now you die,’ I told Morrigan, plunging the stone back into the wash of my fresh blood. Her dragon’s face smiled at me, her expression almost serene. Her hand reached up to the stone, as if accepting her fate. Then she spoke.

‘And so do you, little halfling. My life for yours.’

Dying hurt, and dying the way I’d chosen to, hurt a lot. But I’d known it had to be me, for a lot of reasons.

After all, it had never made any sense that Anyan would have to die to complete the ritual. He wasn’t the White, after all – not anymore. The White was the stone I was bleeding all over. There had been that pesky ‘again’ in the poem, as well as the male pronoun. But everything was a male pronoun back in those days, and as for dying twice – well, I had that covered after dying once over Jason.

And that’s what I’d realized the night at the club. All of the niggling hints and things that had never made sense came together for me as I watched over the crowd like a god. Things like why the creature didn’t just tell us what we needed to do; why it was important I figure things out for myself.

It also answered that bigger question: Why make me the champion? I’d joked a number of times that I was a lover, not a fighter. It had never made any sense that I’d be chosen over someone like Blondie, who’d already made such a good warrior-champion.

But that was the whole point. This job, killing the Red and the White for real, didn’t require a fighter. It required a lover.

What I’d seen that night, arcing above the crowded nightclub, hadn’t
really
been destiny, although that had been a good enough word. More accurately, I’d seen a really good choice. I’d figured out the motivation behind the universe’s actions, and realized what I had to do. I was the
sacrifice
– the Green Man – not the May Queen who would bring renewal to the land. I had to die before that could happen.

In other words, it wasn’t destiny at all, even if the universe itself was involved. The creature, Blondie, Anyan, me: We’d all been the pawns of ancient forces beyond our comprehension since the first stirrings of the Red in Morrigan’s consciousness. I’d been cast as a sacrifice, and having realized that, I knew what a smart choice the universe had made. After all, a sacrifice had to be a
real
sacrifice. I was loved, and loving. I didn’t want to lose this life and these people I cared so much about and who cared about me. So yeah, I wasn’t that great at fighting, but because my friends loved me, they would keep me safe until the time came. And then I would do the same for them, in the only way I knew how.

I would die for them, and do it gladly.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t feel all that glad right then. My life’s blood was pouring out of me over a silver stone that, except for a bit of a glow, wasn’t doing much. And Anyan was shouting, staring into my pain-widened eyes with a gray gaze full of despair.

‘It was supposed to be me. It was supposed to be me!’ he was shouting, trying to heal me, trying to pull me away from the magic in which I was caught. But the labrys wound wouldn’t heal any more than one made by the Red’s claws, and the otherwise innocuous glow of the stone wouldn’t let me go.

Morrigan’s wounds, meanwhile, were healing, and she was fighting her bonds. Staring up at me with a hideous form of hope, she reached up to where I bled. Grasping the stone, she pulled, meaning to get it away from me, away from herself, so that she could attack again…

But as soon as her red-scaled, black-clawed hands made contact with the stone, it boomed with a sonic wave of power that flattened everyone but Anyan and me. We stood in its glow, the May King and his sacrificial bride, as the stone levitated upward on its own.

The glow it cast turned brighter and brighter, casting heat on my so-cold skin. As my blood continued to seep over the stone, slowing now, I felt something else pouring into that damned rock.

My life began to leave me, giving the stone what it needed to complete the ritual. Born of fire, made to contain evil, it would take nothing less. As my consciousness faded, as Anyan’s shouts turned to panicked screams and my friends fought to get through the barrier created by the stone’s power, I felt the magic grab hold.

Morrigan felt it, too. Her green eyes narrowed, then went wide with fear. I’d not yet seen her look afraid, and even as I died, I felt satisfaction.

With the last dregs of my consciousness, I felt the stone’s power hook deep within the Red, and pull. The same black ooze that had crept out of Anyan came out of Morrigan, as well as a bright sphere of power. But this sphere was gold.

Like before, the stone pulled at the black ooze, only this ooze fought twice as hard as that which had been the White. As I bled out over the stone, I could feel the direct link between my blood and the stone’s power – as if knowing its terrible effect, my draining blood seemed to empower it, and it pulled with even greater urgency.

Finally, after stretching itself as thin as it could get in an attempt to survive, the black ooze was sucked up into the stone. A split second later, the gold glow clapped on to it. Between the rivulets of blood still flowing over the once-silver stone, I saw bright yellow metal.

Then I saw nothing as I fell to my knees. Having performed its ancient birthright, the stone was suddenly just that – a stone. Made of precious metal, yes, but without agency. Without its power keeping them at bay, my friends all rushed to my side, Anyan lunging over Morrigan’s body. But I was already toppling over, and no one was quick enough to catch me.

The last thing I saw as I died were the dead eyes of Morrigan, returned to their former shade of brilliant, sapphirine blue.

I’d died before, of course, but I hadn’t remembered it. Still, when I woke up in a bright white space that wasn’t a room, that had no horizon to speak of, I wasn’t panicked. I knew I’d been there before.

I was still lying on the ground. I picked myself up carefully, afraid I’d lose my intestines. But there was no pain, and when I looked, my belly was unscathed.

