Zach's dark gaze glowed with specks of light. "You believe you would do better if the power of life and death was yours?"
I let out a harsh laugh, thinking of my parents, who'd been killed by demons because they were stirring up trouble over Jasmine's disappearance. Adrian's mother, slaughtered by Demetrius while she was trying to protect him. Father Louis, a good man, killed by Blinky. Edgar, a loyal Guardian, either drowned or killed outright in the mine ambush. Tomas, Costa and Adrian's friend, killed by minions in the desert. All the people demons and minions had pulled into the realm during the campus attack, and all the hopeless, abused ones I'd seen when I was searching the realms looking for the slingshot.
"I don't know if I'd do better, but some days, it looks hard to do worse," I said, meeting Zach's gaze.
"Prove it," Zach said, startling me. "All the dark realms are now sealed off. This keeps most demons off the earth, but also dooms the humans trapped in them. You, Ivy, and you alone have the ability to do something about that."
"How?" I asked, but deep down, I already knew.
"The final weapon," he replied, confirming it. "The spearhead of Longinus."
I was the last Davidian, so I should know this, but it didn't ring any bells. "Who was Longinus and why is his spearhead so important?"
"Longinus was the Roman solider who thrust his spear through the side of Jesus of Nazareth as he hung on the cross," Zach replied. Oh, right. That. "The spearhead is all that remains of the weapon," Zach continued, "but one thrust of it through the appointed gateway can create a door in all the realms that only humans can cross through. If you find it and use it, you will save all who manage to come out, but the spearhead is the strongest, most hallowed weapon of them all."
I'd just relearned how to walk after spending over a week in a coma because of the staff, so I don't know why I said what I did next. Maybe, I just had to hear it out loud.
"I have less than a million-to-one chance of surviving if I use it, right?"
"Yes," Zach said, and the single word was cruelly spoken. "And as you know, I will not raise you up if, or when, it kills you. So, Ivy, you who believe that you can do better by people, I say again-prove it. Be willing to almost assuredly sacrifice your life for theirs. Or-" his dark gaze became even more intense "-do not. No one can make you do this. Your fate, and theirs, is in your hands alone. By your will, hundreds of thousands of humans will either perish or get the chance to live. As you wished, the choice is yours."
A sob tore from my throat. This wasn't what I'd wished for! How could it be? I didn't want to die, especially now, when I had so much to live for. Why should all of this be dumped on me? I hadn't asked for this destiny, and I sure as hell wasn't the one who'd stood by while those people were enslaved by demons in the first place. So why were my options only limited to live, and doom many, or die, and save some?
"What about Adrian?" I asked, struck by an even more awful thought. "We're soul-tethered now. If I die, does that mean he dies, too?"
Zach's expression became shuttered. "Adrian is half-demon as well as the most powerful Judian ever. Your death would mortally wound him if he were only human, but his humanity is the smallest part of him. His Judian lineage plus his father's blood will ensure that he survives."
So I was the only one who had to die, if those people were to get a chance to live. I let out a short, despairing laugh. For months, I'd complained that I wanted my destiny in my own hands, and now it was. Worse, just minutes ago, I'd sworn that I could do a better job at playing God than the real God could. Now, as Zach had so bluntly pointed out, it was time to put my money where my mouth was-or my life where my convictions were. Talk about being careful what you wished for.
"Don't listen to him, Ivy," Adrian said, appearing in the room. He ran over to me and then gripped me by the arms. "Archons might not lie, but whatever he told you, it's an exaggeration and a trap. Don't you see? He wants you to die because that's what destiny says you're supposed to do. Screw destiny, you deserve to live! You've done enough."
Oh, I wanted to believe that! I wanted so, so badly to think that I'd given all I could, and to spend the next fifty or so years living happily with Adrian. But even as I considered that, those same reels of faces seared across my mind.
My parents. Father Louis, Edgar, Tomas, the people I'd pleaded with in the desert house, the ones I hadn't been able to save during the campus attack and every single, suffering person I'd seen in the demon realms. If I turned away now, I'd be saying their lives weren't worth saving, and all of them had wanted to live just as much as I did. How could I consider my life worth more than hundreds of thousands of lives just like theirs? And what kind of life would I even have, if that's the person I chose to become?