53: THE LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT

Thurvishar’s story

The Lighthouse at Shadrag Gor

After everyone else had gone

Thurvishar moved to dip the brush into the paint for the last time. He hesitated. Who wouldn’t hesitate? He’d never planned for this to be his end. He had wanted … different things. But if this was how it was meant to be, so be it.

Vol Karoth was all but free. Thurvishar could almost see the dark god move, and he knew his hourglass was down to its last grains of sand. He studied the drawing and moved to make one more mark …

Vol Karoth vanished.

For a split second, all Thurvishar could do was stare, and then he hurried to complete the sigil. It could be a trick. It might even be a clever trick, one Vol Karoth might exploit to escape.

Then a slender, delicate hand grabbed his wrist holding the paintbrush.

Senera said, “Let’s not get carried away. It’s not the end of the world.”

She was smiling. Senera was smiling at him.

Thurvishar knew this wasn’t a trick. Because Vol Karoth could fake a lot of things, but he couldn’t fake joy. And the light shining from those beautiful eyes couldn’t be anything else.

“Did we win?” Thurvishar asked.

She chuckled. From farther inside the Lighthouse, people laughed and moved about as they woke from enchanted sleeps.

“Yeah, funny thing, that,” Senera said. “Turns out, it wasn’t a contest.”

Kihrin’s story

In the memory of Karolaen, flowers bloomed.

The streets echoed with the sounds of a lifetime of past experiences—good, bad, and somewhere in between. Sometimes the sights were fuzzy at the edges, worn smooth by the polish cloth of time, but the colors still shone bright.

Everyone was gone. Except for three people.

Teraeth and Janel stood at the entrance to the park, and I waited until they saw me. Teraeth had an expression of disbelief on his face. At least until I grinned at him. The relief on his face reminded me of someone waking from a nightmare. Which, fine. Probably an obvious metaphor. Galen’s the poet, not me.

“Kihrin,” he said as he approached. Just that one word, but so much emotion had been packed into it.

I’d chosen to look like Kihrin, you see.

Why shouldn’t I? Kihrin had a lot more friends and loved ones than S’arric did by this point, that was for sure. And just like Janel was and yet most definitely was not C’indrol, I was making my choice too. I would always be S’arric, which wasn’t the worst thing in the universe. I would also always own S’arric’s rage, his pain, and his grief, which kind of was.

And while that wasn’t good, it didn’t have to be evil. But old me, old just-turned-into-a-dark-god me, had lost everything, or anyway, it had felt like I had. I’d been tossed by the winds, blown away, and I hadn’t known how to right myself.

Which was a problem when you had the power to destroy the universe.

Teraeth reached me and put his hand on the side of my face. “Monkey, why are we still here?”

I kissed him first. I had a lot I wanted to say, but one had to have priorities. “I wanted to say goodbye,” I said when we parted.

“Kihrin—” Janel’s voice was stricken, broken. Anguished.

“Oh no, no.” I ran my hand down the side of her head. “Not that kind of goodbye. But I kind of have to pretend to be an insane god of darkness for a while. And that means we can’t touch. Honestly, it, uh … still may not even be safe for us to touch. I’ll have to experiment. We can’t give Rev’ar—” I wrinkled my nose. “Relos Var. We can’t give Relos Var any reason to think that I’m not the dumb Vol Karoth he’s come to know and love. The one he thinks he can control.”

“Can’t he, though?” Janel asked. “If you’re … you again. Are you sure he won’t be able to control you?”

“I’m more Kihrin than S’arric, if I’m being honest,” I said. “Both, absolutely, but … no, I don’t think Urthaenriel’s going to be able to control me. And as long as Kihrin’s right there in front of him, he won’t try to fix that.”

“As long as Kihrin—” Janel narrowed her eyes. “You mean Talon.”

“I need her to return to impersonating me for a while. And then afterward, she’ll go back to the vané and ask them to do a tsali transfer on her. I think Lyrilyn’s ready to stop hiding behind all those other lifetimes.”

Janel stood there looking like she’d just eaten a lemon. “I’m not sleeping with that thing.”

“Good,” I agreed. “I’m perfectly comfortable with that.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Teraeth said, the quirk of his lips suggesting he was teasing. Probably. “I could probably talk myself into it. Have you seen your ass?”

I laughed. “Don’t ever change, Teraeth.”

But it was time to return to the serious talks about serious matters. I picked up their hands. “I’m going to try my damnedest to find a solution to all of this. One that includes being around to enjoy it with the two of you afterward.”

“Really?” Teraeth said. “Because you just said you weren’t sure we could physically touch. That doesn’t make a relationship impossible, but it certainly complicates things.”

“Yes, well, Tya and Taja’s trick with handing off guardian duties to a new generation has some interesting implications. Thurvishar had some ideas before all this started too. And honestly, Talon had a great suggestion involving the Well of Spirals. We’ll figure something out.” I squeezed Janel’s hand. “Seven months, right?”

“Let’s not wait that long,” she said. “I don’t want to have to be out there defeating the forces of evil while eight months pregnant.” She paused. “But don’t think I won’t do it.”

“Don’t worry. I doubt Relos Var or Xaltorath will want to wait that long either.” I leaned over and kissed her too. Then I pulled Teraeth close. I whispered, “Thank you. Both of you.”

I sent them back.

After they were gone, I pulled the third person to me. No, I hadn’t been counting myself. It was my mind, after all. I didn’t think that fair.

I pulled him together into a shape and knelt next to the man who was still understandably shocked and upset. But I could work with that.

“Okay, Jarith,” I told him. “Let see what we can do about patching you up.”