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He thought of the first time he’d tested the boundaries of the whole immortal thing. He’d shot himself out in the woods, right in front of Shuli—and then he’d sat up, recovered his senses, and gotten back on his feet. The pain of dying, the suffocation, reflexive terror and sense of impending doom, were all things he’d experienced as if the result was permanent, but the regeneration had come at the end, like a computer rebooting itself after a power outage.
There had been a period in his life when he had tried to deal with the darkness inside of himself by repeating that cycle over and over again. Eventually, he’d gotten bored of it, proof that consciousness could adjust to any stressors if given enough exposure.
What the mind could not deal with was emptiness.
“You’re lying,” he said.
“No.” Rahvyn brushed her silver tears away with both hands. “If it is what you want, I will remove the spark I put into you, and you will die. Then and there.”
He took a deep breath and released the tension in his body with it. Except then he frowned. “Why is this only coming up now?”
“I had hoped you would find your way. I hoped… for a lot of things for you. I thought with enough time, you would come around to see the beauty and the possibility that is—”
“You can end me.”
“Yes,” she said roughly.
“And it’s truly over.”
“You will return to the state you were in when I brought you back.” The female put her palms forward. “But you need to think about this seriously, Nate. Take some time. Because there is no guarantee you will end up in the Fade. I do not know what happens to you.”
“Well,Dhunhdcan’t be worse than my version of Caldwell.”
“I want you to make sure you know what you are asking for.”
He thought of the nightmares that plagued him, the ones that put him back in that human lab, the ones he could not escape from. Then he pictured Nalla in that alley, black and red blood on her clothes, her eyes red-rimmed and wide because she blamed herself for a death that didn’t matter for so many reasons.
Nate took a step toward Rahvyn. “Do it. I’m ready now—”
“You have to say your goodbyes first.”
“What? Why.”
“That is my condition.” Rahvyn looked to the sky as if searching for stars behind the cloud cover. “I will not do it until you say goodbye to your parents. Shuli. The Brotherhood. And you will do this properly, with sincerity. I will know if otherwise.”
“Now you’re putting rules in? Really.”
“I brought you back to save your loved ones pain, and all I see is unhappy people around you.” Her head leveled and she stared at him with hard eyes. “There is no peace for your parents. There is just a different kind of suffering from the grief I tried to relieve them of. As for you, you are no better off. I already made this situation worse once, I am not doing that again by cheating your loved ones of closure. You will do this,and then I will give you what you seek. And that is the way we will proceed.”
Oddly, he pictured none of the people who technically came under the heading “Nearest and Dearest.” Instead, he saw a female with the grace of a ballerina and the knife skills of someone who’d worked in a meatpacking district for decades.
Ah, the romance.
“End things in a real way, make the peace, and then you can go.” Rahvyn leaned forward on her hips. “But I will know what you do, so make it count.”
With that, she disappeared with that sparkle of fireflies which were not fireflies.
Nate stared at where the female had stood. Beside him, the bonfire was slowing its roll, the flames not so tall, the heat not so great, the crackling not so loud.
In another hour, it would be embers.
By dawn… nothing but ash.
After decades of wanting what he was being offered, you’d think he’d be relieved. Resolved. And God knew he was used to the physical pain of dying. He’d done it often enough. As for talking to his parents? He imagined they would like to hear that he was sorry about the way he’d been behaving.
All he could think of was saying goodbye to Nalla, though.
At least her father was going to be thrilled.
