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But beside me, Dusk sheaths his sword and then rushes to Phantom’s side. He kneels beside his brother, and I numbly put my sword away and come closer, standing over my closest friends. The men I see as family.
Rayne kneels down too, and I know it has to be him because of the pain in the Shadow King’s face. “I thought he could be saved,” he signs. “I thought it would work.”
We all did. Damn it. We all did.
“No pulse. No breathing,” Dusk signs, then he looks up at me, his expression devastated. His grief is potent enough that it entwines with my own.
Even though we already knew deep down.
My heart feels so broken it’s hard to breathe. Rayne gets up, squeezes my shoulder, and I feel myself breaking. Falling into a thousand pieces that can never be pulled back together. It’s a fragile item that will never be the same. I love Phantom.LovedPhantom.
This can’t be happening.
A sob is building in my throat. Dusk drops his face into his hands, and I turn away from his grief, knowing that I can’t handle it. If I see him breaking, I may as well lie down here beside Phantom and die too.
Or maybe I should. Ann is gone. Phantom is dead. The king’s army has flooded earth.What reason do I have to keep going?
I wish Ann was here for so many reasons, but none as much as for the power of her light to save him. Because some part of me thinks the woman I love can save anything, even Phantom from death. She’s just… that incredible. And our love for her feels like something that can overcome anything, even this.
I wish for so many things. Useless wishes. For a restart to our lives. For salvation. For… Ann. To have met her at a better time, a time when the Shadow King was no more and life wasn’t fraught with danger at every sunrise and sunset. A world where all of us were together and happy.
Even though that life is impossible now. Some things, there’s just no coming back from.
Looking back, I watch as Dusk puts his hands on Phantom’s chest like he’s trying to hold the blood inside his brother. Or maybe like he needs to feel his still heart and breath to know this is real, but it just seems so terrible. So heartbreaking to watch. And I wonder if the connection they say exists between twins is real, if Dusk is shattering even more than I am.
Is that possible?I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.
Rayne’s hand drops from my shoulder and he steps away from us so strangely that both of us glance at him at the same time. He’s twitching, body jerking back and forth as he tries to maintain power over the king’s body. I know that without him needing to tell me, because it truly looks like two people fighting for control over one body.
“The king is going to be in control again soon.” He doesn’t sign it, but I read the words on his lips and know it’s true based on the pain in his face. Then he reaches down and rips open his shirt.
My jaw drops. The shard in the king’s chest is massive, bigger than any I’ve seen before. It sticks out a couple of inches from his heart, but this piece pulses with a dull red light. Blood leaks from it, even as we’re watching, and it creeps me the hell out.
“I think I should take the shard out of the king’s chest,” Rayne mouths, then reaches and places his fingers around the tip of it.
I stiffen.What?He’s already learned that removing the shard kills the person. If he does that inside the king’s body, I have no doubt he’ll die too. At least Ithinkhe will, and it isn’t worth the risk.
I shake my head no. Vehemently.
“I have to,” he says, his spine stiffening.
Dusk rises to stand beside me, signing rapidly. “You might die, and we can’t lose more. Please, don’t do this.”
My heart aches in agreement. If everyone we love is dead, will ending this war even matter? It’s selfish. Earth needs us, but I can’t… I can’t lose Rayne too.
“If he dies, we win this war,” his lips say, his expression open and vulnerable. “The world is saved.”
I don’t care anymore.“No,” I sign, and our gazes hold.
He has to see it. To see that he can’t kill himself for this war. That there’s another way.
Dusk seems to know my thoughts, “Come out, then we’ll kill him before he gains control again.”
I see it in Rayne’s face. He thought of that already, but knows that has a risk that we won’t be fast enough. That the king will kill us, or run, before we can stop him.
Lifting my sword, I place it at the king’s throat to show him I can do it quickly, the moment he leaves the body. There’s no need to risk another person we love.
“You’d take the risk,” he says, his mouth forming each word.
