“But Annellius didn’t free Echnid.”
“No,” he agreed. “My sacrifice came much sooner than yours. It was the wake-up call he needed, and I took it willingly, seeing much further ahead than he could, blinded as he was by greed.”
Dammit, look at what this Angelcurse did to those who dared to love an Alabath.
Love. That was what he wanted from me here. To admit the connection between the two.
“Sacrifice,” I repeated the first explanation to his rambling. “And the driving force of it: love.”
It was such a simple answer, the two really worked hand in hand. When you were utterly devoted to someone, what lengths would you go to keep them?
Apparently, the ends of Angelblessed existence. And you would hold no regret in your spirit as you went.
Hectatios nodded. I’d reached the conclusion he’d hoped for and understood that final message.
“I will go next,” Brenna said, a bit obviously given that it was only the two of them. The fires lining the cavern dimmed, but those scars across her arms still shimmered like freshly healed skin.
Brenna swept before Hectatios, her long braid swinging to her waist. Her square cheekbones pulled at her skin, as if she had been very thin when she lived.
“While you were trapped by bars and chains, I suffered from being slain. Not by blades or enemies, but unseen deadly maladies. An infirmary bed was my prison, but one bright day, I was risen. It was not what I hoped as fate, yet it was written onmy death date. And when it came, I accepted it as true, in order to attend those needing a change of tune.”
Her words skated along the walls with a trickling power, almost tangible. I ignored the fact that she broke the rhyme at the end, attempting to unravel what she’d stated.
She wasn’t killed. An infirmary bed—so she’d been sick. That was likely what had taken her life, how she got the scars adorning her skin, and why she appeared so frail.
Why would a warrior who died of disease be one of my Spirits? I studied her as I considered, counting her scars to try to clear my mind.
If I was her, I would have questionedwhy me. Why was I dealt this fate when so many others weren’t? But something in her words rang more positive. Like she’d made peace?—
Peace.
That’s what I had been searching for all these fucking years. But while Brenna’s battle had been a physical ailment, I’d fought mine in my mind. The days of crushing darkness. The days I’d tried to run—run so fucking far and fast that no one would find me. That I could barricade myself within my own mind.
But someone had pushed through.
Someone fought for me. Someone helped me heal.
Heal.
I pressed a hand to the wound on my chest, barely feeling it.
Brenna hadn’t healed physically, but she’d found acceptance in her fate. Enough to be one of the Spirits deeming warriors worthy or not in their own Undertaking. She had not healed her body…
My attention snapped from a scar twisting the skin of her wrist to her eyes. And as if she heard my reasoning, Brenna smiled.
“A healed spirit,” I said confidently.
And when Brenna nodded, the empty cage in my chest inflated with pride. And it felt…good. Accomplished to have gotten a true riddle of the Spirits correct.Rightto have tried.
“And do you feel you have that now?” Brenna asked.
I balked, a bit thrown off guard that she had more questions. I assumed I would just move from one to the next. But I answered honestly, “Yes.”
“Do you truly?” Brenna challenged, her fingers drumming against her arm. “Do you feel that you have conquered your demons? That you could go on?”
If my heart could beat, it would have been thundering. I’d made progress toward overcoming my past. I understood a lot of the shit I experienced and why I reacted the way I did a lot better now. I could stand on a battlefield without running.
But was I healed?
