The world around me erupts. The power of it throws me to the ground. I suck in my breath and scream at the pain of my power being wrenched away from me. Darkness swirls—and the whispers are suddenly deafening. They scream in my ears, their pain my own. I curl in on myself in defense.
Then—all of a sudden—they are gone. The whispers that have haunted me for so long. Every word, every hiss, every claw. Every tendril of darkness that wrapped itself in the corners of my chest.
Gone.
A piercing sensation, one of fury and grief and joy, fills my heart, replacing the hollow. I reach, but there is nothing on the other end. No threads to grasp. I am no longer an Elite.
Go, Moritas says, the other gods’ voices echoing hers. Return to the mortal world with the others. You do not yet belong here.
I clutch my chest, overwhelmed at the emptiness in my heart. We are going home.
Then I see, across the shattered remains of the darkened pillar, the figure of my sister. Violetta. She is still encased in her opalescent tomb, her face peaceful in death, her arms folded across her chest. She hovers there before me. I reach out for her. I look for her to stir back to life.
But Violetta does not wake. My eagerness wavers. In this overwhelming silence, I wait desperately for her to open her eyes.
Moritas looks at me again. I can barely see her through the black, churning mist.
Your time in the Underworld has not come, Adelina, she says. In giving up your power, I offer you your life back. She turns to Violetta. But her time in the mortal world is past.
My elation fades. Violetta has already died. Moritas will not give up her soul. She will not return to the surface with us.
“Please,” I whisper, turning back to the goddess. “There must be something I can do.”
Moritas stares down at me with her silent black eyes. A soul must be replaced with a soul.
In order for Violetta to live, I must sacrifice something that does not give myself gain.
In order for Violetta to live, I must give Moritas my life.
No. I pull away, stumbling backward. All these things I have seen for my future, all that I can have. I think of Magiano, of laughing with him, of him smiling at me and pulling me close. Never will I do that again, if I give up my soul. Never will I walk the streets with my hand looped through his arm or hear the music of his lute. My heart twists in agony. I will not see another sunrise, or another sunset. I will not see the stars again, or feel the wind against my face.
I shake my head. I cannot take my sister’s place.
And yet.
I find myself staring at Violetta’s lifeless figure, forever sealed away. I know, with searing conviction, that the Violetta who had come with us on this journey would never hesitate to offer her life for mine.
I have killed and hurt. I have conquered and pillaged. I have done all of this in the name of my own desires, have done everything in life because of my own selfishness. I have always taken what I wanted, and it has never given me happiness. If I return to the surface, alone, I will forever remember this moment, the moment I decided to choose my own life over my sister’s. It will haunt me, even with Magiano at my side, until my death. What I saw for myself in my future is a future I cannot have, not with the past that I have already created. It is an illusion. Nothing more.
Perhaps, after all the lives I have taken, my atonement is to restore life to one.
I reach out instinctively for my sister. I stand up, walk toward her through the mist, and place my hand against the silver-white pillar.
She opens her eyes.
“Adelina?” she whispers, blinking. And all I can see before me is the little sister who used to braid my hair, who sang to me and whimpered under the stairs, who bandaged my broken finger and came to me when the thunder rolled outside. She is my sister, always, even in death, even beyond.
My heart twists again as I think of what I am doing, and I choke back a sob. Oh, Magiano. I will miss all the days we will never have, all the moments we will never share. Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.
I open my mouth. I mean to tell my sister I’m sorry, sorry I couldn’t save her in the mountains, sorry I didn’t listen to her, I didn’t tell her more often that I loved her. I am ready to say a thousand words.
But I say none of them. Instead, I say, “The deal is done.”
A faint glow encircles Violetta. The pillar vanishes. She sucks in a deep gasp of air, then falls to her knees. She is alive. I can even sense the beating of her heart, the life that it gives her, that permeates through her like a wave, adding color to her skin and light to her eyes. She shakes her head, then reaches out to grasp my hand as I kneel beside her. “What happened?” she murmurs. She looks around. Behind her hovers the shape of Moritas, waiting patiently for me.
The deal is done.
Violetta tugs on my hand. “Let’s go,” she says, her fingers wrapped tightly around mine.
But I can already feel the weakness invading my body. My shoulders hunch. I struggle to draw in my next breath. All around me, the threads of darkness once tied to my body now anchor deep into the gray ground, and when I try to push against them, it feels as if each had pierced my flesh, a million hooks in a million places. Death has already come for me.
“I can’t,” I whisper to her.
“What do you mean?” Violetta frowns at me, not understanding. “Here, let me help you,” she replies, bending down to me, looping one of her arms around my shoulders and trying to lift me up. Her pull only strengthens the tug of the threads, and I cry out as pain lances through me.
“I am tied here, Violetta,” I murmur. “It is my bargain with Moritas.”
Violetta’s eyes widen. She looks at the looming darkness all around, the towering, faded image of Moritas silently watching us. Then Violetta turns back to me. Now she understands. “You traded your life for mine,” she says. “You came here for me.”
I shake my head. No, I’d come here for myself. That was my goal from the beginning, to save myself under the guise of saving the world. I spent my entire life fighting for my welfare and power, destroying in order to make it happen. I wanted to live. I still want to live.
But I don’t want to live as I had.
Violetta grabs my shoulders. She shakes me once, hard. “I was meant to go!” she cries. “I was weak, dying. You are the Queen of the Sealands, you had everything ahead of you. Why did you do it?” Tears swell in her eyes. They are the same as our mother’s, sad and kind.
I smile at her weakly. The darkness pulses, waiting for me, and the strings tying me down continue to pull. “It’s all right,” I whisper, taking Violetta’s hand off my shoulder and squeezing it in my own. “It’s all right, little sister, it’s all right.”
Violetta turns her face up to Moritas in desperation. “Give her back,” she says. A sob distorts her words. “Please. This is not the way—I am not supposed to live. Let her. I don’t want to return to the mortal world without her.”
But Moritas just stays silent, watching. The bargain is done.
Violetta cries. She looks back down at me, then curls her body around mine, pulling me to her. I reach out and wrap my arms around her, and, here in the mist, we cling together. My strength wanes; even the act of hanging on to Violetta seems to take all my effort, but I refuse to let go. Tears roll down my face. The realization sinks in that I am dying, and I hold on to Violetta tighter. I will never see the surface again. Will never see Magiano again. I can feel my heart breaking, and I am suddenly afraid.
Fear is your sword.
“Stay with me,” I murmur. “Just for a little while.”