Demonic Devourer ch. 96

“Evelyn,” Adrian says. “We have a problem.”

I stare at him. “A problem.”

I was expecting some sardonic comment about this, given the fact that over half the people within a mile of us were dead, their homes collapsing in on themselves. It’s a wonder that the circle is intact, but I supposed Root is made solidly enough that even widescale destruction isn’t enough to topple the whole.

The demon piloting Sersui’s ghost was only active for a scant few seconds, which was enough to initiate a nullspace that overpowered mine, but Last One Standing advanced to Silver just in time to activate a Titan’s power of my own. The combination with my secondary class definitely helped there.

I only have Callen’s death attributed to my name, but that’s enough for me. Even if I can’t glean the benefits of killing a few thousand people, I am more than comforted by the fact that another one of my creators is dead by my hand.

Less comforting, though, is what Adrian presents to me now. Given the fact that we’re currently standing on an unstable slope that appears to be in the process of actively caving in, I have a bad feeling about what could be urgent enough to warrant this.

My suspicions are confirmed when he draws what appears to be an extremely singed metal egg from within his coat.

“I tried to protect it, I really did,” he says, apologetic. “But—“

“Don’t apologize,” Sierra says. “You failed to stop a nullspace. So did we. So has almost everyone who fought a Titan, ever. You’ll grow.”

I take the egg, cradling it.

As I attempt to open the safe, a building crumbles. Blood Sense tells me that there’s people in there, but I don’t particularly care.

“I got it,” Adrian says, forming a wall of water around us. It’s not perfect, but the pieces of the falling building that fall towards us splash into the water and are redirected elsewhere.

The safe won’t open properly, so I brute force it by Siphoning what magic remains and digging my fingers into the steel alloy. Metal bends under the raw force I can bring to bear, and the Sersui-affected safe crumples just enough for me to carefully extract the Death Prayer within.

Even touching it fills me with an immediate, crushing sense of dread.

It’s frayed. The corners are blackened, as if I’ve just saved it from a fire, and another line of arcane text has inscribed itself on the back, overwriting a previous one. While the rest of the text looked as if it was professionally transcribed, this one looks hastily written, and it’s a deeper red. Like it’s written in blood.

I can still make out the text under the new scribble. I remember this line.

Transportation into a nullspace of any kind will result in this item triggering 24 hours later.

My blood runs cold. Because of this one line, Sierra and I have been careful about manifesting our nullspaces, excluding any space that might include the now-shattered egg.

But Callen’s dying move did not.

The scribbles are harder to read. Sloppier.

You will never know peace.

85,199 seconds remaining. May your woes be many.

“Fuck,” I say emphatically. I explain the text to Adrian and Sierra, who can’t read it nearly as fast as I can.

“Fuck,” they mirror.

I have less than twenty-four hours left to live.

84,981 seconds remaining.

Kirin is nowhere to be found. Locate tells me that he’s not within a mile or so of us, and I doubt that Sapphire’s little trick she played on him would do something so simple as take him from Root. There’s even odds he’s no longer on this plane of existence.

Which is unfortunate, because his Relic Hunter class might have actually been able to do something about the item currently threatening to erase me from the face of this planet.

I am surprisingly calm, and I’m not entirely sure why. An answer to my predicament lies just beyond reach. The sensation of knowing I used to have the information I need is growing frustratingly familiar.

Our apartment complex (and much of the area around it) is entirely gone. During the course of the brief fight, my kill count rose from 1157 to 1231, but none of the souls I accidentally slaughtered can offer me anything that actually helps.

Not much time has passed since I first saw the Death Prayer, but we have moved. Adrian made the point that it’s already going to be difficult to deal with this, but figuring out our next steps will be significantly more difficult if we have to kill the entirety of Root’s adventuring and police forces.

As such, the three of us are now at a slightly less conspicuous location in the second circle, which is largely industrial and, more importantly, is currently unaffected by the partial collapse of the fourth and fifth circles that we and the Sersui fragment caused.

