“Is that all you want?” Varia asks innocently. “You could have anything, Zera. I’m the most powerful witch in the world now. Those High Witch fools, their eclipseguard, even my father, his entire army, every army on the Mist Continent—no one can stop me. Not anymore. With your Weeping and my power—we could carve the world anew. We could lay the foundation for what no king or empress or council in all of history could: peace. Real, lasting peace.”
“My…heart…” I grit out.
“Just think, Zera,” she implores harder. “Think beyond yourself. No war means no more Heartless. No more Heartless like you would have to be made. No one else would suffer as you have. Wouldn’t that be worth it? Isn’t that what you want—to stop the hunger? What if you could do it for everyone, forever? Make it go away once and for all, eternally?”
Forever? For everyone?
My eyes unsplit—six points of vision condensing suddenly into two. Pain and anger flood into me, the stillness of the Weeping draining away like a stabbed waterskin. The hunger comes crawling back, too, pulling itself out of the peaceful abyss claw by claw.
you can never be rid of me. you and I—one and the same. never one without the other. we grew you. we shelter you. we make you whole.
“Zera—” Lucien starts, making it to his feet shakily with the help of Malachite’s shoulders. “Varia, let her go—”
“I’ll give you what no witch has ever truly given you, Zera. A choice,” Varia says patiently, stroking a strand of my hair idly. “Come with me now and change the world. Or stay here while I move on, and spend the rest of your unlife screaming into oblivion at the top of this mountain.”
She means to leave me. To leave me here, while the radius between us that’s required for me to function as a Heartless breaks. A Heartless can’t exist outside of their witch’s radius. It’s only a mile and a half, but thanks to my locket, that length is extended. But she could still go far beyond it. I’d be stuck here forever, screaming soundlessly in mind-bending pain, no consciousness or feelings or senses at all.
“Zera, say her name.” Lucien staggers toward us, fingertips going pitch-black as he conjures up magic. “Say her witch name, and I can free you—”
“Why would you want that?” Varia laughs in my ear. “Why would you want her, Lucien? She betrayed you over and over again. She’s loyal only to her heart. Even now, she begs for it. A girl like her, selfish to the last, would never be loyal to you.”
“Loyalty,” Lucien grits out, black eyes searing, “is not a requirement to protect someone.”
My chest swells. This is him. That is him, in one proud sentence. Selfless. Willing to stand for me, at the end of all things. I feel the thick blood tears on my face cut by something thinner, watery.
Real tears. Human tears.
My mouth moves, but magic surges through me faster than I can think.
“Don’t,” Varia commands, her voice dark. “Don’t speak.”
The words almost bring me to my knees. Sledgehammers, beating on me over and over, forcing my lips into a single closed seam. It’s so powerful I’m dazed, blinking in the bright light of the mountain, the shadow of the valkerax pillar swaying over me.
Us. Him. Lucien. My head rings.
My tongue’s still, my lips obeying and unmoving. But my teeth—I don’t use my teeth to speak, and they care not for the command. I bite until I taste blood, sharp pain.
“Lau—”
“Don’t!” Varia snarls harder. The sledgehammers turn to boulders, a landslide, to a cascade waterfalling down and pulverizing me to nothing more than bruised lumps of flesh. And in the bloody wake, the creeping fear settles in—if Lucien becomes my witch, it’s just another person who will use my heart against me. Another witch commanding me. Chained to another, to be used for his ends, his goals.
My own heart and own memories and own life still beyond my reach.
He reaches his hand out, all his fingers dark with magic now, the effort of standing quaking his knees. But still, he stands. Still, he waits. I look up at his soft face, the shadow of the valkerax swaying over him. Light, dark, light, dark.
“Whatever happens, Zera,” he murmurs through cold-ravaged lips, “whatever you choose, I’ll always be here for you.”
will you? The hunger laughs. or are you only brave and good now to get what you want, little prince?
If I become his Heartless, he could command me. He could do anything he wanted to me, and I wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.
he could hurt you.
He could hurt me.
he could use you.
He could use me.
he could destroy you.
He could destroy me.
“Don’t be naive.” Varia laughs in my ear. “You know best of all that love is worth nothing. No one stays. Look at my brother—he’s turned on me. His own flesh and blood he loves so much. Look at Fione—she betrayed me, and we were meant to be married. Love never stays. But power, Zera—power does. Changing the world permanently, enduringly, means more than love ever will.”
The Weeping’s fading so fast, her magic flooding back in to fill the gaps. Lucien stands there, eyes silk—strong and steady—and waits. Just waits. He looks ready. He looks…at peace.
Whatever I choose, he’ll be here for me.
The valkerax pillar sways closer over his face, and I look up in dawning horror. Not up. They’re not going up.
They’re going across.
The pillar of valkerax bends at the midpoint, falling through the air and toward us, toward the mountain, with screaming velocity. A bridge. It’s going to form a bridge—right at Varia’s feet. I feel Varia’s blazing magic stutter for a split second, a streak of panic in her as it flares out of her control, and she unhands me, her fingers going dark as she tries desperately to rein it back in.
“No!” she snarls up at the falling pillar. “Not yet!”
But the valkerax don’t care. They’re coming, plummeting to earth like fallen birds, growing bigger and bigger. My Weeping is almost gone, the peaceful void growing smaller and smaller.
It’s now or never.
she is safer. The hunger tries one last, desperate, honest attempt. you know what she’ll do to you. but him…you have no idea. unsafe, chaos, a gamble, a danger—
I’ve been afraid. I’ve fought a valkerax, I’ve lived among a human court who’d love nothing more than to burn me alive. I’ve fought off the first mercenary from Nightsinger’s woods, shaking and clutching my sword. Fear never means nothing—not even when you’re immortal. There’s always the fear of pain. Without death, the fear of pain is the only thing you have left. The only thing that anchors you to the world, to the cycle of life and death like everyone else. One foot in agony, the other in the never-grave.