MARIBELLE
Sera is still alive, but all her light has left her.
Bautista’s pain may have left me, but Sera’s heart is so shattered it’s as if I’m reliving Atlas’s death all over again. Except she doesn’t have my rage. For all her talk about how she and Bautista won—a code to let him know they succeeded in getting baby Maribelle to safety, maybe even figuring out that power-binding potion—her brave face has fallen.
Luna rests her hand on Sera’s shoulder, and Sera doesn’t bother shaking her off. “You were worthy by my side. We were going to create a world where you wouldn’t need to worry about losing your loved ones as I have. No more visions of danger and death because everyone would be safe, untouchable. Instead you both betrayed me and tried to undo all my work. Tell me, my one and only. What do you think of this world of death as you hold his corpse?”
Sera looks her mother in the eyes. “It’s unfortunate I won’t be around to watch you die.” She turns to Bautista and kisses his lips for what she feels will be the last time. “I’ve seen the end already. Get on with it.”
“Very well,” Luna says. There’s remorse alive within her, but her need for survival is sharper.
Luna grabs the infinity-ender dagger, pulls Sera’s head back by her hair, and slices her throat. Sera ungracefully crashes against Bautista’s shoulder, blood pooling under her. By the time the pain begins, darkness takes over and it’s only me and Sera dying in it until my familiar dark yellow flames vanish and I’m back in my own life.
I suck in the sharpest breath and almost punch Tala as she tries pressing a cold towel against my forehead.
“I’m back, I’m back,” I whisper.
“You’re okay,” Emil says, still sitting where we first started.
Retrocycling has the potential to be beautiful. But this was a nightmare.
“I’m going to kill Luna,” I say.
“What happened?” Tala asks.
“Can someone fill us in already?” Brighton asks. “Curious minds.”
I’m half expecting to feel Sera’s emotions, but I only feel mine since I’m no longer by her side. There’s one takeaway I keep rolling around in my head. “How did we not know that Luna was Sera’s mother?”
“Wait—what?!” Brighton asks.
Everyone is as surprised as I was, and this is the problem. Sera being an alchemist herself wasn’t enough of a clue, but it’s certainly an important piece of the puzzle now. Why didn’t Mama and Papa tell me? Sera said it wasn’t necessary for me to know that I was her daughter, but why couldn’t they have trusted me with the knowledge that Sera’s mother was Luna? Maybe to them it didn’t matter, but it’s yet another family secret, and this better be the last one I hear from anyone or so help me.
“How did we not know?!” I shout.
“I’m remembering something,” Emil says. “When Luna had me hostage, she mentioned something about a traitor enthralling Bautista. She didn’t say anything else about them, but Sera fits the bill.”
“Why didn’t you mention that sooner?”
“It didn’t seem important with everything else we had going on,” he softly says.
The number of ways I’ve been screwed over by this sad excuse of a chosen one is astounding. “I plan on honoring Sera by undoing all of Luna’s work. You better have memorized those potion ingredients because I’m not reliving that again!”
Emil nods vigorously. He grabs the journal and begins marking the true names of the ingredients. I hear him talking about crushed torch grains before I tune him out.
All the pain I’ve been through this year feels cruel. It’s as if the gods hidden in the constellations hate me, as if they’re punishing me for defying nature with my existence as a hybrid celestial-specter. Grieving my parents and Atlas has been hard enough, but living in Sera’s heart as she loses the love of her life and the father of her child? Of me? I have to repay blood with blood, and all roads lead back to Luna.
Tala takes the journal from Emil and reads. “I’m not in love with exploiting a phoenix’s pain to use their tears, but it’s certainly better than all potions that call for their eyes and talons. There’s an underground market in the city where I’ve done business before. They should carry some of these rarer ingredients.”
“We’re going to get a bloody Nobel Prize out of this, yeah?” Wyatt asks. “Well, posthumously awarded to Sera and Bautista.” Everyone is staring at him. “Messing around, of course. Long live our phoenixes, heh.”
“Maribelle, ride with me?” Tala helps me up. “Everyone else stay put.”
“We can help,” Brighton says.
“You can help by keeping your famous face away from the public,” Tala says.
He turns to me as if he wants my support, but I’m following Tala’s lead here. “We need discretion.”
“Fine. But this fight is all of ours,” Brighton says.
“Absolutely. As long as it’s understood that Luna is mine.”
It’s my duty to kill my last living family member.