NIVIAN
NIVIAN’S FEET WERE frozen in place as she watched Yeva’s power kill Kain little by little. Her limbs turned to stone, heavy and rigid. She was helpless to do anything. Yeva’s power had destroyed Finn, and now it would destroy him as well.
Kain’s back arched as the light of the power increased, nearly blinding her. She brought a hand up to shield her eyes from the strongest rays. Colin collapsed to his knees, but he held fast to Kain’s arm. Azira used the altar to keep herself upright, while Evander was no better off. Caspian chanted through gritted teeth, his skin took on an unhealthy, ashen pallor.
The shield pressed the power down onto Kain. More fissures broke out along his skin, his clothes shredding.
A sob ripped from her throat. She didn’t care about the world ending anymore. Nothing mattered if she lost him again.
Before she realized what she was doing, Nivian was sprinting toward him. She threw herself into the shield. The barrier stung like red, hot needles burning into her flesh, but she didn’t care and forced her way inside. It resisted, but her will was stronger.
Azira moved to the side as Nivian grabbed his arm. Fire flared behind her eyes and spread. Everything burned as the power ran through her.
Nivian leaned over him and placed her mouth close to his ear. “You can do this. I need you to do this.” The lighting stormed faster. “Please Kain… I can’t lose you again,” she begged. Tears streamed down her face.
Kain stilled. The light and power faded with his movements, sinking into him.
The shield vanished, sending Colin, Azira, and Evander stumbling back. Caspian fell forward onto the altar, catching himself with his hands just before his face collided with the dais.
Nivian draped herself over Kain’s chest, panting. It took her several seconds to notice his chest didn’t rise and fall, that the only beating of a heart she heard was her own.
She pulled back and stared into his pale face, holding her breath as long seconds passed.
Caspian’s hand brushed over Kain’s forehead, plucking up the now dull stone. Nivian opened her mouth to speak, but Caspian dropped his chin, shaking his head.
Then he just walked away.
She let her horrified gaze drop to Kain’s face, then to Azira crying as Colin held her up. Caspian and Evander seemed to shield her from the sight as they huddled together, worn and ragged.
Nothing. They did nothing but walk away and Kain was once again in her arms, still as death.
“What happened?” she hissed with venom. “Why isn’t he awake?”
Caspian separated himself from the group and took one step toward her, stopping when a growl rumbled up in her chest.
“I do not know,” he admitted.
Nivian reached up and stroked Kain’s face, her fingers trailed down his neck, across his chest, and down his arm. She threaded her fingers through his and squeezed. His skin was cold in hers, the warmth she’d grown used to was gone, as if he were part of the stone he lay upon.
“But it worked. It worked. Yeva’s power became part of him. I saw it. It worked!”
“I am afraid it might have been too much for him to bear.”
She pressed Kain’s hand against the side of her face. “Please Kain… please don’t leave me again.”
Still, he didn’t move.
The world was doomed. The end would come for everything and everyone, leaving nothing in its wake. She let them all down because she had let Kain down. Again. He had trusted her, even though he didn’t remember her. His heart had trusted her and she had failed.
Her knees threatened to buckle from under her, and she crawled up on the dais next to him. Wrapping his arm around her, she placed her head on his chest.
Kain had absorbed Yeva’s power, but in the end it was too much for him and she had wasted his last few days on earth waiting for him when she should have been with him every second, trying to make sure he would survive this.
“I’m so sorry I keep failing you,” she whispered into his chest. “All I wanted was to be by your side… for you to know how much I loved you.”
Once, those three words had felt like the hardest in the world to admit to herself, let alone for her to say to him. When in reality, they were the easiest and most natural to say. She was a fool to let fear and uncertainty cloud her, to keep her from embracing her existence fully.
Nivian poured her heart into every tear until she was empty and exhausted.
“Nivian, we must go,” Caspian said, drawing her from the edge of the precipice she teetered on, wanting to let go and fall into its depths.
She sat up and turned on Caspian. The darkness of her power skittered over her, pulsing and undulating and flowing over Kain, causing his lifeless form to quake.
Caspian took a step back and bowed his head. His powers curled in on itself, submitting to hers. He was no longer her superior, but she was his. The realization took her by surprise and the ripples of her power snapped back.
It was not his fault it had failed, but her own.
Nivian slid her legs off the altar, ashamed of her lack of control. She stood and let Kain’s hand slip from hers.
The smallest finger of his hand twitched as she turned away. She froze.
“Forgive me, Nivian,” Caspian started, but the rest of his words fell away as she watched Kain.
His lashes fluttered, but then nothing.
She waited and waited.
It was only the wind playing tricks on her hopeful mind.
Another flutter.
Caspian’s hand fell on her shoulder. She pushed it off and moved back to Kain’s side. What did it matter where she spent the last days of existence? She could stay by his side and wait for the nothing that would come for her. She took his hand in hers, warmed by the sun; she could almost pretend he was only sleeping.
A sudden flurry of movement and Nivian fell, landing on her backside in the grass below. Kain gasped, clutching at his chest as he fought to pull in air.
She scrambled to her feet as he managed to sit up. Nivian threw herself onto the dais. “Kain!”
Everything except him dropped away. He was all she could see, all she could feel.
Nivian wrapped her arms around him, nearly knocking him over again.
“Kain… Kain!” She couldn’t say his name enough, as if each time she uttered it out loud it would make him more real, more alive, and keep her from sliding back into the nightmare from moments before.
His arms came up and wrapped around her. His head drooped and he rested his forehead upon her shoulder, his breath nuzzling her neck. Her fingers dug into his shirt, trying to pull him into her.
She leaned back and held his face in her hands. Still pale with bags under his eyes, but he was alive! And looking back at her, smiling.
Nivian pressed her lips to his and kissed him for the first time since she’d found him on the rock. Her heart danced when he kissed her back. It was the way he had kissed her the first time in her apartment. It was the way he had kissed her before he’d told her he loved her for the first time…
Could it be possible he remembered her, remembered something… everything?
When he finally pulled away, she was surprised to see smears of dampness on his cheeks. He reached up a hand and brushed hers away. She’d been crying. It was silly to cry now and she laughed at herself as she rested her forehead against his.
Caspian coughed, reminding her that the two of them weren’t alone. The voices of the others came back to her awareness.
Nivian held tight to Kain but acknowledged the others with a tear-stained grin. Azira was jumping up and down, hugging everyone as they all tried to talk at once.
“The two of you are bound together, both of your life forces have been renewed for eternity. It now falls upon you both to protect the balance of life and death above all else,” Caspian said.
Nivian knew all of that, but it was such a relief to hear. She could only nod in response.
“I will gladly protect it with all the power within me,” Kain rasped out.
Caspian smiled. The always formal veneer he wore, even in his joy, slipped and the grin made him look younger than Nivian had ever seen him.
“Then, with that, I will give you some time alone.”
Grateful, Nivian turned back to Kain. The way he looked at her made her heart soar. She licked her lips.
“Kain?” she spoke his name tentatively.
“Mmm?”
Her heart thrummed wildly in her chest as she summoned her courage. “Do you remember anything?”
Immediately, she held her breath. He was the same Kain she’d always known. She knew it with every fiber of her being. He swallowed hard, his eyes un-focusing as if he were trying to make sure. She waited, each passing second agony.
He blinked several times and searched her face before averting his gaze.
“I… don’t. I don’t remember anything. I’m sorry,” he said.