The only surprise was that the rock was still there, although it no longer hung in a net around my neck. It was clutched in my hand, everything now clean of my blood.

‘Jane,’ came a voice from behind me – one carved into my memory. I turned immediately to one of the only people I’d obey without hesitation.

My mother looked exactly as I remembered her – long black hair swirling down over her curvy body, encased in a white robe. The robe was a nice touch.

‘Is it really you?’ I asked, strangely calm, considering. Ever since I’d woken up in the white light, I’d felt … not a lot, to be honest. My thoughts would occasionally coalesce enough for me to remember I should be panicked or upset, but then such thoughts would scatter like dandelion seeds in a strong wind.

‘Yes, and no,’ my mother said, smiling kindly. ‘I am a part now of everything.’

I knew we were getting into some serious eschatological issues.

‘Um, are you the universe?’

‘I am everything,’ she repeated.

I took that as a ‘yes’.

‘What you did was brave,’ she continued. ‘You took a great evil into yourself. We thank you.’

I looked down at the golden stone, so beautiful now. It was hard to believe something so glistening could hide such evil, but I’m sure I wasn’t the first person to have thought something similar.

‘Is that it, then? The Red and the White are dead?’

‘Yes. They are contained, and permanently, because of your sacrifice.’

I blinked at the mention of ‘sacrifice’. A vision of Anyan swam before me, and I felt grief for the first time since waking.

‘You mourn,’ said the figure that looked like my mother. ‘You must cross over, and forget.’

I looked up, suddenly blinking back tears. I didn’t want to forget.

But I’m dead
, I realized. That’s what I’d done. I’d killed myself, which meant I was dead. And there was no going back this time.

Mutely, I held out my hand. I couldn’t do
this
alone, too. My mother’s hand met mine, just as it used to. Only mine was bigger now – an almost mirror image of the one it clutched.

‘Come, Jane,’ she said, her shining black eyes so content, so at peace. We took a step forward, then another, and the air began to shimmer in front of us, coalescing into…

A giant yellow eye, slit like a goat’s.

‘Stop!’ boomed the creature’s voice in the white space. It wasn’t in my mind this time, but everywhere.

The form of my mother cocked her head to one side, as curious as me. Before either of us could ask what was happening, the creature spoke again.

‘You will go no further, Jane. Your task is done.’

‘Um,’ I said, ‘I’m dead. As you knew I would be from the moment you chose me.’ My voice crackled with bitterness as fury swept up inside me. Suddenly, I could feel, and all I felt was anger.

‘We knew you’d be brave enough to make this choice, yes,’ the creature said calmly. ‘And someone had to.’

A thousand furious rejoinders flashed through my mind, but before I could say any of them, my anger faltered and died. What it said was true. Someone had to destroy the Red and the White – why not me?

‘But I didn’t want to die,’ I said weakly. My mother’s hand squeezed mine and the eye blinked.

‘And that’s why you were perfect,’ the creature said sadly. ‘You were a true sacrifice, the oldest magic there is. Your ancients knew this to be true, as did those you worship as gods.’

‘And Aslan,’ I mumbled, a bit awed by this conversation.

‘Your death was powerful,’ my mother said, confirming the creature’s words, ‘and its power was great because you were full of so much life, so much love.’

‘That’s fucked up,’ I pointed out. Then I asked the questions that had been lurking in the back of my mind since I’d realized what I had to do. ‘Was any of it yours? The power? The scheme?’

The creature paused. ‘My power was mine, yes. But the champion’s power … that was the universe’s.’

‘So it was the one that chose me?’

‘With my aid, yes.’

‘So were you really running out of power?’

‘No. You had to experience certain things for yourself, and have the time to process them. I would use my power to speed things along when it was appropriate, but there were times you had to work at a human pace. You needed to make the connections for yourself.’

I rubbed a hand over my stomach. ‘So I’d know what to do when the time came?’

The creature paused, choosing its next words carefully. ‘More so that you could accept what you had to do. It was important that you
accept
, that you act willingly. And I needed to keep my strength.’

‘For what?’

‘For this,’ said the creature. ‘Give me the stone.’

I looked at the eyeball, which – rather obviously – looked back.

‘What?’

‘Give me the stone. You have done your part. Now let me do mine.’

‘But…’

‘Trust me. Give me the stone.’

I looked at my mother, who shrugged eloquently. The decision was mine.

‘What are you going to do with it?’ I asked as I held up my precious golden cargo to the giant eye. The snarky part of my brain wondered how I could give anything to an eyeball with no hands.

‘I don’t need hands,’ the creature said, causing me to blush. We were apparently still connected mentally. ‘And as for what I’m going to do with it, I’m going to make sure it never comes back.’

Suddenly, the white nonroom started to rock. Enormous power was building, greater than anything I’d ever known. It was the kind of power that had created our world, and that could be harnessed by only one being.

‘It loves you very much,’ my mother said musingly as she drew me closer to her side. It was a protective gesture that made my heart lurch, even as I felt that power swell ever greater.

Till it broke in a flood of force so strong I felt myself unraveling. Looking down, my eyes glimpsed insubstantial legs, arms, and an unscathed belly beginning to grow transparent. My mother held me comfortingly throughout.