MY LITTLE BROTHER, LOOKING TO ME WITH HIS DARK BLUE EYES, UNRAVELED before my gaze, the touch of his hand disappearing from mine. Beads of light spiraled upwards.
"NATE!" I screamed. Devastation slammed into me, crushing my heart flat, nearly without an ounce of room to Feel a thing.
"Do not give in to Despair, Liiara!" the Guides shouted as one. Their presence was nothing more than burning orbs in the sky, like shooting stars. Coerce's Dark mass vied away from them, streaking like coiling smoke and razor-sharp ice.
Only the call of a dying world could have torn me away from what Fate had just dealt me. The Sacra Band burning on my wrist sent flames twirling around my form, which was being pulled in every direction, blurring at the edges. My hair was stripped of color, now only burning strands of white Light. My skin glowed because my body was rapidly becoming nothing more than a shell that held flames.
And as those white flames touched my eyes, I Saw, standing around me―
We all Chose to be the new seals for Coerce's defeat. Joxie grinned before me, glowing magnificently. Made of Light. Her eyes were hers, and yet, made of weaving fire.
You can do it, Kaleen, Malin told me, setting a hand to my shoulder.
Rya, with her arm linked in his, added, We are always right behind you. Or before you, or beside you. Wherever you need us.
We believe in you, Liiara, Calla smiled in her achingly familiar way, with a level of Happiness in her eyes I had never seen before, due to her hand enclosed in Gerrin's. Beyond them, in fuzzy images, like trying to stare into a sunrise, I could barely make out other forms, some I faintly recognized though I didn't know why; and some that Jan seemed to know, for his heart responded through our Connection.
Feeling as if the sun had been placed into the palm of my hand, I looked to find it was actually a hand formed by Light encircling my own disappearing flesh and blood. With time holding its breath, I found Nate at my side, his blue eyes sparkling in the same mischievous way they always have. And, looking to him, my little brother didn't have to say a word as our hearts aligned, filling my Despairing one with a strength that was only possible from combined Love: from my parents, from Tallen, from Nate, my friends, all together. I then realized that they were among the forms that stood beyond those who had given their blood freely so I could seal Coerce once again.
Heal the world, Kal, Nate said.
Trom the Connection in my mind, Jan's mind-song began to ring out towards the sky, blending with mine to swathe the world with Courage.
'Jan?' I called out.
'I'm here.'
The images of those whom I Loved disappeared from around me, and my eyes saw, from my left, Jan rushing towards Coerce, parallel to me. His body distorted into a blinding, golden mass of flames. My physical form, fraying at its edges too, unwound more quickly as I started forward. I shifted into spiraling, dancing flames of brilliant white, unable to keep from doing so as we neared the massive chaos of Black Emotions that comprised Coerce.
'Ready?' Jan asked.
'Bring it on,' I answered.
We ran together, hands grasped, one moment in our physical forms, the next becoming rays shooting onward. The closer we raced towards Coerce, the shorter the intervals between our changing. And then we were nothing more than Light formed from every Emotion that made Life worthwhile. We were Courage and Determination; Strength and Compassion; Hope and Love. My soul merged with his into one stream; our mind-songs blended power. All our Hopes and Dreams guiding us on.
We surged on and shifted together, my Gift bearer, my Conjoined—and I. We flew, our mind-songs singing Life to where there was Death. Towards the chaotic nothingness that had plagued the world for so long, causing so much destruction and pain.
Finally, to end it.
I would have never made it into the midst of the raw Dark Emotions if my essence hadn't been combined with Jan’s. As pieces of our souls were sucked away, destroyed under the magnitude of what we were approaching, we flitted ahead, glowing more brilliantly, white and gold combined. There, in the middle of the chaos, was Coerce's physical form, shielded behind the Hate and Anguish and Pain that she had used as tools for ages.
And, most powerfully, seeing our approach: Fear.
Coerce fled from before us, spiraling across the sky, her only intent to keep away from me long enough for her Black Emotions to shred me to pieces, which they were doing at an alarming rate. And, alongside me, Jan was fraying as well. It went beyond pain; it was the same assault I had felt when the phantoms first tore my soul, magnified by a thousand.
The broken Serene Woods neared rapidly, the shadows encasing the dead trees thrown back by the Light we brought. I wasn't expecting it when Coerce suddenly reeled away from them, as haphazardly as if she had been struck.
That was when I saw, standing before the shattered woods, the First Seer with her hands outstretched, fingers clenched. Holding the threads of Light Emotions that I had released, directing the pattern of flames that trailed the sky like comets.
'Have you come to reunite with me?' Coerce asked. She drew to standstill amidst her Dark. 'Have you come to bind yourself to your other half and draw me from this world?'
The Sacra Band, now just as much a part of me as Jan was, caught a firm hold of the tattered edges of the Veil behind Coerce and pushed it back. Beyond the twisting mass of Darkness was an emptiness that it belonged to: the Abyss.
