The Heirs of Death

29. Ashes

ASHES

The darkness was familiar, inviting in a way. It carried me in its arms, flew me over worlds and times and universes. It whispered my name. It sang—and the voice was clearer than what it had been in the dream at Sael's house. Closer, even.

I allowed it to carry me, to be my wings and my body at once. It trickled into me, into my blood, chanting and hissing, merging with my very own powers. The darkness extended its hands, placing them over mine as I kept taking from that well, as I still fell into the abyss. The fissures were still spreading.

But I didn't feel pain, I didn't feel broken. I felt whole. I felt serene. And I was glowing.

Glowing like the moon and the sun combined at once. Glowing like all the stars were wrapped around me, feeding me their strength. Glowing until my light kissed the very darkness I was in, until dark and bright tendrils embraced each others, until they danced and merged and became inseparable.

I was dark. And I was light.

And this darkness that felt like the universe before all creations, it was a piece of me. The light I'd seen in my previous dream, it was as much a piece of me as this.

I was this beautiful, inviting strength. I was the comfortable warmth and the deadly coldness swaying together.

I curled myself, floating in the very universe around me, shining stronger and stronger. A queen kissed by both night and day. A queen forged from the very essence of the world. A meeting point of what should never meet.

I stopped clawing at those powers, stopped forcing them into me. But they didn't. They kept coming, smoother and faster, to their home. It felt good. Wonderful. Ecstatic. It felt like I owned the world, like I was invincible.

Perhaps I was, right here, right now, in this place that existed only within me.

Lightbringer. He'd called me that, the man who owned my heart. Had done it before once. But in my memories, they were more than that. They were a continuous chant, a title that sounded so beautiful when it came out of his mouth.

He said he loved me, and not only with words. He said it through every caress, every smile, every shimmer in his eyes. He said it in the way he held me, in the way he kept steadying me so I couldn't break.

I told him I loved him. More than once. I should have told him those words even more. Should have held him more, whispered his name and kissed him and embraced him.

He made me want to live. Not just fight, not just kill, not just survive. I wanted to live. I wanted to breathe and smile and dance like we'd done in the ball. Wanted even more than that.

I smiled, even in the midst of breaking. He made me smile so many times before.

Him. I couldn't remember his name. It felt close, it was echoing in my heart, in my blood, in my soul. But I couldn't word it. It wasn't the name I called him in front of the red-eyed prince. Maybe it wasn't the one I used to call him, whatever it was. I wanted—I tried to remember. My tongue refused to speak the name, my mind refused to acknowledge it. So I waited for it.