Fates

22

The sounds of the partiers had long ago receded as the cave faded into darkness. Luc ran. He ran for what felt like hours, though the world around him remained dark and freezing. He ran blind and yet he didn’t stumble, not even once … and despite his guilt, the path in his mind was so clear, so certain. His legs moved without any effort, and as he ran, he felt all the exhaustion and fear of the recent past sliding down his back and away. He grew stronger, fiercer, faster. It was more intense than any sprint he’d made across the soccer field.

He felt, for the first time in a long time, free.

As he ran, he thought about Jasmine. The compass grew warm in his hands. He would find a way to return it to Rhys. He shouldn’t have stolen it, but he knew, intuitively, that this would lead him to Jas.

Jasmine. When she was five, she would demand horsey rides from him for hours at a time.

When she was eight, she’d wanted to see a real live monkey at the zoo and would not stop asking until he took her to see one.

And when she was fourteen, he had finally told her the truth about their mom.

Jasmine was all he had.

He would find her.

Luc dove into the frigid river—the one that flowed in two directions at once. The river of darkness. He knew what to expect, but the feeling of drowning consumed him and, for a second, took his breath away.

But he knew how to do this. Don’t fight it. Just … feel your way. Listen. And so he listened, and inside his palm, the archer spun and spun and … finally stopped spinning. The water faded to air that was thick and humid.

Sounds trickled into his awareness. The low drone of bees. A soft gurgling he couldn’t identify.

He blinked the dizzying fog from his vision when he felt solid ground under his feet. He stood in a lush green forest, threaded with mist. Enormous trees towered above him, forming a canopy that barely allowed light to penetrate. In front of him was a clearing filled with huge flowers—just like the image Corinthe had shown him.

His mouth went dry. It had happened so fast this time.

He was here. In the Forest of the Blood Nymphs. This had to be it.

“Jas?” He called out his sister’s name, and as though in response, he heard a strange whine coming from above him—like the whine of a thousand mosquitoes. Goose bumps broke out over his arms. This world was all wrong. It was filled with growth, but it felt off, like death and decay.

He moved into the clearing, watching carefully for signs of movement, for predators that might be lurking behind the thick foliage. Nothing.

And then his heart stopped.

He almost didn’t recognize her. Her eyelids were translucent. The roots of her hair had turned blue, and her face looked tight, drawn, like that of a much older woman. Thick veins ran over her face and down her neck, covering her shoulders like spidery tattoos.

“Jas?” he whispered.

She didn’t answer. Didn’t even stir. Luc felt the pressure of a panic unlike any he had ever known. This was worse than seeing in her in the hospital—worse than the drive there, half blind, shoeless, not sure whether he would find her alive or dead.

“Hold on, Jas. I’m going to get you out of here, okay? Just hang on.” He didn’t think she could hear him, but speaking made him feel better. He pulled hard on the vines that encased her, but they almost seemed alive—they resisted him, tightening around her instantly.

He spotted a vine, thicker than the rest, that had pierced the skin of her wrist just below her jasmine tattoo. Without hesitation, Luc pulled the knife from his back pocket and slashed through it.

A horrible screeching filled the clearing. The remaining vines released her at once, and the flower began thrashing, as though it had been injured. The treetops exploded with movement and sound.

Jasmine slumped forward. He wrapped an arm around her waist, steadying her. She was unconscious, but he could feel a faint pulse in her neck. He quickly slid the knife into his belt and hefted her in his arms as though she were a child.

Somehow, he had to get Jas to the Gardens, to the flower that could save her life. Rhys hadn’t told him what to do if he managed to find his sister.

Suddenly, two creatures dropped lightly out of the trees. He stopped. Turned. Two more creatures landed soundlessly behind him.

They had to be Blood Nymphs. Their bodies were translucent, and they had flat, inhuman eyes. Luc could see the veins running with different colors under their skin, and he felt his stomach lurch.

He tried to sidestep one of them and it let out a shrill whine. The other three joined in, and soon the canopy above them was filled with the sound. Luc looked up. There were hundreds of them, massed in the trees, skittering over the branches like overgrown insects.

Jas stirred in his arms and groaned.