I keep my Antimemetic Cloak active, shrouding the three of us as uniformed workers shout over each other, none of them sure of what’s happened.

“What if it’s a dud?” Adrian asks.

“It’s not,” Sierra answers, her voice tight. “If the system tells you something, believe it.”

“You seem a lot more broken up about it than she does,” Adrian says, indicating me. “You know something we don’t?”

“She knows the same thing I do,” Sierra says, interrupting before I can even formulate a response. “Read the text, if you can. Do you know your demonology?”

“Vaguely,” Adrian says. “Nine primary hells, something like that?”

“Yes, but that’s not the important part. Most living beings die, and unless their soul is weighed down too heavily—“

“We rejoin the cycle of life, yeah, yeah, I know,” Adrian says. “Except, uh, elves?”

“Elves and demons.” Sierra nods. I can tell that Adrian already knows most of this, but she’s saying it for my benefit. I have a sneaking suspicion that I should know this already, but that Excise removed a larger chunk of my amalgam than I thought. “Elves live through three different bodies, keeping their memories each time. Demons that make it to our plane of reality can die twice. The first time sends them to a hell. The second ends them eternally.”

We let those words hang in the air for a few moments.

“So in—“ I turn the Death Prayer over in my hands, checking the text on it, “—eighty-four thousand, nine hundred forty-three seconds, I’m going to be teleported to a hell. To a deep hell.”

“Banished more than teleported, but yes,” Sierra mumbles.

And my knowledge of that region has been eradicated nearly in its entirety. Withheld—no, not withheld, stolen—by Sapphire.

Incandescent anger ignites within me, but I quell it just as quickly. Rage is useful to force myself to break through a barrier. There are no barriers to break here, only allies, and those I want in one piece.

Honestly, of all three of us, I think I’m taking my impending death the best. Sierra has gone entirely pale, as if it’s her that’s about to die and not me, and Adrian looks so crushingly disappointed that I think he might cry if I prod him too hard.

“Well,” I say with a lightness that nobody feels, “I have a chance, right? Demons are capable of escaping into our world. We’ve seen that before. Ravendale, yeah?”

“There is good news and bad alike on that front,” Sierra says, grimacing. “That infestation was relatively low-level. Category 0. That means they likely escaped from one of the deepest hells. That’s the good news. To my eyes, you’re not full demon, which means everything is going to want to kill you—“

“Of course,” I say, snorting out a laugh despite myself. “When do they not?”

“Of course,” Sierra agrees, the tension in her voice too thick to allow her to join me. “Contrary to intuition, demons are weaker in the deeper circles; the strongest ones naturally flow upwards to the shallower hells, where the barriers between life and death allow more to flow through.”

“I have a feeling I know what the bad news is.”

“The bad news,” Sierra sighs, “is that you are strong. And that means that the hell you land in? You’re not going to be able to escape it. Something of your conceptual weight won’t be able to slip through the cracks in any of the lower hells. If I got sucked into a hell alongside you, I’d likely be the same. Being a proto-Titan means a lot.”

“Which means I’m going to have to climb,” I say. “I can do that.”

“It’s not only demons,” Sierra warns. “I had the opportunity to visit the Skydark Demonology Center in the Aqus continent a few years back, and they have what they call a hellseer. You know, prior to your existence, the Crowned Islands hadn’t seen a demon infestation a decades? There’s a reason for that. There are angels there. Fallen and ascended alike. The top levels are lethally dangerous to anyone. Even you. Especially you.”

I grimace. “Not like I have a choice. If I have to fight them, I’ll fight them. One way or another, this isn’t going to stop me.”

“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” Adrian says, shaking his head wildly. In the dark, damp space between factories, he looks comical, like a dog drying itself. “That’s it? You’re not going to fight back? You’re discussing this like it’s a done deal.”

