Fates (25 page)

Their stone mouths had opened to reveal two rows of sharp, blackened fangs. Luc took a step back and stumbled, fell, scrambled backward like a crab until the gate stopped him, then pushed up to his feet.

One by one, the statues dropped to their hands and knees, snarling and snapping their stone teeth. And as they did, they changed; rounded stone fists became hands with terrible claws, digging through the earth. Luc felt the vibrations through his feet, all the way to his head. Three of the statues crowded him, so close he could have reached out and touched one of their blunt, blind faces—faces that knew, somehow, exactly where he was.

By smell.

By taste.

Luc was helpless. He had nowhere else to go. In his panic, in his terror, he couldn't even think of trying to climb over the wall. He was rooted, frozen, watching them advance, inhaling the foul smell of wet stone and turned earth. The shadow of the monsters swept over him, blotting out the stars.

He edged a few inches to the right. Big mistake. Immediately, the monsters launched forward.

“Wait!” he shouted. “Wait!”

It was instinctive, desperate, but suddenly, they obeyed. The enormous stone beasts stopped advancing, but they moved, restless, pawing the ground with feet the size of tree trunks. One careless swipe would be enough to crack his skull.

“Okay, listen.” He didn't know what he was saying. He was terrified, babbling, playing for time. He thought of Jasmine lying near the flowing water. He had promised that he would never let anything happen to her. It could not end this way. “Look, I don't know if you can hear me, all right? I don't know if you understand.” Those blind faces. Christ. What was he doing? Still the words kept coming: “My sister is dying, and I need a flower inside this gate to save her.”

The monsters had come no closer. Even though they were without eyes, he had the sense that they were watching him closely.

“I've been all over the universe, through worlds that make no sense to me, but I finally found her.” His voice cracked. Which girl was he talking about now, Jasmine or Corinthe? “I can't lose her.”

The monsters threw back their heads simultaneously and roared, a noise so loud and furious it drove Luc to his knees. It whirled through his head, bringing images, hard and fast, like a driving dark rain, freezing his center: his mother's face, Jasmine arranging graham crackers on the floor, the cramped San Francisco apartment with its smell of beer and old beef.

Was this how it ended, then? Drowning in dark memories?

It seemed as though everything might shatter, including him.

Then he thought of Corinthe. He saw Corinthe's fingers, her seashell nails, remembered how he had pressed himself against her in the Land of the Two Suns, breathing into her hair. And it was as though a little bit of light broke through in his mind, a small bit of quiet in the storm of noise.

And suddenly, just when he thought he couldn't take a single second more, everything grew still.

Luc pulled his hands away from his ears. The silence was beautiful, liquid and deep. The monsters were perfectly still again, inert, their stone heads bowed toward the ground, as though in consent. Still careful, moving very slowly, Luc stepped past the two statues in the front of the gate and pushed the heavy iron bars. They swung open with little effort.

And then he stood inside the gates. Inside the Great Gardens. He looked behind him and saw that the monsters had returned to their original arrangement, once more lining the pathway to the gate. One of them had deep twin tracks carved into its blank face now, as though by water, or tears.

“Thank you,” he said.

He went forward. Time was running out. There was only one pathway leading into the Gardens, so Luc followed it at a jog. Flowers blurred past him. He remembered what the Flower of Life looked like, but how would he ever find it in this vast space?

He came to a fork in the path and stopped. Both ways looked identical.

Shit. Luc could almost feel time spilling away from him, ticking Jasmine's life away with it,

Then he remembered: Rhys's locket. Would the archer work here, too?

Luc pulled it out and flicked open the clasp. The archer popped up and began to spin. Tinny music filled the air. It reminded him of Corinthe's locket and the song it played. Thinking of Corinthe made his heart squeeze tight as a fist. He refused to believe that she was really gone.

The music and the archer stopped at once. The archer stood poised on one foot, his arrow pointing down the path on the right. Luc took off at a sprint.

After a minute, the pathway ended abruptly at the top of a natural amphitheater, a huge indent in the earth, like a giant's soup bowl.