“You can’t have her.” Luc’s voice, miraculously, didn’t falter. He hitched her higher onto his shoulder with one arm and with the other fumbled to extract his knife from his belt.

A nymph with pale yellow skin hissed at him, revealing sharp teeth. Luc slashed through the air and the nymph drew back, but only for a second. The whine above them was like a stake driving cold fear into his back.

And then the trees began to move and sway. He noticed one tree that did not look like the others—its leaves looked like shards of sky, and it didn’t move like the rest.

Could it be a Crossroad?

He backed toward it as vines began to unwind from the tree trunks, slithering across the ground toward him. One of them began snaking around his ankle, and he reached down instinctively and slashed at it. The vine withdrew, spitting a thick black liquid into the grass, and immediately the other vines began to crowd him, a circle of twisting, ropy snakes.

And it gave him an idea.

As the vines writhed upward, about to form a cage around him, Luc pricked his finger with the knife.

Instantly, a hush fell over the nymphs—they were fixated on the tiny drop of blood on his finger.

He could practically feel their hunger. Their eyes dilated.

And then they lunged for him.

Luc, hauling Jasmine over his shoulder, stabbed the knife into the trunk of the tree behind him—the one with the blue leaves. He stepped onto the knife, which formed a kind of rung, and heaved Jasmine over a high branch. Just at that moment, the Nymphs dove straight into the cage of vines.

They were trapped.

The Nymphs’ squeals and whines grew wild.

Luc had climbed over the higher branch and removed the knife from the trunk. Then he grabbed Jas’s limp body and climbed even higher, into the blue leaves. As he did, a feeling of familiar dizziness overcame him.

As the trees hissed and the trapped Blood Nymphs screamed, Luc’s fingers closed around the compass.

He thought about the Flower of Life, his only hope. He pictured the vivid bloom, the slender purple blossoms, the white center.

It wasn’t working.

And then he thought of Corinthe. He saw her lips in her head, her vivid eyes, the way they went from stormy gray to the subtle softness of violet. He felt her soft hand in his, the tangle of her hair on his cheek.

He felt a sudden explosion of light, a bright burst in his mind.

Still he held Jasmine tightly in his arms.

And then the light went out, and they were on an island in the middle of the sky.

Luc could hardly breathe. It wasn’t exactly night—closer to dawn—but they were surrounded by more stars than he had ever seen when he and Jas snuck up onto the roof and made a game of spotting constellations.

“Jas, look,” he whispered, but his sister didn’t stir.

He knew he had to hurry, but instinctively, he sought out the familiar constellations—Andromeda, Pegasus, Orion. For companionship. For luck. They were all there, just like in his world, but none were in the correct order, as though a great hand had reached up into the sky and rearranged the puzzle pieces, and for the first time since he was a very little kid, Luc almost felt the urge to cry.

“Which one is the flying horse, again?” Jasmine asked.

Luc pointed out Pegasus, ran his fingers over each star, and drew a picture for her in the sky.

“That looks nothing like a horse,” she scoffed. “The only thing that even looks close is the Big Dipper. I mean, this one is supposed to be a bear. Seriously?” She pointed a finger at the constellation in the library book they’d checked out earlier.

“You have to fill in the blanks with your imagination. See how they show you a real bear here, and then where each of the stars falls inside it?” He traced the outline on the page.

“It still makes no sense,” she said. And then, after a pause: “Show me another one.”

Luc went through the book, page by page, illuminating the drawings with a flashlight, pointing to the corresponding stars in the sky. They stayed on the fire escape until dawn. Jasmine had nodded off earlier, but Luc tucked his sweatshirt around her and let her sleep. Then he sat there in the quiet, staring up at the stars.

Luc inhaled. Strangely, he no longer felt afraid. He felt peaceful, certain.

He would save Jasmine.

Maybe Corinthe was right after all. Maybe it had all been fated this way.

Tiny fireflies darted around over his head—and yet they were not just fireflies, and seemed to be filled with light far too bright for their tiny bodies. Flowers in colors Luc had never seen, never even imagined before, bloomed everywhere. Their aroma made the air feel thick against his skin.

He heard the faint echo of girls laughing, and it seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. He heard, too, the sound of rushing water. He shouldered through a wall of lush, unfamiliar plants, and found himself standing at the top of a majestic waterfall that seemed to flow directly off the edge of the world.