'And so, we continue,' my Dark half said, 'in the battle that will last for eternity'
'Eternity?' If Jan had a physical form, he would have been shaking his head. 'You don't understand, do you?'
We came to a halt before her, nothing more than strands of burning. Being so near to her made the air almost like ice. Hints of nightmares played out in the depthless orbs of what made her eyes, but I brushed them all aside in my mind, like wiping frost from a window, so I could peer through. The Sacra Band within me hummed with an almost threatening tune, high and piercing, low and powerful.
I Felt Pity for this lost creature, who wandered so aimlessly in the depths of her Dark, so convinced that the war between Good and Evil would be an everlasting one that would not come to its final battle at some point.
Perhaps not now, but one day. She didn't understand that it would have an End.
I told her. 'Coerce will never exist when Choice does.'
Gathering Love around me to guard me from her Hate―pulling it from the core of mine and Jan's Conjoined souls—I sped forward, unafraid. I would not have made it to this moment without him, but I wasn't going to let him stay there, to die alongside me.
So, as I widened the Abyss, aiming towards Coerce, knowing I only had to bring her with me as I went, I prepared to separate myself from him. From the essence of the one who had always and ever would be my everything and my all. I gathered the Love that formed us to envelop it around him, to defend him from being pulled into the void, my will to destroy Coerce giving me strength.
Only, it wouldn't obey me. It bent back around my will, enfolding its golden touch to wrap around me instead.
No...
It was like pushing against a mountain, and I understood.
I had been told that the Gift would allow Jan to protect me. I never completely knew what that had meant before.
We were nothing more than a thread now, piercing Coerce's forehead, pulling her with us as we drove towards the gash in the Veil. Encased in Love, I was instantly dispelled from Coerce's emptiness. A rough snarl filled my hearing as black flames assaulted Jan's essence. I couldn't believe what I was seeing: a flickering of his image, his physical form amidst the Darkness. I couldn't reach my hand for him because I, too, flickered back into my physical form, through the shield he had placed around me. I couldn't reach him, he who was so ready to trade his life to bring that nothingness into the Abyss.
'NO!' I was screaming, begging, with everything I had. 'Jan! Don't!'
'I love you, Kaleen,' he spoke through our Connection. I felt as if his mind was consuming mine with raw energy, his will was so strong.
The Sacra Band within me wove our mind-songs around the edges of the Veil, drawing it closer as the Dark Emotions were wrenched back into the Abyss's depths, tearing away from the sky.
I saw the others, standing in a line, with their hands gripping each other, forming a barrier. They stood between the world and I against Coerce and the Abyss. They burned so brightly they made the suns look dim.
And in between Malin and Nate’s reaching hands, a space... an opening that Jan stepped into, taking their outstretched hands to close the link. He began to fade. The edge of his physical form was indistinct; he was vanishing into flames of Light along with them.
'I always will.'
I threw my hands forward, intent on grabbing hold of him, my only thought to pull him back—to save him —
Let me save him take me instead let me do it no you can't have him please please please—
Amidst the Light he was made of, I knew he smiled. 'This was my Choice, Kal. From the very beginning, this Choice was mine. You will find your happy ending.'
His mind-song was everywhere at once.
"Holding the world at the tip of your finger,
You can trap the stars, but they'll burn and they'll whither.
Not a thing can stop the ocean's tide.
Nothing can stop the suns as they rise.
Find me in the silver moonlight,
Or when the suns begin their flight.
Smoke always flows above fire's ashes.
The world keeps spinning as time passes."
The sky shattered, my hands passing through pure, holy fire; free, swirling flames that glinted gold and scarlet as they sped onward.
I screamed, though no sound reached my ears. I was beyond Feeling.
The air around me pulsated with a shockwave as Coerce—that ancient mass of Dark Emotion—was ripped into fragments and drawn captive into the Abyss.
My mind answered him. It always would. My heart would always loyally answer his.
"The leaves will wither, the day fade away
And from the dark heavens the stars will stray.
Time passes by; watch it slip through your fingers.
Find a place where the dawn and night lingers.
Where were you when the moon turned away,
When the light fled, and the night came to stay?
Set aside worry, what can grief bring?
The light may be fading, but the skies still sing."
The key to Veils scorched within me; the gaping slash of nonexistence in the atmosphere ahead shrank, the opening of the void knitting closed from the weaving threads of its Veil.
Jan spoke his last words through our Connection in wonder, his wandering heart already traveling the path to the next adventure. His mind radiated excitement and valor.
Jan was Valor.
'Trust me, Kabrin.'
I felt myself being pulled, drawn, forced back together into a body. His mind closed to me forever, trailing away from me reluctantly, as physical as if he were pulling his hands away from my face in one last and final caress.
"Find me... the skies still sing..."
Stars shot across the atmosphere in exultation as the last strands of the Veil to the world fell into place.
Coerce was destroyed.
They were all gone. Jan was gone.
As tendrils of Emotion spiraled after me, piece by piece, I reformed completely into my physical self.
And I fell from the sky.