“Do... do it,” she said, voice almost gone.
Thrax shook his head, the motion small and useless as he began to stand. “I’ll see if I can get Selva—”
“No,” she cut him off by squeezing his hand, holding him back. Her head shook. “It’s too late. Do it. Complete it.”
My chest squeezed.
Complete what?
I turned my eyes away from them and to the wall that had been the source of light the last time I stood here. The stone still had cracks, but the glow that had blinded me was gone. Instead, on the fractured wall, something thick and white dripped down the stone. It pooled in grooves, dropping in glistening beads, and there was so much of it that the walls looked as if they were sweating milk.
I looked back at her, then back at the wall. My stomach turned.
Was that her blood? White blood? Had she performed the ritual she’d talked about? Had she—by her own hand—done this to herself? Was this what she said she would handle? Her own death?
My eyes widened.
Did she cause her own death?
Her hand closed around Thrax’s, and with the last of her strength, she pried open his palm and laid the pin there. “Do it now. You can’t exceed the stipulated time. We’ve been at this for a very long time. Please...do it now.” Her voice, though paper-thin, carried the urgent authority of someone who’d already made peace with the end. “I’m going to die anyway. Why waste it? Do it now.”
Thrax’s fingers shook around the long pin. I blinked my tears away, the scene so heartbreakingly intimate I could scarcely look. “Why would you do this?” he burst. “Why would you sacrifice yourself? Why? Why? WHY?”
He broke.
I felt it like a physical thing inside my chest. Tears blurred my vision, and I couldn’t stop them from falling. She lay there, exhausted and resolute, and with what strength she had left, she coaxed him on and on—pleaded, really—even as her strength thinned.
“We have seconds left,” she whispered, her hand wrapping around his fist as she guided his hand. “My offering must not go to waste. Do it, Thrax.”
He stared into her eyes and they shone with a calm acceptance that made my stomach flip. “Please,” she breathed.
His hand hovered, the pin trembling at the tip of his fingers. He looked from her face to where she pointed—a spot above her stomach, just under her chest.
Thrax’s fist closed around the pin, knuckles white. He drew a breath, closed his eyes as if to pull courage from elsewhere, and then, with a motion that made my throat catch, he thrust the metal into her skin.
I gasped and stumbled back as metal met flesh, expecting some monstrous sound, but she didn’t convulse or cry out. The pin sank in as if it slipped into water; the motion was absurdly calm.
Instead of pain, a look of relief settled across her face. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, and she wrapped her fingers around his wrist with a tenderness that made me weak.
She smiled—small but bright—and for all the terror of it, there was peace in that smile, as if what she had done for him had finally let her breathe.
And just then, she went still. Her eyes closed, her head lolling to the side as her grip on Thrax slackened.
I choked on the knot rising in my throat, helpless as I watched the moon’s offspring die.
Thrax sank back onto the ground, his shoulders folding inward, the look on his face nothing short of guilt devastation. I couldn’t tear my eyes from him...and from her. She lay sprawled on the stone floor, lifeless, her pale white skin draining of colour, turning from living warmth to an eerie grey, before darkening further into the shade of ash.
Then her skin began to crack.
Yes, crack.
Hairline fractures split across her body, and from them seeped blinding white light. At first it was faint, but soon the light spread, branching out like veins of fire breaking through her flesh.
Horror locked me still. Every inch of her—her hands, her face, her feet—splintered, fractures racing across her body as if she were porcelain shattering from the inside out. And from those cracks, the white brilliance forced its way free, tearing through her like it had been imprisoned too long.
The cracks on her skin widened, light pouring out of them. And then light moved, seeping from her body in streaming ribbons, twisting and coiling into the air.
She moved from the ground.
