When I just stared at him, he looked beyond me. ‘Go. Win the war and ask what you will afterwards.’
He pushed a finger over my heart and I felt something heavy thump into me, throwing me clear of the universal island and into the abyss.
I floated.
Another slam.
Air rushed into my lungs. So much, I thought they would explode.
They didn’t.
I was forced to breathe.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
‘Oh, leave me not in this eternal woe, For if thou diest, my Love, I know not where to go.’
John Keats
My lungs sucked in air greedily. It hurt. Every breath harder and faster than the last, trying to sate my oxygen-starved body.
Someone was with me, coaxing me. A low voice, speaking constantly, calling me. A hand touched me.
So familiar.
It brushed the hair from my face, shaking. The voice continued to murmur in quivering broken gasps, like crying.
Phoenix.
My body was coming back to life. I started to open my eyes, but as I did, I felt a terrible – and vital – snap.
The scream that escaped my lips was shrill.
It felt like I would never stop – could never stop – screaming. The pain went beyond the physical, beyond anything I’d ever known. I would have rather suffered an eternity of flying arrows than another second of this agony.
I was lost. Taken.
‘Breathe. You have to breathe, Violet. Please, God, just let her breathe!’ Phoenix cried out. He was shaking me.
What’s happening to me?
I managed to open my eyes. Phoenix’s body sagged. ‘Thank you, God,’ he whispered. And then, before I could scream again, before I could cry, or make any sense of what was going on, his hands went to my chest. The impact was like lightning.
I sucked in a sharp breath, my mind and body in extreme overload.
No death should last so long. Surely the end was near.
But what I saw was not the end. It was something altogether new. Phoenix’s power shimmered all around him. I’d always seen the moving shadows that followed him, often with swirls of gold running through them, like spun toffee. He had told me once that he inherited them from his mother – but this was different. The shadows were gone.
What came from him now looked like black crystal fire. Dark – but beautifully so, with sharp lines and a reflective quality, it was like the midnight you long to see. And from within the flames dazzling silver strands exploded like fireworks.
They encircled us, bound us. Left him slowly.
And came to me.
At the core of Phoenix’s power tornado, something hovered, reminding me of the reflections I always saw in the angel realm – if that was the right thing to call it any more.
Phoenix was struggling above me, unusually weakened and looking like he had used everything he had to put on this extraordinary light show. He stumbled back.
As he did … I remembered.
‘You killed me,’ I whispered. The pain that I’d been feeling since I first woke was continuing to build. It was insufferable.
‘I’m dying again,’ I moaned. I wanted it to happen soon, wanted this pain to end.
‘Relax,’ he said.
Before I could explain that was impossible, I felt the reality of what he’d done to me. A new and strange presence moved through me. It was foreign and my body began to violently spasm, trying to reject it, but another part, my angelic part, made room and pulled it close.
I could feel the power it offered. And more.
It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced except for with one other. An angel. I could sense Phoenix in a way I’d never done before. My heart broke for him. So much time. So much pain. Too much rejection.
I knew what he had done.
I grabbed his arm.
‘New death?’ I gasped, finally understanding, the unbearable pain still growing.
Coldness spread through me like burning ice.
He smiled sadly. ‘And new life,’ he whispered.
Tears rolled down my face. ‘You gave me your essence.’
‘Shh,’ he soothed. ‘It was the only way to release you from our bond. We still have one, but it’s different now. This one cannot kill you. You’re free.’
I closed my eyes. My body bucked. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. Phoenix’s essence was changing me, but that wasn’t what was causing the world-shattering pain that was consuming me.
I heard the banging again, but this time it was from above. They were breaking through the ceiling.
Phoenix looked up, frustrated. ‘The room is a vault!’ he yelled.
‘Let us in there, you bastard!’ Steph screamed.
‘Eden, are you okay?’ Spence’s voice followed.
I started to shake all over. ‘I’m cold,’ I said.
Phoenix turned back to me and attempted to hold me down, but it only got worse. My body started convulsing as if it were rejecting my very existence.
My eyes shot open.
Oh. My. God.
I grabbed at my chest. At my heart. I clawed at it, feeling as if it had burned away to nothing.
‘I died!’ I gasped. I turned my wide eyes to Phoenix. ‘I died!’ I screamed, the pain and the truth tumbling down on me.
Phoenix was wordless.
‘No! Tell me, no!’ I begged.