A Shade of Vampire 41: A Tide of War(53)

I wanted that warmth, not this darkness.

I can give you eternity, the entity whispered, immortality, lifetimes of glory.

A lot of people had been offering me immortality lately. The Impartial Ministers, Ruby’s mother, and now the entity. I wasn’t interested. Not if there wasn’t Ruby to share it with.

The moment my decision was made, a searing pain splintered through my body, as if I was tearing apart from the inside. My body stopped belonging to me. Fires felt like they were consuming my blood, my soul separating from its home as it rejected the insurmountable pain. Was this what dying felt like?

The entity screamed; my fire was its fire, my pain its pain.

I didn’t know how long the torture lasted. Every second felt like a year. I believed the pain would never stop, that immortality had been given, and that this was what it would feel like till the end of time, the fires unrelenting, my silent screams never being heard.

“He’s moving,” Ruby breathed.

It was the first coherent noise that I’d heard since the pain began. As her voice floated over to me, the burning sensation slowly started to recede. My body was able to experience the fresh coolness of air on my skin, my veins feeling like they’d been cleansed somehow—of tar, of fire, of the entity.

I tried to open my eyes, praying that the abyss would no longer be there, that I would be able to see the blonde halo of hair and blue eyes that had saved me. Again.

My eyelids flickered open, feeling like heavy weights. I didn’t see the blue of Ruby’s eyes—instead I saw the blue of a bright sky, not as beautiful but rewarding all the same. A second later, Ruby peered down at me.

“Ash?”

“Hey, Shortie,” I rasped, the words feeling unfamiliar on my tongue.

“That’s the second time you’ve almost died on me. Can you stop doing that?” she barked, her expression furious.

“Yeah.” I smiled. There she was. My livewire, my future wife who didn’t just shine brightly, she was practically a forest fire.

Hands grabbed me. It was Tejus and Ruby, helping me to sit up. I looked around at their faces—a mixture of awestruck dumbness and worry. The barrier of fire had disappeared, and the shadow had changed too. It was no longer a dark mass, but thousands and thousands of soldiers in their ashen form, fighting with the fae army, GASP and the sentry ministers and guards.

I wondered why they hadn’t come toward us.

“There’s a barrier up,” Tejus replied helpfully, “a regular one. What happened?”

His tone was brusque, but his eyes betrayed relief and joy—intense emotions that I’d not seen him display unless he was looking at Hazel.

“I don’t exactly know,” I murmured. “I think the entity chose the wrong body…I felt the immortal waters, like fire running through me—I think they might have purged him somehow.”

I didn’t mention the choice I’d made to activate them. How close a call it had been. Part of me had welcomed the entity—its offer had been tempting. If it wasn’t for Ruby, it wouldn’t have ended the same way.

“What’s happened to the shadow?” I asked.

Tejus eyed me speculatively, but turned to watch the battle taking place around us. We were winning, easily. Ben took out six of the soldiers in one swipe of his sword. I was glad he was still alive.

“As soon as you shone white, the shadow changed, leaving only the soldiers,” Tejus replied matter-of-factly.

What?

“I shone white?”

“You looked like you were on fire,” Ruby muttered. “Like, your whole body—as if you were part of the barrier.”

Splatters of water started to rain down on us. I looked up to the sky, puzzled.

“There.” Tejus nodded his head over to where a group of witches were standing—Ibrahim, Mona and Corrine were manipulating the immortal water that had been brought along in barrels. It rained down on the ashen soldiers, burning them.

“We should help.” I tried to stand up, but Ruby held me down.

“Do you know what? I think you’ve done enough today. You can rest and leave this to the others.” Her tone warned me not to argue with her. Somehow, despite presumably being the hero of the hour, I was in deep trouble.

“Fine,” I agreed, yanking her down next to me. If I wasn’t fighting, neither was she.

“You too, Hazel, Tejus,” Ruby bit out at our friends. “You can all just sit right here. I’ve had enough of you all being in danger—we’ve done what we can, so we can just wait it out now, okay?”

Tejus smirked at her, but did as she asked. Hazel sat down too, and we sat in silence, watching GASP and the rest of the sentries get to work. It was like watching some kind of orchestrated dance performance—the vampires, fae armies and Sherus, werewolves, witches, dragons and Hawks were so elegant in their slaughter.