BOOK 2

  PART 1

  Facing Fate

  The sky had yet to change its color, but she knew that this was the moment she had been waiting for.

  Wading through the dense thicket, brushing away leaves that wilted on contact with her black sword that once used to be gold, she stepped into a grassy field of Ancients. Head down, she didn’t even bother counting how many. She was exhausted. Spent. Ready for her journey to end.

  Looking down at the grass under her dirty, bare feet as she walked, her black dress swished gently at every step. It was tattered and loose, washed at least a hundred times too many. At least a hundred souls too many, because every time she looked at her reflection in the water…she could only see the bloodstains. The water, the darkness could not hide her sins. Not that she cared anymore. Not that one more soul made a difference to her anymore. So why did it matter that her dress was clean?

  When her feet finally brushed against some kindling on the ground, she stopped and raised her passive eyes to regard the unlit pyre at the center of the clearing. Saw the countless Ancients that had surrounded her. Turned around to see even more.

  The last one she had been looking for was not among them.

  As if they heard her thoughts, the crowd parted for a tall and lanky tan-skinned Ancient whose endless compassion and kindness lay behind his dark, gentle gaze. He looked different from when she had last seen him. He had lost weight. He wasn’t wearing Academy clothes anymore. He was empty-handed, looking sad more than anything as he made his way to her.

  She looked down at her sword, reflexively gliding her hand across the blade like she had done at least a thousand times, then steadied it by her side, feeling an ache in her chest that she swiftly stifled.

  “Sister, raise your head.”

  She did as he said, and then immediately regretted it—she could see herself in his eyes. Like the water, she could see what monster she had become. What she had to do to repent for her sins.

  “I forgot what your voice sounded like,” she responded emptily, turning again to the sword at her side. Her voice sounded hollow and cold compared to his. How long ago had it been since she had last had a conversation with someone?

  “Are you not afraid, sister?”

  “You’re the one who should be afraid. Stop calling me sister.”

  “Look at me.”

  Against every fiber of her being, she raised her head and saw that his eyes were wet.

  “What happened to you?”

  Her next words were barely audible whispers, forced through gritted teeth. “I did what everyone wanted. Don’t you dare turn it on me.”

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  And when he did not respond, she watched him fall to his knees and bow, openly weeping and begging for forgiveness as his head hit the dry earth. “I was supposed to keep you safe,” he sobbed between the apologies. “I promised Father to take care of you.”

  A faraway conversation returned to her. A conversation she had shared with him on her favorite class benches. A warm cloak over her, and a new sword on her lap, sheathed yet golden and shimmering in her mind, still bright and glorious. Still pure, still innocent and pristine, unmarred by the throes of war and death and the insistent thrum of courage, courage, courage.

  “Don’t…don’t you dare turn it on me,” she repeated, feeling everything collapse from underneath her, tears trickling down her face as she gazed down at her half-brother. “Don’t you dare fall apart now.”

  “Kill me,” he yelled through his sobs, his whole body trembling. “Please end this pain. I can’t bear it anymore. I don’t want to live anymore.”

  She gripped her sword tightly, remembering the faces of the countless Ancients who had uttered the same thing to her. “Get up.”

  Without even a second of hesitation, he stood up shakily to meet her eyes. “I’m…I’m so tired of letting down my family. I’m so tired of watching everyone I love return to the Earth Mother without me. I’m so tired of being alone. Please.” The last word was a whisper. “Please.”

  “Alone?” she heard herself laughing. “You’re tired of being alone?” The sword shook in her hands as she lifted a hand off it to shield her face. “Who had to do this alone?” she roared, digging her long nails into her face. “Who was the only one who could do this to save everyone?” Her vision was going red. “Who had to bear this burden alone?” Blood. A shade so deep it eclipsed the sun.

  Letting her hand fall from her tear-stained face, raising her sword in her other so that it touched the Ancient’s chest, she yelled, “Who’s going to be alone when you die?”

  His bloodshot eyes widened. He grasped the blade she held out to him and brought it to his neck as blood dripped from the blade. “You. You’ll be alone.”

  “That’s right!” she cried, voice almost a plea as she applied pressure onto his soft neck with her sword, drawing more than just a pinprick of blood. “I’m going to be alone. I’ll kill you, and then they’ll burn me just like every other child.” Her legs shook; more tears fell. “I’m just a child.” She loosened her grip. “I’m just a kid. I don’t know what to do. I’m so scared.”

  “Kill me,” he repeated over her cries.

  Then, just like the eleven bonds of the Earth Mother that had been severed by her hand, something finally snapped.

  “You’re…you’re no better than the others who tell me what to do,” she seethed, dragging the tip of her sword down from his neck to his chest and pushing it straight through. “You’re no better than everyone else,” she repeated, retracting her sword only to stab him again. And again. Even as he fell over, she knelt over him, taking both her hands to steady the hilt of the blade as she killed him again and again. “We could have been happy!” she screamed, closing her eyes as she felt his warm blood splatter over her face. “We could have kept the world repeating forever! I wouldn’t have had to kill you, my mother wouldn’t have died, Theo wouldn’t have needed to suffer, and I wouldn’t have had to leave my friends! We could have been happy!”

  The screams turned into sobs, then whimpers as she let the rapier fall beside her. Her knees collapsed, and she hugged the motionless corpse. How long it had been since she last hugged someone. How long it had been since she last heard Theo’s voice. She wanted to hear his laugh. She wanted him to tell her it was okay. She wanted to see him one last time before she finally left this bloodstained world. If only she could have apologized to him one last time before leaving.

  But the regrets and realizations always came too late, as the next thing she could feel were people lifting her up and hoisting her onto the pyre. With red, sunless eyes, she used the last of her energy to search the crowd for what had once been her hope. For the person who had always been there. The person who never saw her as the monster she was born to be.

  They bound her wrists first, then her ankles, and then her body. And then, as they tied her dead sword to her, she spotted a cloaked figure by a hill bereft of Ancients. Despite being too far to discern their face, she could see the unmistakable light-red glow of their aura. The gray.

  No amount of tears or apologies that followed was enough to drown out the fire.