“I mean, what else is there to try?” I ask. “It’s not defeat. It’s determining what I do next.”

Sierra bites her lip. “I… am not completely of like mind. I want you to have the information. It’s important. But I don’t want you to go.”

I open my mouth, a half-formed response already at the tip of my tongue, but I reconsider when I meet her eyes.

Thanks to my amalgam, Acting, and Imitation, I have a fairly strong grasp on human emotions. Right now, Sierra’s expression tells me all I need to know—pain, fear, longing, protectiveness.

What I don’t understand properly are mine. I don’t understand the way my blood runs hot when I look at her; the pounding of the heart that I should have full control over; the pain that pierces deeper than any physical wound can when I think of what’ll happen next.

When this goes through, I’ll still be alive—in some sense. I’ll have to crawl out of the hells, which will risk everything and take an indeterminate amount of time. Time where I’ll be alone.

It’s laughable. I’ve survived my soul being torn apart and every form of physical destruction under the sun. Why is it that out of everything, it’s the thought of separation that hurts me the most? Why is it that even with all my resistances and immunities and protections, the thought breaks me apart inside?

Why, why, why—I know why. I was made to be a perfect killing machine, but I’ve long since stepped past those limitations. For the longest time, I’ve told myself that I’ve been tolerating Sierra and Adrian because they have power, and powerful allies are useful.

That’s no less true now than it was before, but it’s not the true reason why. If I truly just want power, I could have just killed and eaten them long ago. I could do it now.

It hurts because I want her to be with me.

I’ve known that for some time, I realize. I just haven’t admitted it to myself.

84,898 seconds remaining.

“I don’t want to go,” I say finally. “Not alone.”

There is no getting around the effect of this item. Sapphire is more powerful than me, I can feel it. The instincts driving me have yet to be wrong, and when I think of her even now, the proto-Titan part of me shrinks away.

If I try to Siphon it (you will die). If I try to banish it (you will die). If I try to rewrite it (you will die).

That gnawing voice is back, though quieter than before. Rather than admonishment, it offers advice. After so long, I have aligned my amalgam and every instinct it offers me with myself. Even if parts of it are missing, it knows.

Sapphire is (one of us) (powerful beyond your wildest dreams) (the progenitor) (the first) (the sole survivor) (the end and the beginning).

It is not possible to break her will.

Not yet. I promise myself that someday, I will see her broken body strewn across the stars.

Until then, I can’t break this.

But there are solutions beyond the pale of raw power.

“I have an idea,” I say, just as Sierra says, “I can’t let you go alone.”

I fall silent.

“Never again,” she says, fingers digging into her arms. “I won’t leave you.”

“But we can’t—“

She clenches a fist. “I know. If I can’t save you from falling, then I will fall with you.”

A deep ringing pulses through me. My blood, rebelling. Heating. Pounding.

The thread of phantom pain dissipates, enveloped by burning, searing, comforting flame.

I extend a hand in lieu of a response, and Sierra pulls me into a hug, shaking ever so slightly.

She is, I realize, crying. Try as I might, I can’t tell who those tears are for. Nor can I tell whether she’s happy I accepted or despairing for our fate.

Either way, there is one emotion I can discern for sure.

Determination.

83,117 seconds remaining.

“This isn’t going to work,” Adrian says. “There’s no way it does.”

The three of us stand at the base of Root’s Angelic Tower. Despite the thousands of deaths resulting from Callen’s final breath less than an hour ago, the first circle is entirely undisturbed. I haven’t been here before, but Adrian has.

From afar, the tower is majestic. It’s the pinnacle of the city, soaring up into infinity.

Up close, its looming infinity is oddly beautiful. It’s not the kind of beautiful that sets me aflame—there is only one who can do that—but I etch it into my mind anyway.

I may never see this sight again.

“Do you have a better idea?” Sierra asks crossly. “It’s not your life on the line.”

