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I turn to lead them back to earth when Shenra touches my arm.
Looking back at the young woman with so much on her shoulders, I wonder if she’s changed her mind. Instead, she says, “I can do a lot here, but I can’t bring life back to this world.”
Frowning, I shake my head. “I can’t either.”
She actually smiles. “You don’t know, do you?”
Know what?But I just shake my head.
“The goddess who gave her heart to the sky… she was a light fae.”
Dusk gasps behind me. “That’s impossible.”
Shenra grins. “I spent a lot of my time after my ‘death’ hiding in the library, trying to find clues about how to fix our world. I found old stories about the start of the world. In the beginning, she wasn’t known as the Moon Goddess, she was known as the Goddess of Light. A fae with extraordinary abilities. That’s why she was able to use you to funnel her powers. That’s why she was able to connect with you.”
I realize my jaw has dropped. It sounds impossible, but also, explains so much. “So that means… I can heal your world?”More than just the space around me that the goddess’s powers already brought life back into?
“Just do what you’ve always done. Just ask the goddess to use you to accomplish what needs to be done. Otherwise, no matter what I do, it’ll take these lands too long to grow crops, and we might all end up dead any way.”
No pressure.“Okay.”
Closing my eyes, I release a slow breath and ask the goddess. I ask her to fill these lands with life. To encourage them to grow. To bring back all the dormant seeds that have been waiting so long for light. And, it’s strange. Different from before. It feels like light is coming from my every pore. Wind brushes against me, then grows stronger, before I feel the splatter of rain on my skin.
I open my eyes and watch as rain pours from the sky, then look around me in shock as I feel myself growing brighter and brighter. Suddenly, a pulse of light shoots out from me going in all directions. Everywhere it goes life awakens. Silver trees bloom with blue leaves, more glowing flowers cover the ground, along with vines, and light illuminates the land in all directions in a way that can only be described as… magical.
My glowing stops. My arms fall. And it’s like my power is done. Spent.
Shenra is smiling, her face tilted up, letting the rain coat her skin. “It’s not the same as before, but it’s a start.” Then she turns to me. “Thank you, light fae.”
I’m about to say something, I don’t know what, when a rumbling begins. We turn to see the wall separating this world from earth shaking. Dust rises from the ground, and I sense that something is changing, but I don’t know what.
“Run!” Shenra screams. “The Void is closing. Soon, you might not be able to return to earth.”
Panic awakens with me. Closing? We’ll be trapped here?Phantom and Rayne won’t be able to be saved?I look at Dusk and Onyx, and without a word, we all start running. We run as fast and as hard as we can toward the Void, which, sure enough, is shrinking, fading before our eyes.
We reach the edge of the Void. I let my men go first, then look back. Shenra waves to me, a lonely woman beside her skeleton horse, and I hope that she can save this world. That she’s the queen it needs, for her sake, and for the sake of all the creatures that have suffered here.
Then I take a deep breath and step through. Hoping and praying that the goddess was speaking the truth. That Phantom and Rayne can be saved.
I come through on the other side and, strangely enough, it’s raining on earth too. Onyx and Dusk have laid Rayne and Phantom down on the ground, and they kneel in the mud beside them, heads bowed. A sob catches in my throat, but a massive rumble makes me turn… only to see the entire black cloud, the Void, disappear like the snap of fingers. It’s truly as if it never existed anywhere but in my nightmares. I see a small sliver of silver in between the trees, but the danger seems to be gone.
The risk to this world is over. And yet, I don’t feel relieved.
I kneel beside my men, but Phantom and Rayne still don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t awaken. And it hits me: perhaps the goddess does lie. Or perhaps this was beyond her powers.
Tears prick the corners of my eyes as I feel the last shreds of my hope fading away. She promised. I did everything I was asked to do and more.How can this possibly be how our story ends?
Dusk and Onyx bow their heads even further. Their spines are bent. Defeat radiates off of every inch of their flesh.
“They were good men,” Dusk begins, his voice broken.
But I shake my head. “No. No. She said they would survive. She said this was the answer.”
Onyx looks at me, his eyes filled with sadness, then signs, “They’re gone.”
I’m shaking my head again, my stomach in knots. Reaching my hands out, I try to use my light on them, but no light comes. Rage builds inside of me. Desperation.So, the goddess used me, lied to me, and then took her powers back?I want to scream. I want to demand that she make this right.
And then, they both gasp in air.
