Page 71 of The Illuminated
Our time in the castle felt like a waking nightmare, one my friends were still trapped in, and I wasn’t sure what I’d done that made me more deserving of escape than anyone else. Or why I got to live, while Santana and Willow had to die. I couldn’t even consider what had become of Taryn or Amos. And yet my mind ended up running through each and every scenario, from the gory to the torturous.
As time wore on, I began to feel tortured myself. The wind was deafening, and there was still nothing but an endless whirlwind of white. It felt like I’d walked and run more in the past twenty-four hours than I had in my entire life, and I was quickly losing steam. For all I knew, we were just walking in circles. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could fortify our protective bubble with heat.
“Hey,” Daelon yelled over the wind, steadying me as I faltered. “Are you okay?”
I’m just tired,I answered in his mind, because yelling was too exhausting.
You haven’t eaten since before you died,Daelon murmured.
Glad to know you still keep track of my eating habits, creep.
My legs felt like jelly, my stomach hollow. Time continued to wear on, and my internal map showed no sign of coming to a close. My heartbeat felt much too violent against my ribcage, the adrenaline and strength of my power replaced by the dull ache of desperation.
Áine… what if Tomas—
I cut him off.No. Not even a possibility.
This ancient coven reached out to me. Through Amos, and through a man who wanted nothing more than absolution and to live for all of eternity with his family and coven. I was told over and over, even by ancient gods of the astrals, that this path would lead us to freedom.
This was the way, and my blinding faith empowered us to forge on.
After what felt like an eternity, the world shifted. The earth quaked beneath our feet, and the blizzard dispersed. Before us was a tall mountain whose jagged peak rose to the heavens. At its base was nothing but barren snow-covered land for miles in all directions. I wasn’t sure where we started, and based on the nothingness that opened up before us, I also had no idea where we were going.
It was all just… nothing. Snow and nothing. Nothing and snow.
The shift was not for the better. It blew out our shield of warmth like an extinguished candle flame, leaving us with nothing but our thin clothes and snow boots.
“I can’t use magick,” I said in a panic, my teeth beginning to pound violently against each other. “My power is… gone.”
Daelon shook his head. “I knew he couldn’t be trusted. That old drunk lied to you. He led us into a trap.”
“He couldn’t have. I saw what he saw—I felt what he felt. The whole Universe has been conspiring to bring us here.”
Daelon shivered, and I pulled him to me so we could shiver together.
We were alone.
And without food, heat, or magick, we wouldn’t survive long.
Mere minutes later we collapsed, holding each other in the biting cold. The path had vanished from my mind’s eye as if it had been a mirage all along, and as the life drained from our bodies, so did all the hope and faith I’d worked so hard to cultivate.
“I love you, Áine,” Daelon whispered.
“I love you too,” I said against his forehead, wrapping my arms around him as I sat in his lap. “This isn’t the end. I promise.”
Daelon’s hair was frozen, his eyelashes now crystalline and white. His lips were blue, his skin pale. Panic began to set in as I felt his heart slow, and then his breathing. I knew my own body was shutting down, but all I could focus on washim.
I couldn’t watch Daelon die.
I fought against whatever curse was upon us to stifle our magick, and it felt like an impenetrable fortress, forged brick by brick.
“Daelon?” I asked.
He didn’t answer, his eyes fluttering behind his eyelids and then going still.
I screamed, and with it I plunged my power through the brick wall—slicing open the tiniest of cracks—and I reached into myself, pulling from my own draining warmth, and I gave it all to him. Every last bit.
My vision blurred, overcome by black spots. Everything inside me was empty. I was one with the void, pulled into its midnight nothingness like we were long lost friends. There was no pain, no sorrow, and no struggle. Just peace.