Adrian sighs. “Don’t get me killed in here. I can show you the ropes, but past the tenth floor is uncharted territory for me.”

“Just stay close,” I say. “Not too close, ideally.”

If I want to go to the hells, it’s simple. My race is still classified as unknown by the system, but I am, for all intents and purposes, a demon.

Sierra is not. If I kill her, that is the end of Sierra Jade’s story.

Which means we need to make her a demon. In order to do that, I’m going to have to level up. A lot.

The plan is simple. There is only one way I know of that can send Sierra tumbling into the hells with me—a special skill I chose not to take when I was first offered it. Corrupt.

Weeks ago, the system told me that I would have a “skill bank” that unlocks eventually. That, I assume, includes the ability to unlock skills that I previously passed up on, just like my level-up skill offerings were in low Category 0.

I need to get there. I just don’t know how much I need to advance to get there.

Endling claims to make me advance twice as fast as I was before.

Time to see if that’s true.

76,681 seconds remaining.

Clearing the floors is messy work. Though I barely pay attention to the floors, each one is an ecosystem of its own. While in the tower, it’s easy to forget that I’m truly inside a structure and not a different world.

The labyrinthine nature of each floor makes it harder to advance, too, and I learn soon enough that breaking through them is an invalid solution. Not only are the floors reinforced beyond the point that neither Sierra nor I can make a dent in them, even through usages of our nullspace, Adrian tells us that successfully breaking the tower floors can and will incur the wrath of the angels who built it.

After a couple of hours, we’ve cleared the ten floors that Adrian climbed yesterday. It’s not a challenge for us. My magic affinities have all advanced thanks to Endling, and the lower floors are only truly life-threatening to Category 0s and weak Category 1s.

At first, I try training every skill I have, killing monsters by turning them inside out or smiting them or by utilizing my new Sunset Dagger to dispatch less-corporeal beasts, but I soon realize that for our purposes, there is one specific type of skill I must train.

I now have a few hundred new kills to my name, primarily through Devour, Soulrend, Abyssal Echo, and Wraithfire, my four demonic skills. Each of them have leveled up at surprisingly quick rates.

My overall level rises faster than expected as well, proving Endling’s use. When I enter, my Divine Demon class is at level 108, and my Proto-Titan at 29. Though the latter does not increase at all, I manage to raise Divine Demon to 113.

Every single spare attribute point I have goes into Magic (Meta), elevating the stat to 145. My second highest, now. It’s the one that I need the most—what our plan hinges on requires an incredible amount of flexibility in my magic.

“This is as high as I went last time,” Adrian says, washing the sweat off his brow with a magical spray of cool mist. “I can’t be of much help from here on.”

We stand at the base of a twisting spiral stairwell. Despite the massive changes in the other scenery, the stairwells all look the same. Radiant gold, sparkling with faint divine magic. They’re entirely out of place here.

“You will survive,” Sierra says. “You have a domain now. That means a lot. The monsters here are only, what, level 50? 60?”

Adrian grimaces. “We’re going to start to run into uncharted territory. Your funeral.”

“It literally is,” I point out.

“Fuck me, you’re right,” he groans. “Alright.”

48,114 seconds remaining.

The eleventh floor is exponentially harder than the tenth, though the difficulty increase from there is relatively linear. By the fifteenth floor, which is completely submerged in water, we’re fighting dozens of serpents with special skills of their own. Not strong ones, but they slow us down.

Sierra and I both have nullspaces, but we just don’t have the magic capacity to have them on through the entire distance of the floors, which I’ve come to realize are much larger than the tower should be able to hold.

Our progress has noticeably slowed. Even with Adrian’s domain triggering, the fifteenth floor takes us hours to clear. No individual monster is a true threat, but the scale of the tower doesn’t stop increasing. We need to take breaks frequently; our magic isn’t designed to be in constant use.

