Page 133 of Faerie Hunted

Onyx had survived this before, but I understood why he wanted to erase the experience from his memories.

Once, I’d wanted the bliss of emptiness and apathy. As though having those things would finally give me peace of mind.

But this was so much worse than anything else. Even the piercing pain of a battle wound was better than thisnothingness.

Alone in the dark. No way forward and no way out.

The toe of my sneaker collided with one of the rocks and I went floundering forward, losing my grip on Noren and my balance at the same time. But my outstretched hands fell into nothingness. Not even the shore beneath me. There, and suddenly gone.

Screaming and digging in my heels, I somehow managed to jerk back in time. Livvy’s overly loud shout came at the same moment.

“Watch out!”

I threw out a hand to stop Noren the second her warning aired. Luckily, Noren and Onyx were a step behind me.

“What’s happening?” Onyx asked in panic.

“Hold on a second.” I slowly folded myself down to my knees, searching the ground. It ended only inches from me. There and then gone. Nothing but empty air. I jerked back, stunned.

We’d reached a destination of sorts at last. Only it wasn’t an actual place but more of a lack of ground. The shoreline ended and even the water failed to drip off the edge.

“What’s there? What do you feel?” Livvy wanted to know. “Tavi?”

I have a name.

“Nothing.”

I shoved some of the loose stones off the edge and waited for them to hit. They never did. No sound came.

“It’s a drop-off,” I told the others. “We’ve reached the end.”

What would happen if we headed into the water? Was there a drop there, too? Or what about further inland?

Something told me we would find the same thing no matter where we went.

Life, I realized. This was where Life came in. This was exactly the end of the line where a decision had to be made and a choice executed.

What good did Livvy’s journal do if I wasn’t around to be the bearer of the prophecy? It made no sense to me. I couldn’t give up my lifeandunite Faerie. I had to be alive in order to do those things.

Ghosts didn’t exist for shifters.

Our souls were either reborn into new existence or disappeared back into the fabric of the universe.

I bit down on my tongue but a sob escaped anyway. The ragged muscles in my throat constricted and my eyes flooded. This was my choice to make but there really wasn’t one. I was going over the edge. It was that simple.

Onyx spoke up. “It’s the sacrifice.”

“What?” Livvy sounded sharp.

“The Abyss requires a sacrifice in order to allow us to take the notebook, which has become a piece of the time and space here. I know it innately, because of the place where the Abyss still exists in me.”

“Stop it.” My words were hardly more than a whisper. I didn’t want to hear any more.

“One of us has to die,” he finished.

“Me.” It was automatic. “It’s me.”

Onyx laughed, the sound too loud for my raw nerves. “Not necessarily.”

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