Page 117 of Sanctifier

I’m sorry, Ru thought.I couldn’t save you.

But as she watched, several golden filaments from the artifact seemed to move toward her, as if offering themselves toher. As if the mountains would have marched for her or the sea would have overflowed if she asked. And she saw it all spread out before her — the palace, Mirth, Navenie, The Tower, the Continent, the world.

Ru’s every nerve and tendon and bone and vesselbrimmedwith the artifact’s power.

The strangest thing happened then. A voice spoke. No, an energy, a nudge against the edge of Ru’s mind, like the artifact but infinitely louder. The voice spoke words she couldn’t understand, but Ru was certain that it was Festra.

I can fix this, Ru thought at once, as if the god himself had given her the knowledge and the power to do it.I’m not the conduit. The stone is, and I’m the one who wields it.

Ru saw the world through new eyes.The golden light enveloped her, fire-bright and ready. It flowed from her core to her fingertips: the power of a god’s heart. And then the world before her changed, and she saw it not for what it was but for what itcouldbe.

She saw a blackened crater, stretching across a continent. She saw death, grief, and a myriad of souls mowed down in an instant.

But she also saw the possibility of life, growth, and love. She saw the palace as it had once been, joyful and lively. She saw Professor Obralle at the Cornelian Tower, muttering to herself as she flipped through a leather tome. She saw Lyr and Rosylla and Sybeth, bickering good-naturedly on the road, a red sun setting behind them. She saw Gwyneth and Archie, firelight warming their faces, smiling at one another. She saw forests rising up from the Shattered City, flowers touched by rain, a world built and rebuilt and molded… however Ru saw fit. The power was at her fingertips.

Yes, she thought.There. Just like that.

The sun hunghigh in the sky, less than a quarter-hour past midday. All was quiet in the chapel.

Ru lay on her side, stiff and aching. She blinked as sunlight lanced through the chapel windows, glaring in her vision. Slowly, gingerly, she sat up. She pushed a mess of blood-matted hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear.

Her hands were empty; the artifact was gone.

Ru had done it.

Had…hadshe done it?

She tried to remember what had happened — light bursting outward, blindingly bright, a new world remolded from the old. And now, here she was. Had anything changed? Had she dreamed it?

Turning slowly, Ru took in the empty sanctum. She remembered now: there had been Children here, sitting in the pews. And Lady Bellenet had been… just there. But the lady was gone now. And the pews were empty. It was as if the Children had vanished into thin air. No, they hadn’t vanished. They were themselves again, their minds restored, as if Lady Bellenet had never been. Ru knew it as certainly as she knew that she had used Festra’s power to do it.

Taryel.

There was a body on the floor, wreathed in still-wet blood.

“No,” she breathed. This couldn’t be right. She had used Festra’s power for good, she had rebuilt everything, she had fixed it. Ended the cycle. This wasn’t right.

She crawled to him, too weak to stand.

“No,” she said again, her tears falling hot on his chest. She whispered, her voice breaking, “I fixed it. I set everything right. For you.Becauseof you. Because I love you.”

She let out a dry, echoing sob.

Clutching his body to her, she kissed his cold hands. She pressed her hot cheek to his pallid one. She kissed his temples and brushed the hair from his eyes. She did all this through the fog of tears until her head began to ache, her eyes swollen from weeping.

And then, like a distant mirror catching the sun’s rays, a shimmer of energy flickered within her. The last dregs of Festra’s power, fading. But not gone. Ru called it forth, and it took every bit of her energy. She was so drained, so weak from rewriting the world. She pressed her lips to Taryel’s forehead, one palm against his chest, and let the full force of her love for him surge forth. She was done holding back.

“I love you,” she murmured. The power inside her leapt between them, joining her and Taryel in vibrant ropes of light. “I love you, I love you,” she said, over and over like a prayer, willing the last of Festra’s power to knit him back together, to fill his lungs with air and set his heart beating again. His mortal, precious heart.

She didn’t notice it at first. The change began slowly, the gradual movement of magic. And then Taryel himself began to glow, brighter and brighter by the second, until he was fully embraced by the gold.

A burst of sudden light blinded Ru, and she raised her arm to block it, tears still streaming down her face. And when the light was gone, and Ru lowered her arm once more, Taryel still lay there, bloody and limp. His chest rose beneath his blood-soaked waistcoat, then fell.

Fumbling, her own heart beating a mad rhythm against her ribs, Ru touched her fingers to his throat.

The wound was gone. Blood remained, but the wound was gone.

“Taryel,” she said, hardly daring to believe. She kissed the corners of his mouth and caressed his brow. She murmured his name again and again until at last he sighed and — so, so slowly — opened his eyes.

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