Page 162 of Children of Fallen Gods

The thread kept pulling, dragging me into the darkness, and it didn’t matter if I was ready or not — this was death.

I closed my eyes.

But something stopped me, like a hand grabbing onto mine.

I blinked. A face appeared before me — a face I couldalmost,but not quite, see, as if my eyes couldn’t grab onto its edges. And yet, I recognized it.

Reshaye’s face was more real, more human, than I had ever seen it before. I could almost make out the color of its eyes. Violet.

{I do not understand,}it said.{I have never understood any of it. I was always searching. I do not have what you do, or feel what you feel. But I have had time. More of it than I have ever desired.}

I was fading. Reshaye’s words floated into the air like smoke. The only thing tethering me to the world was its grasp.

Far away, I became aware of a familiar presence stretching toward me — a presence that I would recognize anywhere. A thread of magic that ran as deep as mine, and diving deeper still, reaching for me.

Max.

My heart leapt. But he was too far away. Too far to get here before death did.

Reshaye, I knew, felt it too. Its grip tightened around me.

{Always, I was searching for something,}it said.{I never knew what. But perhaps I would have found it if I had not been so quick to take time from others.}

I saw Max’s family, their faces twisted in confused terror. I felt Max’s grief in the time after. And I felt Reshaye’s confusion and regret, stretching between us like a sea.

{The curse demands a life. I do not know if this thing that I have is a life at all. But if it is, I give it. I give it for yours.}

I was almost gone. But whatever was left of me recoiled in surprise.

Reshaye pulled me closer. Perhaps it smiled.

{You promised me death.}

A promise I had always intended to fulfill.

“Why?” I choked out. “Why did you choose me?”

{Choose? Is it a choice, for a warm body to search for shelter from the storm? You are so many pieces. I have seen so many others, the space between their fragments filled with ice or iron, so hard they can pretend they are not broken at all. But you…}

Its fingers reached deeper, caressing my mind as if in a final farewell.

{What a perfect shape,}it murmured,{for a lost soul.}

And we were out of time.

{Goodbye, Tisaanah.}

“Goodbye, Reshaye,”I whispered.

It happened fast. With the last of my strength, I drew my magic across the threads that connected Reshaye to me like a razor, slicing it from me. In the same moment, I felt Reshaye release me — felt it throw itself towards the ravenous pit.

All while the thread of light consumed me, and the draining magic released me, and suddenly, life came roaring back.

The air hit my lungs so hard it felt like a brick had been thrown onto my chest. My eyes flew open. My blood went rushing back into my veins.

I was in an unfamiliar room, lying on a cluttered table. But my eyes fell only to the person beside me, his hand clutched around mine. I did not look at our bloody hands, or our skin, which had turned black and rotted, dark veins reaching nearly to our elbows.

I looked only at Max, who was leaning over me, eyes open and dark and wet with tears. His second eyelids slid closed, and his magic withered away, and we fell upon each other, his forehead pressed to mine — weak with exhaustion and delirious relief at the way our pulses felt pressed against each other, beating the steady, miraculous song of a second chance.

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