I turned and looked at him, and the voice suddenly didn’t seem to matter as much.
“Hurt.” The word was more of a moan as the last one seeped out of me, low and slow like a tire with a leak.
“I know, son,” Sain said, his eyes hooded and sad. “I know. But I need you to focus right now.”
“I don’t know if I can.” I could barely get the words out.
I know you can’t.
I don’t want you to.
“Fight it, Ryland. I am right here with you.” I stared at him as the voice battled back and forth inside of me, the intensity growing.
“Hurt.” I hadn’t meant to say that, but the word came out, anyway.
“Focus, son. If you can get through this, I know you will find a piece of your sanity that you had thought you lost. You will regain a piece of yourself that your father hasn’t been able to touch.” His voice was deep with the sound of the Drak, the heavy reverberation seeping through my bones.
It was the sound of what I knew to be sight, and it pulled me out of my insanity enough to focus.
“Once you have this piece, you will have the strength you need to get the next. You will take your soul back, my son.”
His voice lulled to nothing. The waver of the sconces that flickered around us shimmered against the grey stone and him until he was cast in lengths of shadow that stretched over his face like a sheet of hair.
The depth of his sight rippled through me, and my strength grew as I looked at the stone that stood suspended from the fine chain that was clenched in my fist.
My heart.
He was right.
I hadn’t realized it until that very moment, but inside of this diamond was not only a piece of my heart, but a piece that had not been infected with the torture of my father.
It hadn’t been destroyed.
“Will you keep the necklace, Jos?” I asked, my voice shaking as I tried to keep the voice at bay, as I tried to focus beyond it and get this final request out before it was too late.
She doesn’t want the necklace. Didn’t you hear?
“I can’t…” she began, but I couldn’t let her finish. I didn’t think I could stand to hear her rejection or have that pain return.
“No, not my heart. Just the necklace. A promise that maybe we can try to be friends again.” My voice caught as I tried to make her understand, to make her see why I needed this. It was important to me.
It wasn’t for what it had once meant. It was for what I hoped it could now mean.
“Of course.”
I barely heard her voice through the door, the whisper of assentation not quite enough to grant me the acceptance I was looking for, but enough that I knew she would at least uphold her side of the bargain.
It was enough.
The large stone spun through the air as I held it in front of me, the firelight refracting off the millions of facets and covering the hallway with dozens of tiny specs of the deepest red. To anyone else, they would be nothing more than the glint of the diamond.
My heart beat faster with the knowledge of what they really were, what was about to happen, and what was about to be returned to me.
“You can do it, son.” Sain’s voice was a deep root of confidence that embedded into my soul.
You are a fool. Stop playing games. Kill her now.
Shut up, Father.
“I know,” I whispered in a voice low with desperation. “I don’t know what’s going to happen when I do this, Sain. If I…” I couldn’t even bring myself to finish the sentence.
I ripped my focus from the necklace to the old man beside me. His eyes were wide and welcoming as he nodded his head once.
Even without the explanation, he knew the dangers. For all we both knew, the transition might destroy me.
Except, he knew otherwise. I could tell from the look in his eyes. The sight meant more to him than I could ever understand.
I stared at him as the frantic pace of my heart beat slowed, the necklace lowering into my palm in a surge of magic and pain that ignited through me at the touch of the stone against my flesh.
It rippled over me in heat and agony, as if it was threatening something I didn’t quite understand. Something I didn’t want to know.
I didn’t wait. I pressed my palm against my chest. With the hard nob of the gem a painful pressure against my chest, the heat only grew.
Then my chest opened up in a pain so deep it was ripping me in two, my chest opening as the tiny shard of myself was returned to its rightful place.
I fought the need to scream. Instead, I let out a deep grunt that moved over the halls that echoed in my ears alongside the deep, mournful laugh of my father and the sharpened gasp of worry from Sain.
It had hurt so much more when I had removed the piece of my heart and placed it inside the necklace. When I had done that, I had gone to the forest where I had always taken Joclyn, gotten drunk enough I couldn’t feel anything, and then cried for hours until I had finally passed out.