She had time to notice that the black tide had risen above them in a vast wave, cold and seeking and desperate. She had time to feel the weight of Armand’s body against hers, his elbow jabbed into her side. And she had time to think, He is never going to forgive me for this, before she opened her mouth and said, “Yes.”
The Devourer was falling too swiftly and greedily to turn aside from any willing sacrifice. The dark wave crashed down on her and filled her up. Her body shuddered and writhed under the weight. There was no sound in her ears but the screaming of the nighttime wind. Her vision blurred; she saw Justine and the Bishop charge into the room, saw the forestborn turning to fight, but it was like watching distorted shadow puppets on a faraway wall.
In one flash, she saw Armand’s gray eyes, wide with panic. She couldn’t see Amélie, but she knew that she was somewhere in the room. There was still a chance that both of them could live, and she thought to the darkness inside her, Yes, yes, yes.
Then nothing mattered, nothing besides the raw fury that she had been tricked, that this was the wrong vessel. This one still stank of human foolishness, but it was not human, and her lips drew back in a snarl of helpless rage.
“Rachelle? Rachelle!” Someone was shaking her shoulders and screaming.
She blinked open her eyes at the worthless traitor sacrifice—
“In the name of Tyr and Zisa, let her go!”
Her body shuddered. “Armand,” she gasped. She could feel his fingers digging into her shoulders, but the feeling wasn’t quite connected to her.
She remembered sitting with Amélie in the darkness and talking about peace. Just a few brushstrokes, Amélie had said.
“What did you do?” Armand demanded.
Two steps. One word. A certain idiot abnegation, Erec had said, and it was easier than he had ever guessed.
“Joyeuse,” she said. “The Bishop has it.”
She saw Armand understand, saw him shatter with the knowledge.
“Please,” she whispered, because the dark tide of the Devourer was pouring over her again, into her eyes, her nose, her mouth, drowning her and refashioning her, and she knew that he was trying to burn through her and absorb her so he could take another vessel. So he could rule.
Armand looked like a broken window, desolate and razor-sharp. He stood—he shouted useless human words—and then he had the abomination, the blasphemous sword created to defy her. He was going to kill her when he should worship her, he was vile ungrateful faithless—
She blinked, and she loved him again. Joyeuse was clinging to his hand, and his face was set in the trembling, absolute resolution that had held the Devourer back for six months.
He had never been so beautiful. She had never loved him so much.
There was blood and battle all around them, but they were the only two people in the world.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and then the blade was between her ribs, and it didn’t hurt, but it burned like fire and ice, like the sun and the moon and the host of stars.
And then there was night.
She was in a forest.
But it was not the Great Forest. That forest, as dark and terrible as it could be, was riotously alive. This was the forest of her dreams, and it was dead. Leafless trees stretched writhing, naked branches toward the sky. Dark red blood oozed from the cracks in their rough black bark, the only color in the bleak world. For the ground was covered in powdery white dust, while the sky was gray. Not the mottled, damp gray of overcast clouds, but a flat, featureless gray that no sun would ever burn away. The air itself was dry and dead; her breath rasped in her throat, and every breath stole away a little more of her strength.
But she didn’t need to be strong now. Rachelle dropped to her knees. Black speckled her vision and it didn’t matter. She had been eaten by the Devourer and she had been killed with Joyeuse. She had, she hoped, killed him along with her. Was this lifeless world a last flickering dream before she fully died, or was it the beginning of her eternity?
She started to fall forward and caught herself on her hands, sending up a wave of dust that made her cough and gag. It didn’t matter. She had done what she could, made what amends she could, and all the rest was beyond her.
Almost all the amends she could. She’d never said the rosary that was to be her penance. She tried to form the words, but her mouth was too dry, her breath too short. Besides, penance was for those who had a hope of heaven, and she wasn’t at all sure that God could hear or find her in this place.
But that was all right, wasn’t it? She had first talked to the forestborn—to Erec—because she wanted to save the world. She had known she was risking her soul, but she had gone ahead anyway, and she had gotten her wish. She might have repented, but she couldn’t quite regret.
This was her home. This, her inheritance.
She hardly felt it when she crumpled to the ground. Her vision was swiftly going dark. She thought of Armand and Amélie; she could take those memories, at least, into the darkness.
There were worse endings.
BUT IT IS NOT THE END.
It is not the end because even death is not the end of fighting. I am dead, and I know.
But even beyond death, there are endings, and mine is almost here. Now it lies to you, my daughter, my sister, my pride. Wake up. Finish my story.
Wake.
34
“Wake.”
It was the voice that had spoken to her just now, telling her the story of Tyr and Zisa. She had been dreaming then, as she listened—she had thought she was dreaming—but now she heard the voice’s final words with her own ears.
And Rachelle opened her eyes. Beside her knelt a girl her own age. Tangled dark hair fell about her round, bony face; in the center of her forehead was an eight-pointed red star. Her dress was made from fold after fold of black silk; it took Rachelle a moment to realize that her chest was slick with blood.
Rachelle’s mouth was dry and stiff; when she tried to speak, she started coughing. Finally she managed to swallow, and said, “You’re Zisa.”
“Yes,” said the girl.
Her voice was soft but clear, sad yet resolute. It was exactly the way she had sounded when telling the story of how she and Tyr had fought the Devourer and both failed and won.
Rachelle sat up. They were still in the bleeding forest, though perhaps the gray sky was a shade darker.
“If I’m dead,” she said, “where are all the others the Devourer has eaten?”
“Did you not hear? Even after death, there are endings. They all faded from this place long ago.”