Seconds Before Sunrise (The Timely Death Trilogy) (31 page)

She wiped it away. “I’m fine,” she breathed, but her pupils rolled around. “You’re not hurt.”

I shook my head, and she stared at me like I was a ghost, someone who shouldn’t be alive. I ignored it and panicked at her injured state. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

“Those don’t exist here.”

“What—”

“Relax,” she said, solidifying into a supernatural being. She laid her hand, hot and humid, on my face, and her fingers pressed against my temples. This time, I obeyed, and darkness suffocating my conscience into emptiness. The hollow state didn’t last long.

People − faces, voices, touches, and smells − spun by too fast to comprehend. When it slowed, I recognized the smell of the river first. I touched the guardrail beneath my fingers. I heard his footsteps. I saw him, his straight hair, settling around his pale face and iced-over eyes. He moved through the shadows, his hands disappearing and reappearing, and then he was touching me.

Everything rushed out of him
− the night we flew, filled with sparks of blue and purple, and the first time his lips pressed against mine, thirsty with desperation. Bats soared across the morning sky, and I remembered Fudicia’s golden hair as she threw my body away. My heart crunched as Shoman left me and reformed before Darthon’s knife sliced against my shoulder. And Camille was there, clutching onto me as she took me to the Dark.

I recalled everything, and the world shattered, reveali
ng the woman who brought everything back.

I dug my nails in
to Camille’s arm, knowing she was Teresa all along. We were in the Light’s realm, and I should’ve been in pain. I should’ve been dying. But I wasn’t, even though Camille was suffering.

“We have to get out of here,” I managed, trying to stand up, but she yanked me to the ground.

“Do you remember everything?”

“Eric is in trouble.” It was my only response.

Camille, on the other hand, was gaping. “You’re not in pain?”

“No,” I ranted. “But we need to find a way out of here—”
before we die.

“Only lights can control this place,” Camille said, and I knew I couldn’t leave on my own. Still, she smiled. “Good thing I’m half of one.”

I grabbed her arm. It felt like she was thinning with every second. “You can’t,” I said. “You’re hurt.”

“That’s what Darthon’s counting on,” she muttered, refusing to surrender. “That’s what separates us from them. We realize sacrifice is a must.”

She said it like she wasn’t leaving with me.

“What will happen to you?”

“This isn’t about me,” she avoided a direct answer.

“Camille!”

“Tell Eric the girl was right,” she instructed, steadying her fingers on my face. “He’ll understand.”

“You’ll d
ie if you stay,” I argued.

S
he looked away, her black eyes reflecting the flames from the heatless fire. “Shoman loves you, Jess,” she stated. “He needs you, and you need him. If you die, he will, too.”

“He wouldn’t want you to die for me.”

“He wouldn’t want us both to die either,” she retorted, turning back to me. “It’s one or the other.”

“Both of us can get out.”

“No, we can’t,” she said, and warmth flooded my veins like a relaxant. “I’ve already bestowed my energy to you,” she explained, and I knew her Light powers were inside of me.

Her form diss
ipated, and a side of Teresa I had never seen before looked back at me. She was sickly, thinning as if her blood had been drained from her body. She was dying in front of me. “Saving the Dark is worth dying for.” Not life. Not love. Only duty.

I sniffled, rubbing the tears from
my face as they ran down my cheek. “I don’t want you to die.”

“For what it’s worth, I’ve always seen you as one of us,” she stuttered, barely able to breathe. “Remember that when you’re fighting.”

I tried to hold onto her as a bright light engulfed me, and a willowing structure appeared in the mist. “Goodbye, Jess,” she said just as I joined the battle.

Eric

The hillside looked like a yin-yang symbol, quavering and swirling together in the ironic imbalance that created it. Blood mixed with my sweat as it trickled down my forehead, and the liquid left the tips of my hair crusted together. My brow was slit, and my right arm was slashed from my shoulder to my elbow. Darthon’s sword had only struck me once, but the injury was numbing my limb. I would’ve been at a disadvantage if I hadn’t gashed his leg at the same time he struck me.

I panted, glancing at the field that once had been covered in snow. It was now pink with diluted blood, and the
slaughterhouse waved as if it would take us down at any moment.

“How much longer can you handle me?” Darthon spat as our swords collided again.

“As long as you can stay alive.” I shoved him back, and my muscle tore further. I grit my teeth as he laughed, but he didn’t attack me.

He wiped his face, revealing a slit
cheek I hadn’t even realized I had given him. I took advantage of his break and spit out the tangy blood that had collected in my mouth. My lip was cut.

“How’s your leg?” I asked, hoping to deter his confidence.

“Better than your arm.”

I shifted
my sword to my left hand. Urte had trained me to be ambidextrous. “You’re the one hesitating now,” I said, even though I was relieved by the break.

“I don’t want this battle to end so quickly.” He smiled, but it crumbled from his face when the slit on his cheek stretched. “I want to enjoy my victory.”

“That’s going to be hard when you’re dead.”

He lunged forward, and we fought, my back pressed against the willow tree. “You won’t kill me,” he wheezed, his nose inches from mine. “Not when it’d collapse the realm on Jess.”

My heart dropped, but my adrenaline rose, and I made a decision. I absorbed my sword, ducking beneath his blade, and his dagger stuck in the bark. He didn’t have time to react. I slammed my hand against his chest, and he soared backwards, skimming across the ice like he was no more than a ragdoll discarded by a malicious child.

My footsteps shook the ground as I trudged toward him, slamming my foot on his
wrist. His black eyes flashed as his weapon disappeared, and I brought mine back, placing it next to his throat. “Bring them back,” I ordered, my voice tearing. “Now.”

