DEVON
Power flooded through him, electric and hot, And sent flames over his skin and through his veins and he felt alive, alive, his senses, synapses and the light everywhere, everywhere, everywhere as he awoke from the dream or the meditation or maybe he had awoken to the dream, because when he opened his eyes he was in darkness; he knew he mustn’t be in darkness, knew there was a fight, a light, and he willed himself to be there—
and he was.
floating above the Guild with fire in his veins and he could see them, the thousands of Howls stretching to the horizon and the thousands of threads stretching even further, the threads that connected the Howls to each other and the Howls to the Hunters and the Howls to the Everlasting that lay beyond and behind and within them—he felt them, he saw them, and he saw the smaller threads, the ones connecting stone and grass and wind, and he knew how he could manipulate tug stretch pull snap them, and he knew to do so would have its own equal and opposite effect on him, as that was the way of the world—he could kill.
and he would be killed.
because that was the balance, that was the way, but there was another thread, a darker thread, one that pulsed on the horizon with shadows and raven wings and he knew that thread should not be, had lasted far beyond its time; that thread was wrong, and it was worth dying for, but as he floated and watched the threads and the flames he saw the threads snapping off, cutting apart, as life after life was lost—Howl or human, they made no difference, the threads were all the same—and although he couldn’t give his life to use Maya for those lesser threads, Maya was not the only power in his veins.
he had a fire within him, one he had snuffed and stuffed deep within with meditation and mantra, and he had burned himself from the inside out to contain it, had let it burn away his words and burn away his hopes and burn away his everything until he was just a shell for the flame, a vessel for the anger, and now he was something new, something more, but that flame still burned and that anger still raged and he still had to find a way to let it out—
he let it out—
fire from his hands and from his fingertips.
fire from the sky and fire from the ground.
and the world was the sun and the sun a darkness compared, and he roared with anger and ecstasy as he finally released the flame, as he finally became the flame, as flames licked his skin and seared his flesh and charred his clothes and burned his hair and even his scarf trailed to the ground, a smoldering flag, a burning offering, floating to the fires that raced across the countryside below, burning through threads and snuffing lives as he himself had snuffed out his, and in the flames he felt his sister, heard her voice.
her love.
her eternal love for him, her faith that he was not a monster, even though he was a monster, even though he now let the world see it; he didn’t burn her, nor the woman that stood beside her—Dreya deserved a better life, a life only he could give her, a life his death would ensure,
and as the flames scouring the Howls spread, as the screams lessened until the only sound was the roar of flame, he turned his sights to that darker thread, that pitch-black strand that wound itself from decay and back again, and he willed himself there.
and he was.
facing the woman that should not be.
and the boys who thought it was their destiny to destroy her, the boys who writhed in agony on the earth;
she faced him.
she knew him.
just as he knew her, the thread that bound both of them, the shears they both wielded, the act they could each only do but once;
You are the Goddess of Death, he said without speaking, and now it is time for you to die—
and he struck, reached out and grabbed the thread that bound her to life, that one immortal cord—
she didn’t have time to scream or respond—
he severed her thread.
and in turn severed his—