Page 95 of Odder Still
There, I have no lungs to sob, no heart to bleed, nothing but breath and light and a subtle weight across my phantom body, but I feel an ache all the same, so sharp it seems to pull me inward. I curl my fingers where they once grasped the dying auroras in the laboratory, but there’s nothing there any longer. I feel as though a friend has died, even if I can’t quite remember them—can’t quite remember anything about this other world.
But from this new viewpoint, I can piece together what’s happening a bit more clearly. I can feel beyond the auroras, to other little gashes in the fabric between these two realities, where I find the source of the sickness: round, bright, energy-devouring stones and shimmering veins of liquid. Ignits and ignation. They’re pulling the energy out of the place where the auroras originated and giving it to the humans, to the selkies, to a dozen other species who have no idea where it’s coming from. No idea that they’ve taken so much they’re killing the auroras by accident.
I feel across the network for the extra-large gash of Glenrigg’s yellow ignit and find the place where it pulls its energy. It presses against that of too many others, the stone itself being slowly suffocated until it can’t drag in enough to continuously power itself. It’s too much, all at once: the knowledge and the experience both. My mind feels overwhelmed and my body overworked. I realize with a curse that the final massive boost of energy from the Trench that let me slip into this state is snapping out. It feels like that soundless, star-filled moment before passing out.
Frantically, I yank myself back into my host body. The plaza returns in a swirl of colors. I sway but catch myself, blinking until my eyes readjust to the way this world looks.
I reach for the Trench auroras one last time, to thank them, but I find only ash, all of them burned up like the one who sacrificed for me in the lab and the one we helped blaze out of Raghnaid. I inhale too sharply, pressing my hand to my mouth. Slowly, I let it out. They chose this. They were at peace with it. I need to be too.
Jean crumples as a blood-covered bear snarls in pain and slumps onto its side. The other once-mutants only look dazed, except for Blue, who howls and staggers, the eruptstone blade still sticking from her side.
My heart aches for her. Somehow this feels like my fault. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe the pain and joy that surround me can either be everyone’s responsibility or no one’s. And I don’t want to believe in that second version any longer.
Lilias sucks in rapid, panicked breaths. She lifts a hand to her head, and her gaze darts, unfocused. Trembles start up and down her arms. Her shoulder bleeds slowly. She grabs onto my wrist to lower herself to the ground. I let her drop there.
She tries to grab for me again, but I step away. I left her alive. Someone else can do the rest.
Across the square, Tavish stands alone, wet, and a little bloody, but he looks to be in one piece. I feel so light I could fly. Instead, I wobble.
As I watch him, the ignit a little way behind him flickers and fades to grey. Through the mess of waking bodies, Elspeth’s wheelchair creaks from behind the far barricade. My relief hits so sharp and strong that I can only laugh at myself. Me, worried over a person I met ten hours ago. It feels nice for a change.
Elspeth takes one look at the scene and immediately plucks a glowing earpiece out of a dead rebel’s ear, shoving it into their own before wheeling at breakneck speed toward Tavish. A young, acne-covered man from the lower follows their example, stealing his own earpiece not a moment before the ignit flares back to life.
Seeing Elspeth and Tavish meet, hands clasping, smiles beaming, I want nothing more than to run to them. But near the barricade, Ivor releases a hiss through his teeth, one hand clamped to his leg. And I care.
I rip a length of my tattered vest off and wrap it tightly around the gash. He clearly needs more than that, but he still manages to stand and move toward his people. One of the other rebels with earpieces scoots by him on a broken ankle, pushing a box of medical supplies along. Behind her looms the acne-covered young man, but he pays no attention to us, his gaze locked on Tavish.
“A fucking Findlay,” he hisses.
His sentiment is repeated throughout the half dozen conscious rebels.
“That’s the youngest.”
“Still alive—”
“But didn’t he just—”
“Who cares, he’s one of them.”
Tavish cringes. When he lifts his voice, the diamond edge sounds not like a knife, but a chandelier lighting the space with dazzling brilliance. “I ken that you are of no mind to like me much right now. My family let Maraheem suffer for their own gain, and I sacrificed little to stop them.” The last word cracks.
I want to run to him, to stand by his side through this. But it’s his family and his speech to give, his heritage to disavow. As he puts himself back together, piece by piece, not hiding the pain but breathing through it, I’ve never been more in love.
“But this rebellion,” he continues, “what you’ve done here—”
“Death to the Findlays!” shouts the young man, cutting down Tavish’s voice as though the shift in power has already changed them both on a physical level. And I see, far too late and not nearly close enough, the eruptstone-tipped knife he holds, Blue’s corpse at his feet.
But Ivor sees it too. And Ivor is closer. The old rebel doesn’t hesitate. He throws himself between the boy and his target, struggling to close the short distance between them despite his slashed leg, his expression unyielding and his hand outstretched for the weapon.
The boy’s gaze flickers across the square to where Elspeth kneels with their wheelchair beside the yellow ignit, just enough to the right of Tavish that Ivor’s body doesn’t block it. He launches the knife. It flips, end over end. Its eruptstone-tipped edge hits the ignit with a ting, only accompanied by the sound of Tavish’s final words fading through the room.
“What you’ve done here… was right.”
Then, the ignit explodes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The Here and the Gone