“You know,” Adrian says in the pocket of dry space that the stairwells mercifully provide, “You’re supposed to take days to clear the higher floors. Weeks. There are permanent base camps here for a reason.”

“We left supposed to behind a long time ago,” I reply. He doesn’t have a reply to that.

I’m level 119 now, and yet I still haven’t gotten the skill I need. All of my demonic skills have leapfrogged forwards, but I haven’t gotten the opportunity to get a single new one yet.

Magic (Meta) is at 169 now. It’s my highest attribute.

“Fuck,” I mutter. My amalgam gives me no information on how this progression is supposed to go. My interaction with the system is completely uncharted territory.

“Evelyn,” Sierra says, cupping my cheek with one hand. “If we can’t find a way, then I will tunnel down into the depths of the hells themselves. I swear it.”

“I’ll find a way,” I reply, shaking my head. “We’ll find a way.”

“Can you two get a room?” Adrian mutters, quiet enough that he probably thinks neither of us can hear him.

42,088 seconds remaining.

Adrian is starting to flag. We all are, but he is especially. This exhaustive pace isn’t meant for anyone. We’re managing our mana through my Devour restoring me and then using Sierra’s Link to spread it around, but overuse of magic is affecting all of us.

“I’m sorry,” he says from within the force-bubble Sierra provides. “I’m not strong enough.”

The sixteenth floor is a dense jungle, and we’ve barely cut our way through a few pieces of it. I wonder how often people even come up here. We passed by people from time to time before, but they’re getting rarer the higher we go.

“It’s okay,” Sierra says gently. “You’re—“

“It’s not,”Adrian snaps. “I’ve always lagged behind, and you know it. I’ve been a weight chained to your ankles, and I don’t think that’s ever been more obvious than now. We have how long?”

“Eleven and a half hours,” I say.

“Eleven and a half hours until Evelyn fucking dies, and I’m slowing us down,” he says. “And before you say it, yes, I’ve been trying. I’m doing my godsdamned best, and that isn’t enough. I did something that should’ve been impossible, and I’m nowhere close to you two. I’m not a proto-Titan. I’m not invincible. The best I can be is someone that gets in your way.”

The objective snaps into place for all three of us at the same time.

Objective: Ascend

Become greater than what you are. Climb higher than anyone has climbed and live to tell the tale. This is a multi-tier objective. Separate rewards will be granted at the 25th, 50th, 75th, 100th, 150th, 200th, 300th and 342nd floors.

Floor 25 reward: 25,000 XP + Gold-tier special skill

It takes all three of us off guard, and when Adrian mumbles his description out loud, I realize that we’ve all received the exact same quest.

“That’s a shitload,” Adrian says. “But can we even make it there? The floors are so—they’re so fucking long.”

“They’re not going to get that much harder,” I say. “The sky serpent we killed from the hundredth floor was Category 2. I don’t know if that was a regular monster from that floor or a boss, though I’m leaning towards the former.”

“Eleven and a half hours isn’t nearly enough,” Adrian says. “Not for me. You’re going to have to leave me behind.”

Left unspoken is the fact that one way or another, I’m leaving him behind anyway. Possibly forever.

He’s right. That’s the problem. Each floor is taking us longer and longer. The tenth floor took us about thirty minutes. The fifteenth took almost three hours. We’re not going to make it to the twenty-fifth floor before the Death Prayer triggers.

I sigh. It’s a tantalizing opportunity. That gold-tier special skill is almost certainly Corrupt. The system has proven itself to be intelligent to some extent, and it’s no mistake that this is starting now that Adrian’s realized he needs to ascend to match us.

It’s also impossible.

“Even without you, we can’t go that fast,” I say. “Not without breaking the ceilings, which we can’t do.”

“I hear a but coming,” Sierra says, a tense, unsure smile gracing her lips. “There always is one with you.”

“But I can try something,” I say.

