A sudden storm, surrounding her in clouds that filled immediately with rain; the fire on her wings was doused, leaving the scent of burnt skin and feathers, and then the storm was gone.
“This is what she is now.” Addressed to Gabe and Hestraon both, a pronouncement of ownership. “She is this, and she is Mine, and there is nothing that you can do about it. You were never more than a diversion.”
“No,” Gabe said, and he didn’t know if he was protesting on his own account or Hestraon’s.
Gabe dove forward, aiming for the god’s legs; he was easily sidestepped, and it felt like something grabbed the heart in his chest as he was slammed into the ground, his lungs seizing, organs momentarily paused in their workings. His Spiritum, held in Lore’s fist. Apollius’s fist.
A stutter in movement. Lore’s hazel eyes, momentarily surfacing from gold, brightness fading. “Hestraon.” Horror twisted her face as she saw the truth through threads of Spiritum, even as she made Apollius loosen his hold. “Gabe, what did you do?”
Apollius, again, golden-eyed, Lore’s mouth bent in a cruel smile. “Yes, beloved. He’s here. We can finally have this out.”
Gabe struck again in the seconds she’d granted him, more useless fire, more grasping vines. Desperate to somehow unhook Apollius from Lore, to untangle the chimera they made. Laughter, the god easily avoiding every move. Lore burned like the sun, all the light in the world packed down into her form; she cast such long shadows. Apollius taunted, but Gabe wasn’t even listening, concentrated only on the fight he could not win, the prize that could not be secured. Fighting wouldn’t bring Lore back to him, but it might buy him time.
The thin golden road to the last Fount piece led to Its broken side. The last piece, his piece, and the rest burning in his pocket, making his legs numb.
He could see where they fit into the jagged lip of the Fount. All he had to do was get them there. Gabe crawled forward.
The razor tip of a shining wing, spearing toward him in the unnatural night. Gabe tried to duck out of the way, but it caught him in the chest, sent him flying. He landed in a crumpled heap by the Fount, ears ringing, bones that should be broken aching all the more for still being whole. His power did not heal him, not like Spiritum had healed Bastian; it only made him linger in the hurt.
Lore fought free, one shake of her head. “You can’t win,” she said, but the last word was strangled out, her neck wrenching as Apollius came to the fore again, her voice changing mid-sentence. “Gabe, you can’t win, it’s pointless to try—”
The god crouched, eyes beaming like searchlights. “I want to hurt you so much worse, but she fights hard against it. Because she loves you, still. She loves you, and that is why she wants you to succumb to this.” The shining hand rose, touched Gabe’s face. It burned, not like fire but like acid. “This is the better way, Gabriel. Hestraon. I was trying to save you all along. We could never be equal, but we could be something.”
His vision was all flames, and when words came, they weren’t his own. Hestraon, using Gabe’s mouth. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”
“Of course it does.” The hand that had caressed him backhanded Gabe across the face, sent him skittering sideways in a cloud of embers. He coughed, dirt in his teeth, futilely calling up more fire that the god sidestepped. “I’m keeping Her safe, don’t you understand? I could keep You safe, too. Isn’t that what You wanted? Me to care for You the same?”
Another backhand, belying the earnestness of the words. The only thing holding Apollius back was Lore. Fierce, beautiful Lore, who never knew a love that didn’t end in violence.
“I am what You are,” Hestraon said, the words making Gabe recoil even as his mouth moved. “Half the world’s soul. It can be the three of Us.”
“You,” Apollius said, casually kicking him in the ribs, “will never be what I am.”
Despite the pain, Gabe scrambled forward, fumbling the shards of the broken Fount even as Hestraon tried to take over his fingers and make them fall, convinced He could somehow win Apollius over. One, carved with leaf and wind and wave, slotted into place. The other, marked with a sun, settled beside it.
Gabe scrabbled in the dirt, following the wavering golden path. No bigger than a pebble, the flame-carved shard winked from the ground. When he picked it up, his hand felt like it was made of stone.
It’s a mistake.Even now, Hestraon couldn’t admit defeat. Couldn’t bear the thought of hurting Apollius.They’ll never love you like you need. Isn’t this proof enough?
The fear of it threatened to pull him under. Gabe was not someone who trusted in love. Nothing in his life had taught him it was safe. If Lore had never known a love not colored with violence, he’d never known one that didn’t end in betrayal. His father. Anton.
But if he had to have faith in anything, it was Lore and Bastian.
And even though he was afraid—even though he relished the feeling of power singing down his veins, the security of a magic that had made a home in him—that faith was enough. He was enough. They’d shown him that.
He thought of what he’d said to Bastian on the ship. That he had the most to atone for. Part of him still believed that, but love cast out fear. He would be loved, no matter his past, no matter his magic or lack of it. Just as himself, he would be loved.
I am not You, he said to the god in his head.And Lore is not Nyxara, and Bastian is not Apollius. We are our own.
He fit the flame-carved piece into the lip of the Fount.
The Fount glowed golden. The song swelled.
Nothing else happened.
Lore glanced at the newly whole Fount dismissively. “Well done,” she said. “But you’re too late, and too wrong. Without the waters, the Fount is nothing. And It never fixed anything. She knows that now. Why go back to the way things were, when a new world is possible?”
His mouth was bleeding. Pain splintered through his abdomen with each heartbeat. All of Gabe was one pulsing ache, a worse hurt than having his eye pulled out, a worse hurt than anything he’d ever endured.
