The Prior, the only one standing. The only thing between me and the four of them. He raises his blade, carefully, but Kingston?—
Kingston strikes.
In the back, swift, hard, fatal.
Silence.
BEHOLD, I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW
The ground begins to shake and clatter like an earthquake. I stumble and trip as I run for them, frantic, but the earth falls from my feet, and I am plunging, wheeling—until I’m not, for the earth has surged back up to meet me.
And then, violent and rippling outward from where I stand, green. Green everywhere, erupting through stone, spinning with flowers, climbing in vines, bursting from tree branches. Above us, the sky wipes from muddy brown to brilliant blue.
Sunlight. Warmth.
Crack. I look left as the pillar shudders. Plates of salt falling, smashing the ground into nothing until Morgan gasps. Alive. Human.
The chapel tilts, sags, lopsided and pulled in pieces, as climbing tendrils and plush moss and starbursts of flowers clutch at its surface and bloom, basking in the sun. The breeze is warm. The air smells sweet. There is light all around us, and they are staring at me, four men all staring at me like I am divine.
I'm laughing and crying, bubbling over, my hands clapped to my mouth in disbelief. At my feet a ring of flowers gently surrounds me. A butterfly drifts by. I laugh harder, hysterical with the force of sheer happiness overwhelming me.
It's over. It's better. We did it. I did it.
I both want to rush for them and stand exactly where I am because I'm crying so hard, I can't get my mind to move my body, and I'm smiling so broadly. I feel like a lunatic, but I can see them. Kingston's solid gaze. Kai's fierce expression. Callahan's broad smile. And Lanz...
Lanz crumples.
FORTY-ONE
GWENNA
I run,but Cal gets there first.Isthere first.
He kneels, ash-streaked and bruised, glasses caked with soot, and clutches Lanz’s face. “Lanz!” It’s like he’s trying to scream, but he’s too hoarse. “Lanz.”
Lanz’s eyes are closed. His skin looks gray. Is he…
No, no, no no no. I think,no. I fall to the ground beside them, between them, slide my hand over Lanz’s chest, and…
He’s breathing—oh, thank God, thank Christ—but barely. At my touch, his eyes flutter open, and he smiles. Of course he smiles.
“Hey,” he says. “Hi. I’m, um—ah!”
A sharp, almost animal cry of pain cuts him off, his back arching off the ground so violently I yelp in surprise.
“Jesus Christ.” Lanz says through a tense jaw, settling back, sweat on his forehead. “Jesus.”
Cal starts looking frantically up and down Lanz’s body, touching him gently as if searching for wounds.
“They didn’t…” Lanz breathes out hard through his nose, his neck corded with effort and eyes still closed. “They didn’t get me. I’m just…”
When Cal looks back up, there’s a single clean streak down each dirty cheek. He’s crying.
I can feel Kingston and Kai behind us somewhere, looming but not wanting to intervene. And suddenly it all feels surreal, incongrous: the warm, perfumey air and soft breeze an alien contrast to Lanz’s panting, the dying boy lying on the new patch of green grass.
“He’s cursed or something,” I say to Cal. Then I look at Lanz. “Aren’t you? Aren’t you?”
“I’m…” His lips move open and shut, his eyes still flickering. “How did you…”
