Not until the last moment, when all that was left was a frail wisp of flesh, barely recognizable as human—the core of the flame, where the monster had stored its soul.
“Grant,” I said. “He’s weak now. Take what you need. Pull the cure from his mind.”
And my husband cleared his throat and did just that.
Afterward, I killed the beast.
I ate his light.
CHAPTER 31
I was no longer human.
I’d never been human, not really, but at least I could pass. No more of that. My skin had burned black as obsidian, from head to toe. My eyes were dark as night, and so was my tongue.
I still had no arm, but sometimes a shadow gathered in its place. I could pretend. I could pretend that my body did not swallow light, or that I no longer hungered for food—only the sun, only stars, only everything that lived.
At least I had the boys. I had my daughter growing inside me. I could learn the rest as I went along.
But there was still a price.
GRANT was good with formulations of light. All the monster told him, he applied. The disease was a living thing, as much an extension of its creator as it was just a virus. By the time we arrived home, some of the demons had already begun to recover on their own—and for those who were still too sick, too close to death, the configuration of light, the pattern that could rearrange those cells to health—it worked.
But I didn’t go home.
“I have new sympathy for you,” said Jack, less than a week after we returned to earth. It was the right time, right place—our world had not changed too much. As far as everyone was concerned, we’d been gone less than a day.
“Your life, always being taken out of your hands. Terrible secrets inhabiting your past. Those who think they know better, keeping you in the dark.” A weak smile touched his mouth. “I’m very sorry, my dear. For everything.”
“Don’t be,” I said, which was sort of a lie, but I didn’t know in what way. Just that a part of me still felt hurt, lost, though there was no point in dwelling on the matter. I had bigger problems. “Are you well? It didn’t occur to me until afterward that killing him might take your life, too.”
“It would have been a just sacrifice.” Jack looked away, picking at the grass. We were back in Mongolia, where I’d found him; the sun was bright and shining, and the boys were sleeping. Fitful dreams. Nightmares, maybe. We had so much to explore together, to understand what we had become. I could still see them, even though my skin had turned black. Their scales were silver on me, gleaming in the sun.
“Perhaps it would be easier to be dead,” he went on.
“You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t I? But I suppose I must honor those I harmed in another life by bearing the truth as best I can.” He started to reach for my hand but caught himself before he could clasp nothing but air. Pain lanced his features, remorse. “I did betray you.”
“Oh, shut up,” I said, giving him a faint smile to take away the sting. “Go get reincarnated for a thousand years. It’ll make you feel better.”
He almost smiled, for real. “And you? You’re immortal now, I suspect.”
“Yes,” I said, touching my stomach. “Great.”
Jack’s smile faded. “That is the problem, isn’t it? The boys are yours, my dear. They cannot be hers unless you die. And no matter what you are now, she might be just as mortal as any human.”
You are the last. Wasn’t that what I’d always been told? But I refused to believe that. Maybe I was the last of something. But not everything.
I stood. “Good-bye, Grandfather.”
He gave me a startled, vulnerable look. “Ah.”
“Yes.” I bent and kissed the top of his head—but even that felt dangerous. I didn’t trust myself, even with him.
A shudder passed through him—maybe he felt the danger.
“My dear girl,” he whispered. “Remember your heart.”
“It’s here,” I said, pressing my left hand above my breast, memorizing his face, his spirit. I could see him now. I’d never been able to, before. But my eyes were different now, and he was a storm of northern nights: dark green fighting with shimmers of blue, and around it all a white halo, a tremendous fire.
My grandfather. Made of light.
I turned my vision inward and focused on my husband. Our bond burned through the darkness. I clung to it.
And went to him.
WE stood on the hill overlooking the farmhouse, beside my mother’s grave. Shurik surrounded us, grazing through the grass. The Yorana were still bonded to Grant, but in the Labyrinth he had allowed them to go their own way, without his interference. Live or die, it was up to them. Good luck with that. Maybe we’d cross paths one day, but I sure as hell didn’t miss them.