Page 89 of Kept

But I wasn’t dead. I’d been reborn.

I was going to save the realm.

Joy sparked, becoming laughter that trembled in my chest. I released it, and it bounced around the Shade, filling it with life. Smiling, I stepped forward. The grass spread under my foot, stretching farther and expanding the clearing. I took another step, and it happened again, green grass spreading and canceling the nothingness.

I kept walking. The grass kept growing. It flowed outward, spreading like a carpet that could go on forever. And I realized it could. I could make it, walking forever forward and erasing the void. I could make anything.

“Or everything,” Midian said, walking at my side. He wore a hooded black robe, his face within it a mangled collection of veins and bone. His eyes were two round sockets with red flames that danced in the center.

It was the best he could do, I realized. I’d brought the Middling into his plane, pushing something into the nothing of the Shade. Midian couldn’t take a proper form because he didn’t truly understand life. He could only pretend.

“It’s the curse the elves thrust upon us,” he said. “They gave us the knowledge that there was something. Don’t you see? Once you have something, you don’t want to lose it.”

The grass under my feet turned brown as his sorrow filled my mind. In this place, there were no barriers between us. His pain was genuine—another curse the elves had forced upon him. Pain was part of life. But the demons weren’t part of the Making. There was no place for them in a realm made of something.

“We can make a place,” he insisted.

I shook my head, brown grass spreading under my feet. “You tried that. But you can only exist by taking from others. Life is a gift. It can’t be stolen. Only given.”

The grass under my feet turned black. Jealousy flowed through our connection. An image of Laurent and Varick appeared in my head. They tangled together on twisted sheets, their nude bodies locked in a passionate embrace.

“They’ll go on without you,” Midian said. “They are enough for each other. They don’t need you.”

“I know.” The grass turned green. It spread thick and lush under my feet. Tiny white flowers drifted around us. “They loved each other before they met me. They will love each other after I’m gone.”

“How noble of you,” he spat. “Do you think anyone will remember your sacrifice? They won’t. The living are selfish. They think only of themselves.”

“Yes,” I said.

My acquiescence enraged him. It flowed through our connection like acid, burning away the image of Laurent and Varick on the bed.

“Everyone will forget you,” he insisted. “The best you can hope for is a statue.” He thrust his arms out and turned his palms up in a mocking version of Queen Vara.

I kept walking, filling the Shade with life. Watching the flowers tumble and disappear.

“Where’s your sword?” he demanded, circling me. He walked around and around, his robe brushing my skirts. “You think to defeat me. Why not bring it?”

I shrugged.

He stopped in front of me, and I held still as he thrust his mangled face into mine. The flames in his eye sockets burned brighter as he dug into my mind, rifling through it and seeing everything. He overturned every memory. Dumped out each thought and deed. Pawed through every embarrassing moment as he searched for my plan.

“I don’t have one,” I told him.

“You do,” he snarled. “You didn’t enter the Rift expecting to die. I’ve seen everything in your head. You hoped to be reborn. In your heart of hearts, you believed it might happen. You have everything now. The priest and the warrior. You’re a queen. You have the Making—”

“And that’s what you want,” I said.

He pulled back. Around us, the Middling dimmed.

I nodded. “The promise of the Making is the only thing that could have persuaded you to abandon Avenor’s body.” The Middling flickered. I ignored it and kept going. “The Making is all you ever wanted. But Avenor gave it away before you could steal it.”

“He tricked me,” Midian growled, and the Middling flickered again.

“He kept it from you,” I corrected. “And when you realized what he’d done, you waited for another chance to steal it. You waited five hundred years for Avenor’s heir.”

“You,” he said, his voice dripping with scorn. “What a disappointment.”

“It could have just as easily been my child. Any son or daughter I had with Varick would have likely inherited the gift of Making. And when Laurent sacrificed it to the Rift, you would have seized its body. I believe that was the outcome you preferred, although you would have been just as happy to force Varick and me to create children in Vai Seren. And you would have stolen them too. Anything to possess the Making. Anything to escape the pain of knowing there is something and you’re nothing.”

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