My magic works on instinct, but I try to add further intent behind it this time. I need it, if I’m to succeed. Magic (Meta) is by far my highest stat now, but I wish it was higher. I need every drop of it I can get for this.

I advance, and I kill, and I protect, and I do it all through the same medium.

My truths all stem from my power, and the first true taste of power I have is the same one I want to wield now.

I eat the objective.

38,199 seconds remaining.

When my eyes open again, the jungle around us is burning.

"Don't scare me like that," Sierra scolds me. Her heart isn't in it—I can hear the worry in her voice. “It’s been a hour. You just closed your eyes, started Devouring something, and… I think you broke something.”

It certainly does feel that way. Something in the world is missing, and it’s my fault.

I look at my objectives, and there is only one.

Objective: Marie’s monster

Kill your creators.

Targets killed: [2/32]

Reward: ???

The objective granted to me to climb the tower is missing.

And in its place is a single, shining skill.

Corrupt (Legendary)

Tier: Gold

You have sought to spread your corruption before you even gained the ability to create it. You, Evelyn Carnelian, have corrupted a shattered god; you have corrupted yourself; and now, you have nearly corrupted your system itself.

The individual you activate this skill on becomes a demon and a vector of demonic corruption. Their access to the system will be modified. They will gain resistance to system-based skills. They will gain power upon consuming others. Inhibitions will be removed.

I blink. The text on the system has changed. It’s speaking to me.

It’s more intelligent than I thought.

“I did it,” I whisper. Louder, I say, “Sierra, I did it. I have the skill.”

She pumps a fist, exhaling hard like the weight of the world has just dropped from her shoulders.

“There’s our first miracle,” I say, grinning.

You are witnessed.

The words catch me off guard. I know where that came from. Sierra’s heard it too. Only Adrian doesn’t, and he stands there, confused, looking askance at the two of us.

The Titans are speaking to us. Not just one of them.

Sixteen voices witness us. I don’t know which isn’t addressing us, but I can guess. Number 17, the never-observed Forgotten Titan.

They fall silent, and for a long minute, we wait for more. Nothing comes.

The Titans are watching. I don’t know how I should feel about that.

What I do know is what I have to do now.

“Sierra?” I ask. “Do you trust me?”

She closes the distance between us in two quick strides. “Always.”

My fellow proto-Titan puts her faith in me, and as thanks, I Corrupt her. The line between this skill and Devour is scarily thin—when I start using it, I almost stop immediately, fearful that I’ve somehow messed up my choice of skills, but no, the acts are just nigh-identical.

It takes less time than it feels like it should, but I feel something shift within Sierra as my demonic magic swirls within me, inducing the same within her. I hope I haven’t broken her.

“So that’s it, huh,” Sierra says. “I feel… ever so slightly different. Did it work?”

I nod. “It should. Let me check.”

Adrian gasps as we examine her together.

Name: Sierra Jade

Age: 19

Race: Demon (Base: Human)

Class: Blue Mage/Red Mage

Level: 61/281

Last Used Skill: Forcefield (Gold) - lvl 50

Traits:

Killer V

Hexed

Godsmarked

Anomalous

Bonded (Proto-Titan)

Demonic Heritage

Your Corrupted first love.

I breathe out a relieved sigh. “It worked.”

32,881 seconds remaining.

“You have so many items,” Adrian says. “Where did you even get all this?”

“I have a Personal Space,” Sierra says, tossing another vaguely magical key onto an increasing pile of assorted enchanted paraphernalia. “I pick up a lot of stuff along the way. Don’t try to sell these. Some stores will recognize what I took.”

Adrian laughs. “Got it, got it.”

I set my Soulshard Rifle down onto the pile. Demons don’t have proper souls, not in the same way that other beings do, even if they can feed me properly. I can’t charge this rifle with them.

The Sunset Dagger, on the other hand, I give to Sierra to store.

“I don’t know if this will come to the hells with us,” she warns. “I don’t know if I’ll even end up in the hells.”