Hundreds of tiny silver marbles bobbed in the waves.

This was it—the place Corinthe talked about.

Pyralis Terra.

His chest hitched. “We did it,” he said to Jasmine. Her breathing was shallow, barely audible. “Just hang on, okay? For me. Almost there now.” His voice broke and he cleared his throat.

At the edge of the stream, he laid Jasmine down gently on a soft patch of moss. He hated to leave her, but they were running out of time; she was so pale, and her lips were almost purple. He had to find the flower quickly, and he could move faster if he was unencumbered.

He reached out and smoothed a lock of dark blue hair away from her face. For a second, his throat tightened up. He remembered how she used to fall asleep on his shoulder on the car rides back from San Jose, when they went to visit their grandparents.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, even though he knew she couldn’t hear him. “I promise.”

Then he straightened up. He was close—so close. He just needed to find the flower.

A makeshift path of white rocks was studded in the ground, and he followed it. It was as though he knew, instinctively, where he needed to go. Everything about this world felt intuitive, fluid, as though he’d been here before, or seen it in a dream.

He pushed deeper into the crowded growth. Enormous ferns brushed his shoulders, like the touch of gentle hands. He accidentally nudged a pink, bell-shaped flower, and the air filled with a heady, sweet scent that made his head swim—like the pine tree on Christmas morning.

He felt almost drunk and had to force himself to concentrate.

The path ended abruptly at a gated entrance between a pair of enormous stone walls. Seven huge statues confronted him, three on one side of the walkway, four on the other, towering above him like sentries. They had to be over ten feet tall, and all had women’s bodies, but their faces were completely blank except for half-crescent slashes to indicate mouths.

Despite the fact that they had no eyes, Luc got the sudden impression that they were watching him, and he shivered as he passed under their shadow. Beyond the gate, he saw a riot of blooms; this must be where the flower grew. He pushed hard on the gate, but it wouldn’t budge. He shoved harder, leaned all his weight against the heavy iron fretwork, and still it held strong, although he couldn’t see any signs of a lock. He stuck an arm through the gap in the bars but lost hope of slipping through the gate—he was far too broad, even turned sideways.

If he couldn’t open the gate, he would just have to climb it. Luc jumped and grabbed hold of one of the iron bars.

Then it began to shake.

No. The ground began to shake.

There was a heavy grating sound, and for one wild second, he thought he’d found a way to make the gate open. Then he saw an enormous shadow passing over him, and all the hairs on his neck stood up.

Luc dropped back to the ground. He turned. His heart stopped.

The statues had moved.

The statues were alive.

Their stone mouths had opened to reveal two rows of sharp, blackened fangs. Luc took a step back and stumbled, fell, scrambled backward like a crab until the gate stopped him, then pushed up to his feet.

One by one, the statues dropped to their hands and knees, snarling and snapping their stone teeth. And as they did, they changed; rounded stone fists became hands with terrible claws, digging through the earth. Luc felt the vibrations through his feet, all the way to his head. Three of the statues crowded him, so close he could have reached out and touched one of their blunt, blind faces—faces that knew, somehow, exactly where he was.

By smell.

By taste.

Luc was helpless. He had nowhere else to go. In his panic, in his terror, he couldn’t even think of trying to climb over the wall. He was rooted, frozen, watching them advance, inhaling the foul smell of wet stone and turned earth. The shadow of the monsters swept over him, blotting out the stars.

He edged a few inches to the right. Big mistake. Immediately, the monsters launched forward.

“Wait!” he shouted. “Wait!”

It was instinctive, desperate, but suddenly, they obeyed. The enormous stone beasts stopped advancing, but they moved, restless, pawing the ground with feet the size of tree trunks. One careless swipe would be enough to crack his skull.

“Okay, listen.” He didn’t know what he was saying. He was terrified, babbling, playing for time. He thought of Jasmine lying near the flowing water. He had promised that he would never let anything happen to her. It could not end this way. “Look, I don’t know if you can hear me, all right? I don’t know if you understand.” Those blind faces. Christ. What was he doing? Still the words kept coming: “My sister is dying, and I need a flower inside this gate to save her.”

