Page 67 of He Will Always Love Me

“I remember,” he whispers. “I remember when I was Ishani, too. I remember my people, my friends. I remember you. How did it all go so wrong?”

He begins shaking his head and squeezes his eyes, like he’s experiencing something painful. And maybe he is. He falls to his knees.

“They found me. They took my mind and tried to make me one of them. And my useless jealousy and pride made it all the easier to do it! I was so angry with you, Karvex, putting me aside for her. They knew it. They knew I was weak.”

He grips his head, recoiling at the memory. “They turned my mind inside out and then used me like a puppet! I can feel it even now, eating away at me. Like a virus taking over my very being.”

He lets out a strangled laugh. “I don’t even know how much of me is even me! It’s nearly all gone. Every life, it takes a little bit more of me away.”

Despite everything he’s done to us, something twists in my gut for him.

Elyzin looks at us, almost frantically. “I was once so pure. From Ishani, to Reaper, to this. Everything that’s Ishani in me is being stolen away. There’s going to be nothing left of me.”

Then his face twists in fury, and he lets out an anguished cry. “I may not know who or what I am anymore, but I won’t be one of them! I won’t go through another life being forced to betray my own kind!”

Even from here, I can hear a mechanical whirring sound. And I’ve heard that type of whirring enough times to know that it means something in a machine is about to go very wrong.

I grab Hyx by the arm and drag him away from Elyzin. He gets the idea, and we move away just in time.

Smoke pours out of the tortured Bargaron, and then he explodes. Hyx throws himself over me as bits and parts of him fly everywhere.

When I’m sure it’s passed, I look to the now darkened spot where Elyzin stood. Something seems to shift around us. A weight that I hadn’t noticed before suddenly lifts.

I may have hated the corrupted Bargaron that hunted and killed us all these past lives. But the Ishani who sacrificed himself to save us, I will always remember.

In the end, he didn’t die a slave. He died an Ishani.

CHAPTER 35

HYX

Ican feel Libby trembling as I wrap my arms around her and hold her tight. I kiss the top of her head, taking in the sweet scent of her hair.

“He died an Ishani in the end,” she whispers.

“I’m so relieved he managed to fight the corruption,” I reply. “I will never forget his sacrifice.”

I stare at the mess that was my friend to the end. I want to honor him somehow. It feels wrong to get back into our ship and fly away without marking his passing. I find, on instinct, I know exactly what to do.

It takes me a few minutes to prepare. “Come,” I say to Libby. “I want to remember that he was Ishani.”

I lead her to the center of the explosion. There is not enough left of Elyzin to give him a proper funeral, so Libby and I kneel in the center of the crater, the epicenter of his spectacular demise.

“May your Ishani spirit grow strong, so that when we meet in the next life, we will meet as brothers.”

The air around us takes on a golden-orange hue and is shot through with bright sparks of light that twirl in a mesmerizing pattern. A gentle breeze tugs at our hair, bringing with it the scent of the forest.

My heart feels light and open to everything around me. A mass of butterfly-like creatures emerge from the surrounding forest in a plethora of colors. They flit about us and land in our hair and on our arms.

Libby looks at me with wonder in her eyes. “I think maybe your prayers worked,” she says in a hushed whisper.

All I can do is laugh. Never have I felt such joy.

“Well done, children of light,” an ethereal voice echoes through my mind. I can tell by the expression on Libby’s face that she heard it, too. “You have defeated this Bargaron. But be warned, there will always be more. Their power grows by the day, and you must be on your guard.”

“Who are you?” says Libby, her voice tinged with awe.

“Follow the path to the south, and you will find me,” says the vibrant voice.

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