Adrian knows better than to try to contest her again.

“I’ll take good care of these, I promise,” the Warrior in question says, indicating the new arsenal he’s acquired. “Should make this place a little easier to deal with.”

“You’re staying in the tower?” I ask.

“I am,” he replies. “My objective is still there. I need to get stronger. This is the best way.”

I nod. “Good luck.”

It takes him a while to situate himself with the dozens of new items he’s received. Nothing we wear or carry will make it to the hells, so he gets everything of value now, rather than off our corpses.

“We still have have nine hours,” Adrian says. “Wanna train some more before that thing goes off?”

I shake my head. “No. I’m done following Sapphire’s orders. Even if the result is the same, I’d rather not arrive on her schedule.”

He looks rather chagrined at that, but he ultimately nods. “Alright. I can’t say I get it, but I respect it.”

“This is goodbye, then,” Sierra says.

“I guess,” Adrian replies. “But not really. There’s an entire world to train against in here. If you two don’t make it out yourselves, I swear to you that I’ll come for you. I’ll be worth your time. I will meet you again.”

“Not a goodbye,” I agree. Goodbyes are for those I will never see again. They’re final. And as much as it surprises me, I do want to stay with Adrian when this is all over. The feeling isn’t as intense as it is with Sierra, but I will… miss him. That’s the right word, I think. It’s a foreign feeling. “Until we meet again.”

“Until we meet again,” Sierra echoes. “You’re going to be the last of our batch still alive. Remember us well.”

“I will,” Adrian says, turning towards the burnt edge of the crater I accidentally created. Towards the rest of the tower. “I’ll see you soon.”

We watch him stride away, looking far more confident than he ever has. Adrian’s figure grows smaller and smaller in our vision, and then he steps into a thicket of trees and disappears entirely.

He never looks back.

32,607 seconds remaining.

“This is it, then,” Sierra says. Her eyes, blue as always, are tinged with the slightest hint of red in the irises. I wonder if that was her choice or if it’s a symptom of the demonic corruption I’ve inflicted upon her.

“So it is,” I reply.

“You and I, together. Two proto-Titans against the hells.”

“Against demons,” I agree. “Against angels.”

“Against Sapphire.” Sierra hisses the word with the same vehemence I would.

“When we get out,” I vow, “We’re going to break her.”

“We’ll break all of them,” Sierra replies, her voice low. “Every last one of them.”

She pulls me into an embrace, and I let her. I can’t tell if the warmth is hers or mine.

“Hey, Evelyn,” Sierra whispers. “You know, even after all of this, it might not work out.”

“Don’t say that,” I say. “It will. I’ve made it so. You’re coming with me.”

“Even so,” she says. “It might fail.”

“It might,” I admit. “You can still back out. Nine hours.”

“Fuck that. Fuck her. We’re doing this now, and we’re doing it. Not her.”

A hand—Sierra’s hand—brushes the back of my neck, and she meets my eyes, blue to red.

Beautiful.

“Not a bad last sight,” she decides, and I can’t help but agree. “Come. Let’s get on with it.”

We draw our knives at the same time, our soul bond passing our intent to each other.

I tilt her jaw up with one hand. She does the same for me.

The cuts are clean. Sierra uses a magical blade formed out of raw force. I use my Sunset Dagger.

Both of us withdraw our magic, suppressing every one of our myriad skills that could protect our lives as we slit each other’s throats.

She mouths three words as our lifeblood spills forth. I smile, mirroring her.

Our last words aren’t to each other. The two of us pool our stored power together, broadcasting our burning intent to the entire world.

Witness. Us.

I die looking into Sierra’s eyes.

___

Author's note: Wow, that was a long chapter. For what I hope are obvious reasons, this one was a challenge to write, and I may or may not be a little nervous about it. If you've got any thoughts to offer, I'd really appreciate them.

This is the last main chapter of book 2. There will be an epilogue.