Growing right at the center of it was the flower he had crossed the universe to find.

And kneeling in front of it, with her back to him, was Corinthe.

His heart leapt. She was here and alive. It had to mean something that they both found their way here, to Pyralis.

He wanted to call out to her, but emotion made his throat tight. Corinthe was here. For the first time in what felt like forever, he had hope. He jogged down the hill toward her, taking in everything: the wild length of her hair, the soft curve of her shoulder and lower back. She almost looked like she was praying.

I love you, Corinthe.
He said it in his head. He would say it to her now.
I love you.

Just then, she reached out to pluck the flower from its stem. Her fingers wrapped around its thick stem.

He froze. Her name died on his tongue, leaving a bitter, smoky taste.

She was taking the flower for herself.

He had trusted her.

Corinthe had used him all along.

A hot fury rose inside of him, melting through the ice, through the blackness.

He had a sudden flash of a memory, of a phantom knife blade sinking into his stomach.

His stomach was burning as though he'd been stabbed again. Luc raised the knife in front of him. When he spoke, his voice sounded distant, as though it belonged to someone else. Someone he didn't know.

“Put it down,” he said. His voice was alien, a growl.

Corinthe spun around with a smile so bright he actually believed for a moment that she was happy to see him. “Luc! I knew you would find me. …”

“Get away from the flower.” His jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached, but he didn't care.

Her smile faltered. She stood up. “It was meant for you—for Jasmine—all along.”

The color of her eyes changed, shifted from deep purple to a soft lavender. She reached out and tentatively put her hand on his arm. His pulse stuttered under her touch.

“That's not true. She's lying.”

Luc spun around. It was the woman from the Land of the Two Suns, the one who had told him where he could find his sister. Her long black hair twisted into a single braid that hung over one bared shoulder.

“Miranda?” Corinthe burst out.

The woman ignored Corinthe. Luc took a step back as the woman advanced on them. There was something about her eyes that was off—wrong. Too much pupil; no color at all. “She never intended to give you the flower. She planned to kill you as soon as you got her here. She used you.”

“That's not true!” Corinthe cried. “What are you doing here? How did you get here? I thought you were—”

“Dead?” The woman spread her hands. “Evidently not.”

“Who are you?” Luc demanded.

“She's my Guardian,” Corinthe answered instead. Her voice was thick with emotion. “She—she taught me.”

The woman, Miranda, narrowed her eyes. “Apparently I didn't teach you well enough. Your last task was to do what, Corinthe?”

He felt Corinthe stiffen next to him. He wondered whether she would admit it—that she had meant to kill him all along—but she only shook her head.

Miranda began circling them like a predator. There was something feline about her eyes. “In order to return to your life as a Fate, to return
home to your sisters,
you had one simple task to execute. There is still time, Corinthe. Kill him now, before it's too late, and you can stay here in Pyralis, where you belong.”

Corinthe hesitated. He remembered that she had told him it hurt to live anywhere else, that being away from Pyralis was a physical ache, constant torture. He watched Corinthe warily, his grip firm on the knife.

The beauty of Pyralis faded under the harsh glow of a rising sun. He felt as if he were standing in a photograph: everything was too bright.

Still Miranda was speaking. Now her voice was a whisper, like the hiss of a snake through the grass. “You will destroy Pyralis, Corinthe. You will destroy everything you love. Is that what you want? The only way to stop it is to kill him.” Miranda stepped closer and smoothed the hair away from Corinthe's forehead, like Luc's mother used to do to Jasmine. “This is the way it has to be,” she said softly.

Corinthe's heartbeat was rapid, as though she'd been running. She was staring at Miranda as though hypnotized.

“I don't love it,” she whispered.

Miranda frowned. “What?”

“You said I would destroy everything I loved. But I don't love Pyralis. Not anymore.” Corinthe shook her head, as though rousing herself from a dream. “Him. I love him.” She turned to Luc. The breath he had been about to exhale froze in his lungs. He waited. She stepped away from Miranda, closer to him. Her eyes were shining. “I love you.”

