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“Please. I just need to get back to Lena. Your daughter. I want to make her happy. I know that doesn’t mean anything to you, and I know you’ve never wanted to make anyone happy
but yourself, but it’s the only thing I want.”
“I want something, too.” She twisted the fog around her in her hands until it wasn’t fog at all but something glowing and alive—a ball of fire. She stared right at me, even though I knew she couldn’t see. “Kill Angelus.”
Sarafine started to Cast, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. Fire shot from the base of her throne, spreading in all directions. It moved closer and closer, turning from orange to blue and purple flames as it ignited bone after bone.
I backed away from her.
Something was wrong. The fire was growing, spreading faster than I could run. She wasn’t trying to stop the flames.
She was the one making them grow.
“What are you doing?” I shouted. “Are you crazy?”
She was in the very center of the flames. “It’s a battle to the death. Absolute destruction. Only one of us can survive. And as much as I hate you, I hate Angelus more.” Sarafine raised her arms over her head, and the fire grew, as if she was pulling the flames up with her.
“Make him pay.”
Her cloak caught fire, and her hair started burning.
“You can’t just give up!” I shouted, but I didn’t know if she could hear me. I couldn’t see her anymore.
I hurled myself into the fire without thinking, falling toward her through the flames. I wasn’t sure I could stop, even if I wanted to. But I didn’t want to.
It was Sarafine or me.
Lena or Eternal Darkness.
It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to sit there and watch anyone die chained like a dog. Not even Sarafine.
It wasn’t about her. It was about me.
I reached for the manacles around her ankles, beating on the iron with a bone at the base of her throne. “We have to get out of here.”
The fire had completely surrounded me, when I heard the screaming. The sound tore across the barren dirt, rising into the air over the pit. It sounded like a wild animal dying. For a second, I thought I saw the distant golden spires of the Great Keep flicker at the sound of her voice through the flames.
Sarafine’s burning body arched back, writhing in pain, and started to crumble into tiny pieces of burnt skin and bone. There was nothing I could do as the flames consumed her. I wanted to close my eyes or turn away. But it seemed like someone should bear witness to her last moments. Maybe I just didn’t want her to die alone.
After a few minutes that felt more like hours, I watched as the last bits of the Darkest Caster in two worlds blew into cold white ash.
It was too late to get out.
I felt the fire crawl up my arms.
I was next.
I tried to picture Lena one last time, but I couldn’t even think. The pain was unbearable. I knew I was going to pass out. This was it.
I closed my eyes….
When I opened them again, the pit was gone, and I was standing in front of a quiet doorway in a still hallway, in a building that looked like a castle.
There was no pain.
No Sarafine.
No fire.
