Page 135 of Faerie Hunted

He loved me. I couldn’t let him go.

HIs lips brushed mine again. He was steady and warm and determined. He was tender and caring and—crying.

Onyx was crying.

“Let me do this for you.” He begged me. “I’ll see you again. I promise.” He pushed me back, with such strength I let go.

Why did I let go?

I said his name. I reached for him and found only open air.

Onyx rolled away from me and even without the use of his legs, he threw himself off the side of the abyss, with only the scrape of stone to mark his sacrifice.

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Icouldn’t stop screaming.

Life. Onyx paid the price.

The screams tore out of me, echoing in the nothingness and reverberating back until every cell of my body filled with horror and fear. I scrambled into motion, and only Livvy throwing her arms around me stopped me from following Onyx off the side.

I went with him, though, in spirit. I went with him into the abyss and I stared at the empty blackness until my eyes burned and every inhalation scorched my raw lungs.

Mom held me as my tears finally broke free and trailed fire along my cheeks.

What had he done?

Why? Why, why,why?

He’s gone.

We’d gotten out of things before this. We’d done the impossible too many times to count, we’d survived, and now he just—he…

We stayed together, with sobs wracking my body for a long time. Livvy said nothing, only held me in her arms with her breath tickling my hair as I shook.

Noren drifted to my other side, nudging, whimpering. The tip of his tongue flicked at my tears but the absurdity of the sweetness coming from such a monstrous creature wasn’t enough to get me to stop.

Onyx was dead, and it was my fault.

He’d sacrificed himself for me, just like that. Gone.

He loved me and he’d decided to jump anyway. What if reincarnation wasn’t real? What if he’d sacrificed himself for nothing? What if the Abyss was this horrible, fucked-up place and we were never getting out?

I felt half a second away from exploding. Livvy, for her part, did not budge, and kept me sandwiched between her and Noren…

It was almost enough to get me back into my body instead of the black hole inside my head where nothing made sense. Nothing about the world, about what happened, about me. None of it made any sense, and the harder I tried to get it together, the more I lost it all.

“It’s going to be okay, Tavi. It’s all going to be okay.” Livvy’s murmurings were soothing but I did not believe her. “Don’t worry. It’s all going to be okay. Shh, sweet girl. You feel your feelings. I know.”

She refused to move, holding me and whispering those empty words.

Too long passed before I reached a point where the tears ended. My body stopped producing them, as though I’d used up every ounce of available moisture. I licked my lips and peeled back, missing her warmth already.

I blinked, my eyelids swollen and heavy. “Why is there light?”

Livvy shifted to give me an unimpeded view. Right in front of us, the abyss had disappeared, replaced by a stretch of smooth rock. There was no more darkness, no more beach, no more icy water or cliffside.

After so long in the darkness, I ached in the presence of the light.

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