“Nothing’s happening,” Ivy whispered. “Vale? Why is nothing happening?”
Vale did not answer. In the distance, trees crumbled and bushes died, and nightbeasts roared weakly.
Ivy wiped her cheeks. She had to do something. Maybe the void had been wrong, and this wasn’t the antidote after all. But that didn’t mean she could give up. She could find another way. She could channel her magic.
Ivy reached for her new magic. Nothing responded. Her hands were just her hands, and her mind was just her mind, nothing spectacular about them at all.
“Ivy,” Vale rasped.
Ivy cried out with relief and cupped Vale’s face in her hands. “Vale! We need to do something. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
Vale’s head drooped. At first, Ivy thought he was simply exhausted. Then he spoke, and she realized that he was leaning into her touch.
“I was given… this void,” Vale said, each breath an effort. “Always thought… it was the best gift I could ever be given.”
“Vale,” Ivy whispered. “Please don’t.”
“I was wrong,” Vale murmured. “It was you.”
With that, his green eyes went dark.
Ivy stared at him in disbelief. This had to be a mistake. She shook him hard.
“Vale,” she cried. “Vale! Don’t leave!”
Vale’s unseeing eyes stared at nothing, dark and empty. Behind them, a tree crumbled into dust. Then another. The void was dead, and Ivy was standing in its corpse.
Ivy wailed. First in despair. Then, in anger, larger than anything she had ever felt.
“This isn’t how it ends,” she yelled. “I can— I can bring him back! I have magic, too. He said I could stay; he said I was going to be his queen.You can’t take him from me!”
Her voice radiated through the void, strange and echoey. For a moment, all was silent, like a breath being held.
Ivy didn’t notice. She leaned down and kissed Vale with all the desperation inside her. Her lip split open on his fangs, and still she kissed him. She kissed him until her sobs made it impossible, and she leaned back, hollow.
“Please,” she begged.
Nothing replied. Ivy closed her eyes and rested her head on Vale’s chest, ready to give up.
Then something impossible happened:
Red light bloomed on Vale’s chest.
Ivy sat up, tearing her eyes open.
There was a red light rising out of Vale’s chest. Folds of red swarming around each other, slowly forming…
“A rose,” Ivy whispered.
The rose lifted into the air, circling slowly. Waiting, Ivy realized.
She reached out and touched it with one shaky fingertip.
The rose exploded, swirling into the sky and scattering over the trees. The sky bled comforting black, the crumbling tree trunks coming together again. Corpsefrogs began to croak, and bone-bushes sprang up once more.
The silver pool filled slowly underneath Vale. But still, he did not wake.
Ivy touched his cheek, shaky with disbelief.