She smiled so brightly he could barely think. He could barely think, see, move. He knew. He believed her.

“I love you, too,” he said, and reached for her.

The sun burst free of the horizon.

A shriek of rage split the silence. Miranda lunged for Luc; Corinthe screamed something. Miranda was on top of him, stronger than he could have imagined, teeth bared: an animal. She tried to wrest the knife from his grasp; he put an elbow into her side and felt her release her grip. Sweat dripped into his eyes and Corinthe was still screaming and he stumbled backward, gasping, clutching the blade.

And then Miranda lunged for him again, came charging toward him, howling, transformed into something not human, and instinctively Luc swung the knife.

Just as Corinthe threw herself between them.

Another cry shattered the quiet.

Time stopped.

Sound stopped.

Corinthe was pressed against him, leaning into him, her lips only an inch from his. So beautiful.

Then she gasped and time started again and she fell, holding the handle of the knife that protruded from her stomach.

“Corinthe! Oh my God! Corinthe!” Luc caught her and gently eased her to the ground. And the sun sank with them; it retreated toward the horizon, leaving only shadows and violet light in its wake.

“What do I do?” he asked desperately. Luc looked up to Miranda, hoping for some kind of help. But she was frozen, white, motionless.

“Idiot,” she said. She sounded almost disgusted. “It should have been you.”

“You did this to her!” he yelled at Miranda. “
Do
something!”

Miranda didn't even look at him. “She made her choice,” she said. Then she turned and began walking away.

“Please!” he called after her, even though he knew it was no use. His fingers were shaking. There was so much blood. It was everywhere.

“Look at me,” he said gently, leaning down to whisper in her ear. “Corinthe, I need you to look at me.” Her chest was rising and falling in shallow movements, and her skin had taken on an unnaturally pale hue.

Her eyelashes fluttered open and she looked up at him.

“I couldn't let you kill her,” she whispered. “It's not who you are.”

He couldn't think. His pulse thundered in his ears. Panic squeezed the breath from his lungs. “Corinthe, what can I do?”

“There is nothing left to do. It's too late for me,” Corinthe whispered. She smiled, just barely, and lifted her hand, reaching for the flower. She snapped its stem in half. “The flower gives life, but is deadly to whoever picks it. It doesn't matter for me. I'm already dying. It's all in balance. Life and death.” Corinthe's eyes were the same violet color as the sky. “Now you can use it to save your sister.”

“No,” he said. His tongue was thick with emotion; he could hardly speak. “Corinthe, stay with me.”

She shook her head. “No, Luc. I finally understand. …” Her body trembled with a flash of pain as he watched helplessly.

He was crying without knowing it, choking. “Shhh. Don't try to talk.” He felt as if he was going to be sick. He stroked the hair away from her forehead, completely helpless. “I'm not going to let you go. This isn't how it ends, okay?”

She shook her head. That faint smile passed across her face again. “Luc, it was all wrong. Don't you see? The last task, the last marble. The knife. The rising sun. She made me believe one thing, but it was a trick. I misunderstood everything. I had it backward the whole time.
I
was the one to die, and you were the one to live.
This
is what was always meant to be. I feel it. I know it's true.” Corinthe threaded her fingers through his. She smiled and looked up at the sky. “Look.”

The sun was gone now. The twilight had been restored in moments, like a giant sweep of soft velvet. Millions of stars had appeared, more stars than he had ever seen or even imagined.

It was breathtaking.

A smile passed quickly over her face; then she seized up, as though in sudden pain. “It was always my destiny to die,” she said. “This
is
how it was supposed to end. And I can go now, knowing that it's right. I want it, Luc. I want my fate. I want you to live. I love you,” she said again.

“No,” he said. His tongue was thick with emotion; he could hardly speak. “Corinthe, stay with me, please. I'm going to make you better.”

“No,” she murmured. She squeezed his hand weakly before her fingers slipped free of his.