Page 90

“You may not agree yet,” he says. His eyes soften. “But someday, you will.”

“And you may be a god,” I reply. “But at heart, you’re still just a boy, frozen in time. You’re just Arthur.”

The mention of his mortal name strikes true. His eyes seem to constrict, and for an instant, I think I see him standing before me—the boy, the soldier. His eyes are dark and liquid, so determined to keep others alive.

And as I stare at him, I think of what he had once told me. In order for death to exist, there must be life. In order for life to exist, there must be death. They are equal and opposite forces, the eternal equation, one begetting the other. Something cannot die unless it first lived. Something cannot be born unless something else died. Stars grow to a size so massive that they can no longer bear it, so they explode, scattering their remains back into the universe in a rich cloud of elements. From the dust of that death comes new stars, beacons of light in the darkness.

Suddenly, I know the only way I can free Étienne.

Raven closes his eyes for a moment, his brow furrowed, a resigned determination on his features.

“So be it,” he says to Willow. “I’m sorry.”

The energy in my soul suddenly surges forward—and the pain that it brings is so powerful that I scream. For a moment, my entire world washes out into a haze of blinding light, and through it, I feel the overwhelming pull of my patron god calling me forward, then the unbearable coercion to do as he wills.

To claim the souls of Love and Earth.

There is no more time left for hesitation, no room for me to gauge whether I should do this. I think of how a single moment in time—a minute, a handful of seconds—can be meaningless to an average passerby while shifting your entire world. Can act as the hinge on life’s door.

What if you had taken this intersection instead of that one.

Had taken a different road. Had skipped class, missed work.

Had gone to lunch an hour later.

They say that the idea of a single pivot point in life doesn’t exist. Life is evolution and change is slow, a million minuscule mutations that ultimately lead to this specific day. Amino acids become bacteria become reptiles become mammals become humanity. In other words, for you to choose to eat lunch an hour later, first the universe must have been created.

But perhaps that is exactly what’s happening here. Perhaps this is the entire reason I have always felt wrong. Maybe my entire life has led me to this point.

As if in slow motion, I see Laine step forward and hoist her crossbow at Raven, even though there is no chance that she could challenge a god. Still, she tries to defend me, this final act of defiance.

Instead of lunging at Willow, I turn instead toward Raven and throw myself in front of him—

—right as Laine fires her arrow.

Too late, Raven realizes what I’m doing. The arrow flies free, straight toward me. It plunges deep into my chest, piercing straight through my heart and emerging from my back.

The shock of it knocks me backward. I barely feel the impact of the ground, can only hear Laine’s scream as if muffled, can see but a faint blur in the corner of my vision of Raven moving toward me, of his furious voice.

Scientific facts swim through my mind. Hemothorax, I think feverishly. The buildup of blood between the chest wall and lung. I struggle to breathe. Pain engulfs me, and I feel like I am drowning. Blood accumulation restricting lung expansion.

As I lie on the ground, I catch a glimpse of Laine. Her eyes are wide with anguish as she sprints toward me, but her movements look slow, the way time had seemed to slow on the day Étienne had attacked her in the alley, when Raven had first come to claim me. But even through her terror, I can see the realization on her expression. She knows exactly what I’ve done.

In order to free Étienne, I have to find my way into the Eternal Tree. This is how.

Then Raven is hovering over me, lifting me up, his eyes alight with fury. With disbelief. He presses a hand to the circle of blood spreading across my chest, and I can feel my soul tug in response. But even as his Regent, I am still a mortal—and no matter how powerful I am, no matter how much strength my soul holds, I am still a creature of flesh and blood, fragile and finite, capable of dying.

Rose, look at me, he orders.

But I can’t see him anymore. I can’t see anyone left in the garden. All I know is that the world is fading around me—and as it goes, it shifts, turning into something different. Curls of pale bark, arching overhead. Scarlet lines threading through porcelain. A towering trunk, roots digging deep into the fabric of the universe, kept alive by the billions of sparks of light that have ever existed. I find myself staring up at a canopy of white leaves, and beyond it, the swirling night sky.

The Eternal Tree.

I feel Raven’s hand press hard against my wound. I feel him pull on my soul.

Then the world around me fully fades, and the white consumes me whole.

34