Page 103 of Angel in Absentia
He had become powerful for this moment, his power only equally matched to this moment, where he would give her a glimpse of time to do the thing he could not do, to pass the fight along, the burden he had carried.
She walked forward, pulled deeper into the darkness, knowing that without Ryson’s strength, she would have no path to walk, and without her healing, he would have only an empty path.
You heal for me; I’ll kill for you.The promise echoed in balance, for from the very beginning, it was his heart’s yearning, and her own, to be free from a world trapped in such violent shades of light and shadow.
As she walked, she approached the dark linings of a long, mangled corpse, in some ways resembling a human. She settled down beside it, the intent of healing in her hands. Translated through the souls of them both, she sensed that it was a creature of another realm, a creature that had been immortal.
Its corpse cracked toward her as she placed her hands upon the blackened rot. She received an impression from it beyond language, something translated into words that might say:
I don’t want to die.
A witness and student of death, Clea kept her hands upon this creature and whispered, “You are already dead. It’s okay.”
The waters around her stirred, and she prepared her healing, light spilling into the cavity of this creature, aiming to unravel its twisted ties to this world. At first, it grabbed her, violently synching itself through her soul. Filled with every temptation and hatred it had witnessed, she was comforted with all of the light from healing her people over so many years. She carried their resilience with her.
The wind whipped around her. It was loud and painful. Her soul cut through with thoughts so horrendous she could hardly contain them, and then she stopped.
She let them pass through her. At one moment, she was convinced she would fail, and even that she released back into the wind. Eventually, the darkness carried that thought off too, until her mind was empty, and she’d challenged all of this creature’s illness. She understood then that this god or devil had been felled by a cosmic force beyond itself and was never meant to die. It hadn’t known how to.
She ushered the last of the light through her, and the waters calmed. The corpse faded silently into the water, and she knew at last as the sky seemed to break through the darkness above that after all these years, the Eating Ocean, by every other name, had at last been satisfied.
Light exploded from the creature’s chest. Blinding. Burning. Beautiful.
For a moment, everything was silence and brightness—a new sun born from the ruins. And then the world went still.
It had come into their plane, suffered, wanted, and now returned again to rest.
In a way, it had accomplished its goal. It had become human by at last accepting death.
Chapter 33
The End of the Ocean
HREE WEEKS HAD passed with nothing to show for it but the mystery of the woods. The first three weeks, that’s all there was, the illusion peeling off the forests like black fear, releasing the war-torn version of the world to them for eternity.
Two weeks after that, powers began to dissolve, both Veilin and Venennin.
Dae remained with his arms crossed, observing the horizon as Iris came up beside him, slipping her arm through his.
“They’re saying it’s the end of Veilin and Venennin,” Iris said. “Cyrus found a corpse in the woods last night. They are saying it used to be a forest beast. Only sign of them we’ve seen. The Insednians have lost their silver eyes.”
“I tried to reinforce a weapon this morning,” Dae said, and then glanced down at his hand. “Nothing.”
“The end of The Decline,” Iris said.
“The end of the world,” Dae whispered.
“Or the beginning of it. Some version of it ended a long time ago. We’ve been trapped in this place,” Iris murmured, leaning against his shoulder. “Trapped in good and evil, a play of light and darkness. Maybe that’s what the forest represented from the start.”
“Seeing the truth of it all in broad daylight, I miss the illusion,” Dae whispered, and they both settled into silence. “But our powers didn’t fade immediately,” he said after a time. “Where are they?”
They both considered the question, neither offering an answer.
“I don’t know,” said Iris. “Maybe freedom to them means something different than this place. Where Loda was always freedom to you. The council is going to need you soon. Without Clea and the others, someone needs to rebuild this place.”
Dae looked down at her, his face troubled. “You’re so calm.”
She looked back out at the horizon.
