Page 167 of A Grave Not Made For Mourning
Arcane.
Its head tilts unnaturally, as if studying me. Blood-red eyes glow like dying stars, fixing on mine through the glass.
It doesn’t blink.
From the safety of the second floor, I wrap the Arcane’s ankles in vines. They’re thick and thorned, writhing up from the soil like serpents, tightening against its limbs.
The boy was right—my power is stronger in a place of emotional attachment. Because it’s my pain that pries the world apart. Breaking it like a heart, the way I had the last time I was in battle.
I force the ground beneath the Arcane to split.
The world shifts, the trees begin to collapse, and I tell them to. Iwillthem to with every ounce of anger, of grief, ofemotion.
The thing that once tore me apart, now shattering the world.
A tremor shudders outward. Roots rip free, the ground crumbles, and the trees fall.
Every ounce of rage, every shadow of grief—I pour it into the soil. Into the world. Intobreakingit.
The Arcane jerks, fighting my restraints, but it can’t. Because I am powerful, too. I feel its fear, and it strengthens me.
The thing looks up at me as it falls into the world. I assume in despair.
Then it’s mouth opens wide, revealing a row of shattered and decayed teeth.
A smile.
As it falls, my hands explode in heat. Blistering heat, turning to burning agony. I scream as I fall to the ground, the pain sizzling through my skin. Burrowed into my blood, my bone. Spreading across my entire body.
I’m being roasted over an open fire.
But there is only wood beneath me.
It lasts for an eternity, and I know I won’t survive this.
My skin falls from muscle, muscle falls from bone, all burnt to ashes. Until there’s only darkness.
Slowly, something rounds the bend—the academy. Lucian.
But I know soon there will be nothing.
The creature inside of me—the Arcane. His name is Icarthus. He speaks to Lucian… hisson.A highly-prized piece of information, one I won’t get to keep. I feel my body wither away beneath the Arcane who now wears it. Bits and pieces of the real world make it through the cracks.
A fight begins, but the Arcane does not want to fight his son. As Lucian sends me to the wall, the Arcane leaves my body.
Life suspends to something slower. My last breaths slip through my fingers. I reach for air, like grasping at smoke, knowing I will not be able to hold it again.
“Fight, Wendy!”the boy screams at me.“Fight or you will cease!”
My being is dissolving. The threads that once sewed me together are coming apart. Where my body once held the fabric, there is now a tear. A hollow ache, an endless void, swallowing my light.
It feels like my soul is being torn from existence.
“I’m ready.”I close my eyes. Finally resting.“I’m ready to give up now.”
“Wendy, don’t you dare!”he bellows.
Tears slip from my eyes, somewhere inside my mind.“Tell me I fought valiantly. Tell me I had a good run.”