“Or what? You’ll kill me?” he croaked. “I’m taking them with me.”

I flicked my wrist, and my blade sliced across his chest. He screamed, and I dug the toe of my boot into his hand. “Want to answer that again?”

He wouldn’t budge as a groan escaped him.

“Bring them back before I kill you.”

“Kill me and win this prophetic battle of yours,” he screamed back. Even he knew I was in control of his end.

“Not without Jessica.”

“Your Jessica is gone,” he spat.

I raised my sword, slamming my foot against his throat as I brought my weapon down for the kill. Inches away, a woman’s scream interrupted my actions before her attack did.

My left side was struck with fire, and I crumbled over, filled with a pain I’d never felt before. It filled my insides as if my organs and muscles were tearing apart. My powers were suffocating, and my sword was gone. When I opened my eyes, a fog of snow exploded into the air, reacting to my collision, and it glittered against the night sky like a hundred new stars. A stifled moan came out of my lungs before it drifted away.

“Darthon,” the woman continued to scream as she fell on her knees at his side. It was Fudicia who attacked me. “Are you okay?”

Darthon stood up, ranting, but his words melted together. All of my senses were blending. I couldn’t speak, feel, or think clearly. Anything was everything. There was no singularity.

I saw Pierce, holding the half-breed against the ground, and then I heard the war. There was a shout, and Pierce’s green eyes glowed through the darkness. But I couldn’t react. I already felt as if I had died.

Darthon’s voice was the first one to bring my focus back. “You’re pathetic,” he said, and I realized we’d switched positions. He was on top of me, and his sword was against my throat, burning my thinning skin. “You’re weak enough to fall from Fudicia’s hand—”

“I thought this war was between you and me,” I used his words against him. “What happened to our war?”

“Our war is over,” he bellowed. “Our war is my victory.”

“It’s Fudicia’s victory,” I retorted, and he faltered, moving his blade away. I took a breath as he stepped back.

“Get up,” he demanded.

I didn’t give him a chance to change his mind. I pushed myself to my feet as quickly as I was able to. Behind my enemy, Fudicia gaped. “You aren’t going to kill him?” she screeched, her white hair spiking around her snarl.

He pushed the woman who
just saved his life. “Not with you in the way,” he growled.

“She won’t get in
the way again,” a boy said, and I looked over my shoulder to see Pierce, covered in blood that wasn’t his. When my eyes traveled past him, the hill seemed darker than before, blanketed with shades instead of lights. They were losing.

“I thought I got rid of you,” Fudicia glowered, but her voice was shaking.

“Not quite,” Pierce said, and then he was fighting her, directing her backwards with every blow.

Be careful,
I spoke to him, but I regretted my lack of concentration instantly.

Darthon’s hand wrapped around my throat, and he pinned me against the tree. It was a simple mistake, but it was big enough to end my life. He was in control again, and no
one had intervened but me.

“Looks like the first descendant
will also be the first to fall.” His breath was musty as it brushed my face.

I
managed to get my sword out, but he was too close. The pressure of heat scorched my gut, and I knew my own blade would slice me open if I didn’t get back.

I leaned away, but he repositioned, and my shoulder blades dug into the willow tree’s bark. Out of all of the places to die, this had to be the most ironic.

It didn’t matter if my people were winning. I couldn’t kill Darthon if it meant Camille and Jessica would die in his realm, and I couldn’t force him to bring them back. I’d die from exhaustion before I would kill him. Even with destiny on my side, I was too weak to win everything I had prepared myself for. But Jessica would be alive.

At least, she woul
d have a chance.

I let go of my sword, and it disappeared before hitting the ground. “Looks like you win,” I said
, but Darthon didn’t cut me in half.

He held back, waiting for my people to witness my fall. The sounds of clashing weapons shifted into the cheers of the Light and the cries of the Dark. “Don’t give up, Shoman,” one screeched, and I wondered
what my father was shouting. “Fight back.”

But I couldn’t fight anymore. People were dying in my name, and others were murdering in Darthon’s. Until one of us was dead, more would fall. My death would save more people than my life would save. Fighting was pointless
− absurd even − and I had already made up my mind. It was my night to die.

Darthon swung his sword backwards, and I
stared at his face, knowing he would be the last person I would ever see. I wanted to hear the blade strike me, but the only sound I could hear was my heartbeat, thundering quietly as if it were preparing to fade away. The air shifted as he brought it down, but it wasn’t cold. It was hot, and it was exploding.

I wasn’t standing upright anymore. I couldn’t see the stars or hear the shouts of my people. I only felt the snow beneath my hands. My palms thumped with my blood-filled veins, and I stared at my shaking fingertips. I was alive, but I couldn’t make sense of anything.

“Get up.” Her voice shattered my decision to die, but her presence froze my life.

I couldn’t believe what my mind was telling me, and the silence suggested the crowd couldn’t either. She’d appeared from Darthon’s sword, and she hadn’t hesitated to blast him away from me. He was yards away, struggling to stand, and I was saved by a purple-eyed girl.

“Jessica.” I never thought I would be able to speak again.

“Get up,” she repeated, grabbing my shoulder before she yanked me to my feet. She was beyond a
live. She was fighting, and I couldn’t stop her.

Jessica

I spiraled at him, soaring through the air with more power than I recalled having. Even my sword was larger, piercing the sky with a brightness never seen. I handled it like it was an extension of my body and aimed it at Darthon’s chest. He stumbled to the side.

When my feet hit the ground, I was panting, and I didn’t leave my back to face him. I turned around, expecting an attack, but he held his hands up.

“How’d you know that you could get out?” he asked, his voice rushing over me.