The monsters had come no closer. Even though they were without eyes, he had the sense that they were watching him closely.

“I’ve been all over the universe, through worlds that make no sense to me, but I finally found her.” His voice cracked. Which girl was he talking about now, Jasmine or Corinthe? “I can’t lose her.”

The monsters threw back their heads simultaneously and roared, a noise so loud and furious it drove Luc to his knees. It whirled through his head, bringing images, hard and fast, like a driving dark rain, freezing his center: his mother’s face, Jasmine arranging graham crackers on the floor, the cramped San Francisco apartment with its smell of beer and old beef.

Was this how it ended, then? Drowning in dark memories?

It seemed as though everything might shatter, including him.

Then he thought of Corinthe. He saw Corinthe’s fingers, her seashell nails, remembered how he had pressed himself against her in the Land of the Two Suns, breathing into her hair. And it was as though a little bit of light broke through in his mind, a small bit of quiet in the storm of noise.

And suddenly, just when he thought he couldn’t take a single second more, everything grew still.

Luc pulled his hands away from his ears. The silence was beautiful, liquid and deep. The monsters were perfectly still again, inert, their stone heads bowed toward the ground, as though in consent. Still careful, moving very slowly, Luc stepped past the two statues in the front of the gate and pushed the heavy iron bars. They swung open with little effort.

And then he stood inside the gates. Inside the Great Gardens. He looked behind him and saw that the monsters had returned to their original arrangement, once more lining the pathway to the gate. One of them had deep twin tracks carved into its blank face now, as though by water, or tears.

“Thank you,” he said.

He went forward. Time was running out. There was only one pathway leading into the Gardens, so Luc followed it at a jog. Flowers blurred past him. He remembered what the Flower of Life looked like, but how would he ever find it in this vast space?

He came to a fork in the path and stopped. Both ways looked identical.

Shit. Luc could almost feel time spilling away from him, ticking Jasmine’s life away with it,

Then he remembered: Rhys’s locket. Would the archer work here, too?

Luc pulled it out and flicked open the clasp. The archer popped up and began to spin. Tinny music filled the air. It reminded him of Corinthe’s locket and the song it played. Thinking of Corinthe made his heart squeeze tight as a fist. He refused to believe that she was really gone.

The music and the archer stopped at once. The archer stood poised on one foot, his arrow pointing down the path on the right. Luc took off at a sprint.

After a minute, the pathway ended abruptly at the top of a natural amphitheater, a huge indent in the earth, like a giant’s soup bowl.

Growing right at the center of it was the flower he had crossed the universe to find.

And kneeling in front of it, with her back to him, was Corinthe.

His heart leapt. She was here and alive. It had to mean something that they both found their way here, to Pyralis.

He wanted to call out to her, but emotion made his throat tight. Corinthe was here. For the first time in what felt like forever, he had hope. He jogged down the hill toward her, taking in everything: the wild length of her hair, the soft curve of her shoulder and lower back. She almost looked like she was praying.

I love you, Corinthe. He said it in his head. He would say it to her now. I love you.

Just then, she reached out to pluck the flower from its stem. Her fingers wrapped around its thick stem.

He froze. Her name died on his tongue, leaving a bitter, smoky taste.

She was taking the flower for herself.

He had trusted her.

Corinthe had used him all along.

A hot fury rose inside of him, melting through the ice, through the blackness.

He had a sudden flash of a memory, of a phantom knife blade sinking into his stomach.

His stomach was burning as though he’d been stabbed again. Luc raised the knife in front of him. When he spoke, his voice sounded distant, as though it belonged to someone else. Someone he didn’t know.

“Put it down,” he said. His voice was alien, a growl.

Corinthe spun around with a smile so bright he actually believed for a moment that she was happy to see him. “Luc! I knew you would find me. …”

“Get away from the flower.” His jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached, but he didn’t care.

Her smile faltered. She stood up. “It was meant for you—for Jasmine—all along.”

The color of her eyes changed, shifted from deep purple to a soft lavender. She reached out and tentatively put her hand on his arm. His pulse stuttered under her touch.

“That’s not true. She’s lying.”

