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My heart ached.
He continued, his smile as wicked as the black fighting leathers he wore. “You see, I was beginning to think you were in love with me. I mean, you take such excellent care of my apple trees.”
In love with him? He stole everything from me. I hated him.
“You bastard, you know nothing of love,” I seethed, glaring at him, my angry, unyielding gaze firmly meeting his.
“And you do?” he challenged, his smooth, deep tone turning irritated. “You have never loved him, and you know that, but you are too stubborn to admit it.”
I gritted my teeth. “You are wrong. I love him. Deeply. Just as I love my people and they love me. It is because of them, because of their prayers, that I am made strong.” That was when I felt it, the smallest trickle of my power slowly seeping into my depleted reservoir. It wasn’t much, but it would have to be enough. “Strong enough to finally end this.”
There, standing on the peak of a cliff, with his wind in my hair, I conjured my water blade—the molecules packed so tightly, it was almost like ice, except it was not cold. With a battle cry, I drove the blade through his leathers, twisting it into his stomach. I jolted back, my hands moving in front of me, conjuring another ten. They floated behind me, sharp and ready to hit their target, to force him right off the edge of the cliff. But when I looked at his face, when I saw his expression, I . . .
I couldn’t do it.
The expression he wore . . . it was made of pure shock.
His ringed fingers dropped to his stomach, sweeping over the ichor staining my azure blade. He studied the crimson liquid as if it were the most mesmerizing thing he had ever seen. His eyes flashed to my face, but there was no anger in his voice, only curiosity. “What sort of illusion is this?”
“It is no illusion.”
“Tell the truth. You spoke with the Goddess of Fate and learned of the prophecy. You thought to use it against me.” He stated it more for himself than me, as if he were trying to piece together an answer.
“I have spoken to the goddess, but I do not know of whatever prophecy it is that you speak of,” I answered, confusion weighing my brow, but then when I looked at the bloody wound, understanding lifted it. My voice softened, just a hair. “So, the rumors are true then.”
“Yes, they are true. I do not bleed,” he stated as his hand wrapped around the hilt of my sword. He gritted his teeth as he pulled it out. He let out a small, disbelieving laugh, tangled with an exhaled breath, as he inspected the blade coated in his thick, red blood. His eyes shifted, meeting mine. “Until now.”
Blood came pooling out of the wound.
He threw the blade onto the rocky, barren ground with such force that it shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces, like it was made of glass. He strode towards me and the wound grew, the flow of blood increasing the closer he got. But he did not stop. He didn’t seem to care that he was bleeding out.
I held my ground. I didn’t move. I didn’t unleash my swords, but I didn’t disarm them either.
When he was but a breath away, he captured my gaze. “I am calling the war off.”
“And why would you do that?” I replied, my tone saturated in heavy disbelief.
He reached forward, his fingers caressing a wisp of my hair that was beaded with mud and streaked with blood. “Since the dawn of time, I have spent millennia searching for an answer to the empty void inside. And now, at last, I have it. How fitting that she should be the very thing that can kill me.”
He let my hair fall to the side, and then the God of Death was gone.
In his place, a black feather remained.
“Sage?”
Slowly, I came to, my hearing kicking in faster than my sight.
My eyelids parted, revealing a bit of blinding light and a stark silhouette. I fought with them until finally, they fluttered open. We were still in the village square, the cold cobblestones biting into my skin, but something strong and sturdy and warm chased the cold away.
A beautiful dark-haired male held me close to him. The wind gently teased the tips of his black hair, pulling it to the side, as if it were coaxing him, begging him to take flight. Because that was something he could do—he could stretch out those incredible wings and fly away if he wanted to.
Or, he could stretch out those incredible wings, whisk me off the battlefield, and fly me to the top of a sharp, drastic cliff—where it was just the two of us.
My breath hitched, caught somewhere between my throat and my lungs as I stared into those eyes that held no light—that were made entirely of darkness itself, older than time.
He wasn’t just Von anymore. He was the God of Death.
And I . . . I was no longer just Sage. I was the Goddess of Life.
