Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
I shift my stare back to the Dark King, who comes over to us with a resonant satisfaction.
The horned monster’s smile is one of triumph as he stands over me, his cape waving in the wind. “You came here with such arrogance, my daughter. So sure and certain of your own power, though your mother kept it hidden from you all these centuries, so ready to destroy me. I would be furious at her if I were you, but then perhaps we are not the same, after all. What a pity. And now I’m afraid that I will have to destroy you.”
He brings his palm up. “But first, look around and see your failure. Regard the destruction of your mother’s creation, the Fulcrum, no more.”
The Dark King is right. The barrier, which I briefly stopped in order to enter, has collapsed, the sands nothing more than a modest circular hill that surrounds us.
“Remember, daughter, we could have ruled together, united within me forever. Instead, you will go where your mother is. For eternity.”
Squeezing Merc’s hand, I brace for what’s going to hit me. I know that the instant the black energy leaves the palm of the Dark King once again, I am over. There’s not much left in me now, and no chance of survival with this final onslaught.
The end has arrived, my story culminating here, the fate doled out to me at my creation sealed—
The first of the ghostly forms steps forward from a mystical aperture in the air, as if it is appearing from some other plane of existence altogether. Iridescent and beautiful, the entity is instantly recognizable to me, even before I see the face.
Mare. It is … Mare, only she is not old and upon her deathbed. She is young and lovely, elegant and regal of bearing. And she smiles at me before stepping in front of my sprawled, wretched body to face the Dark King—
The aperture in time and space opens again. Ellyne steps out … dear Elly, the farrier’s second wife, who I attended upon her birthing bed, and in her arms is the infant she lost, his perfect hand pinwheeling in a ghostly arc as she smiles at me.
Before she too turns to my father.
After that it is the baker’s wife who appears, along with her daughter, not as the bairn I tried to save twenty years ago, but as the young woman she would have been if she’d survived. Then it’s the farmer’s daughter who I stepped in to help too late, when she was trampled by the horse. The twins who died in the river, whom I was brought to after they’d gone cold and gray, but tried anyway—ten years ago?
And now there are more of the ones I did save over the hundreds of years I was in my village, those who went on to live good lives and enjoy the time they should have had before finally dying of old age. Men and women they are, all those babies over all the years I didn’t know were passing, that I brought back from death. From the illnesses I cheated out of their victims. From the injuries that should have been mortal. I remember each and every one of them, including the babies I lost because I came too late—most especially them I recognize, even if their faces show the maturity they would have enjoyed if I’d just gotten there a little sooner.
Though in life they were all not able to thank me, or even acknowledge me, now they bow their heads to me with gratitude and deference before turning to the Dark King. It doesn’t seem to matter whether I was successful in my revival or not; their gratitude to me seems to be tied not at all to the outcome, but more to the suffering I saw … and what I tried to do about it.
As I stepped in for them then, so they step in for me now.
There are ten, now twenty. Thirty, then a hundred.
Then a thousand.
My father has been collecting souls … but now I see that so have I. And unlike him, I did not want to claim what is not mine to take. I just wanted them to live and be with their families, and love who they chose and have the time upon Anathos that they deserved.
It is the dragon’s miracle coming at the right time once again, except this is so much more. This is the culmination of all my efforts, over all the years, everything that I have given to the world without expecting a return, returned back as it was granted.
With love.
And it is delivered by the family I created with what I did with the time I had.
The Dark King stands now on the other side of a great wall of light. Through the swirling illumination, he seems confused, but with no surprise, he recovers quickly and he is angered beyond measure.