Luc spun around. It was the woman from the Land of the Two Suns, the one who had told him where he could find his sister. Her long black hair twisted into a single braid that hung over one bared shoulder.

“Miranda?” Corinthe burst out.

The woman ignored Corinthe. Luc took a step back as the woman advanced on them. There was something about her eyes that was off—wrong. Too much pupil; no color at all. “She never intended to give you the flower. She planned to kill you as soon as you got her here. She used you.”

“That’s not true!” Corinthe cried. “What are you doing here? How did you get here? I thought you were—”

“Dead?” The woman spread her hands. “Evidently not.”

“Who are you?” Luc demanded.

“She’s my Guardian,” Corinthe answered instead. Her voice was thick with emotion. “She—she taught me.”

The woman, Miranda, narrowed her eyes. “Apparently I didn’t teach you well enough. Your last task was to do what, Corinthe?”

He felt Corinthe stiffen next to him. He wondered whether she would admit it—that she had meant to kill him all along—but she only shook her head.

Miranda began circling them like a predator. There was something feline about her eyes. “In order to return to your life as a Fate, to return home to your sisters, you had one simple task to execute. There is still time, Corinthe. Kill him now, before it’s too late, and you can stay here in Pyralis, where you belong.”

Corinthe hesitated. He remembered that she had told him it hurt to live anywhere else, that being away from Pyralis was a physical ache, constant torture. He watched Corinthe warily, his grip firm on the knife.

The beauty of Pyralis faded under the harsh glow of a rising sun. He felt as if he were standing in a photograph: everything was too bright.

Still Miranda was speaking. Now her voice was a whisper, like the hiss of a snake through the grass. “You will destroy Pyralis, Corinthe. You will destroy everything you love. Is that what you want? The only way to stop it is to kill him.” Miranda stepped closer and smoothed the hair away from Corinthe’s forehead, like Luc’s mother used to do to Jasmine. “This is the way it has to be,” she said softly.

Corinthe’s heartbeat was rapid, as though she’d been running. She was staring at Miranda as though hypnotized.

“I don’t love it,” she whispered.

Miranda frowned. “What?”

“You said I would destroy everything I loved. But I don’t love Pyralis. Not anymore.” Corinthe shook her head, as though rousing herself from a dream. “Him. I love him.” She turned to Luc. The breath he had been about to exhale froze in his lungs. He waited. She stepped away from Miranda, closer to him. Her eyes were shining. “I love you.”

She smiled so brightly he could barely think. He could barely think, see, move. He knew. He believed her.

“I love you, too,” he said, and reached for her.

The sun burst free of the horizon.

A shriek of rage split the silence. Miranda lunged for Luc; Corinthe screamed something. Miranda was on top of him, stronger than he could have imagined, teeth bared: an animal. She tried to wrest the knife from his grasp; he put an elbow into her side and felt her release her grip. Sweat dripped into his eyes and Corinthe was still screaming and he stumbled backward, gasping, clutching the blade.

And then Miranda lunged for him again, came charging toward him, howling, transformed into something not human, and instinctively Luc swung the knife.

Just as Corinthe threw herself between them.

Another cry shattered the quiet.

Time stopped.

Sound stopped.

Corinthe was pressed against him, leaning into him, her lips only an inch from his. So beautiful.

Then she gasped and time started again and she fell, holding the handle of the knife that protruded from her stomach.

“Corinthe! Oh my God! Corinthe!” Luc caught her and gently eased her to the ground. And the sun sank with them; it retreated toward the horizon, leaving only shadows and violet light in its wake.

“What do I do?” he asked desperately. Luc looked up to Miranda, hoping for some kind of help. But she was frozen, white, motionless.

“Idiot,” she said. She sounded almost disgusted. “It should have been you.”

“You did this to her!” he yelled at Miranda. “Do something!”

Miranda didn’t even look at him. “She made her choice,” she said. Then she turned and began walking away.

“Please!” he called after her, even though he knew it was no use. His fingers were shaking. There was so much blood. It was everywhere.

“Look at me,” he said gently, leaning down to whisper in her ear. “Corinthe, I need you to look at me.” Her chest was rising and falling in shallow movements, and her skin had taken on an unnaturally pale hue.

Her eyelashes fluttered open and she looked up at him.

“I couldn’t let you kill her,” she whispered. “It’s not who you are.”

He couldn’t think. His pulse thundered in his ears. Panic squeezed the breath from his lungs. “Corinthe, what can I do?”

“There is nothing left to do. It’s too late for me,” Corinthe whispered. She smiled, just barely, and lifted her hand, reaching for the flower. She snapped its stem in half. “The flower gives life, but is deadly to whoever picks it. It doesn’t matter for me. I’m already dying. It’s all in balance. Life and death.” Corinthe’s eyes were the same violet color as the sky. “Now you can use it to save your sister.”

“No,” he said. His tongue was thick with emotion; he could hardly speak. “Corinthe, stay with me.”

She shook her head. “No, Luc. I finally understand. …” Her body trembled with a flash of pain as he watched helplessly.

He was crying without knowing it, choking. “Shhh. Don’t try to talk.” He felt as if he was going to be sick. He stroked the hair away from her forehead, completely helpless. “I’m not going to let you go. This isn’t how it ends, okay?”

She shook her head. That faint smile passed across her face again. “Luc, it was all wrong. Don’t you see? The last task, the last marble. The knife. The rising sun. She made me believe one thing, but it was a trick. I misunderstood everything. I had it backward the whole time. I was the one to die, and you were the one to live. This is what was always meant to be. I feel it. I know it’s true.” Corinthe threaded her fingers through his. She smiled and looked up at the sky. “Look.”

The sun was gone now. The twilight had been restored in moments, like a giant sweep of soft velvet. Millions of stars had appeared, more stars than he had ever seen or even imagined.

It was breathtaking.

A smile passed quickly over her face; then she seized up, as though in sudden pain. “It was always my destiny to die,” she said. “This is how it was supposed to end. And I can go now, knowing that it’s right. I want it, Luc. I want my fate. I want you to live. I love you,” she said again.

“No,” he said. His tongue was thick with emotion; he could hardly speak. “Corinthe, stay with me, please. I’m going to make you better.”

“No,” she murmured. She squeezed his hand weakly before her fingers slipped free of his.

“I love you, Luc,” she whispered once more.

“I love you, too,” he said.

He leaned down and their lips met.

And for the first time in all the length of the universe, they kissed.

She tasted like wildflowers, like sunshine and honey, like the air before a storm. He wanted to kiss his breath into her lungs, kiss his blood into her veins, kiss his heartbeat into her chest. And in his head he saw little explosions, stars being formed and re-formed, worlds where time ran in deep, endless pools.

“Thank you,” she said. She pulled away, and closed her eyes again. “You made me … happy.”

He laid his forehead against hers. “Please stay with me, Corinthe. Be with me. Choose me. I need you.”

Her smile this time was the barest flicker, like a candle trying to stand up to the storm.

“I did choose you, Luc. Luc … I …” For a second a tremor went through her, and she inhaled, as though she wanted to speak.

But she didn’t speak.

She didn’t move, or breathe.

Luc felt as though a giant weight were crushing him from all sides. Tears blurred his vision. A low, animal sound worked its way out of his throat.

It wasn’t fair.

He had finally found love, and then he had lost it.

And somehow, all of it had been fated: Corinthe’s choice, his love for her, her sacrifice for him. Somehow, there was supposed to be meaning in all of it.

He pressed a lingering kiss to Corinthe’s lips and cradled her body against his. “I love you,” he whispered urgently. “You are my Other.”

A distant memory ticked his mind.

A voice whispered through his subconscious.

There might be a way.

“That story Miranda told you—about a Radical who turned back time—it wasn’t just a story.” His throat was so raw it hurt to speak. He knew she couldn’t hear him, but he pressed his lips to her ear anyway. “Rhys told me there was a way. I’ll have him do it again. I’ll find him and he’ll rewind time and everything will be okay. I’ll go back and save you.”

Luc looked down at Corinthe’s face, traced his fingers over the curve of her chin. He couldn’t lose her. Not like this.

He pressed one last kiss against Corinthe’s lips and gently eased her off his lap.

“I promise I’ll find a way, Corinthe. I won’t stop. Not for anything. Not ever.”