“Let me do something for you now,” I plead.
I’m here, Mom. I am so sorry I took you for granted. I didn’t know how bad this all was… I was a stupid, spoiled girl. I am so sorry.
“He’s in the tower on the east wing. It’s a dungeon they use to experiment on inmates.” My bottom lip trembles as I am tempted to hug her. To tell her how much I’ve needed her to come save me.
My mother tries to pull away again before I stop her.
I can’t let go yet. Not after everything I’ve seen.
“Don’t hold back on them. It takes something extraordinary to unlock a mind like yours. No one will ever forget this day. Especially not me. Not ever.”
You are a legend, and you have made history. I am so proud to be your daughter.
She tilts her head, and squints to get a closer look at the color of my eyes.
“Who. Are. You?” she asks.
The Nightlung surges through veins. And I step away from her, taking Niklaus’s hand and channeling all of my energy into my father, not far from here.
Niklaus
It’s the ash-ridden aftermathof war.
We watched it unfold on the edge of a cliff. Sapphire’s father, Uncle Warrose, Aunt Ruth, my mother, and father cornered by a swamp as the Vexamen army thundered over the barren land to kill them. Aunt Skylenna riding on DaiSzek’s back, wielding a sword and balancing with her feet gripping his spine.
And DaiSzek fucking breathed—no, heroared—fire.
The battle was long and gruesome. Bodies of both sides indistinguishable in a pile of limbs, blood, and dirt. The battlefield a feast for the Dralutheran. The wet glint of exposed sinew. Burned flesh and copper. Smoke rose in black pillars from DaiSzek’s ruin.
Sapphire kept her hand clamped over my leg as we watched it all implode. Dellilian hid behind me, too afraid to watch with us.
Knightingale. My father, Aurick, saving my dad, Niles, and bleeding out in front of him. Aunt Skylenna commanding the Blood Mammoth to annihilate the MazonistBrothers.
We waited patiently for it all to end. The silence after is almost worse than the screams of death before. And this time, Sapphire didn’t look guilty. She did control this jump through time. This is exactly where she intended for us to end up.
And after it was all over, Sapphire turned to me with glossy eyes, still reeling from the sight of limbs and innards jutting from the mud.
“I know you don’t approve of me warning my father…” she said cautiously.
I look around at the red-streaked sky raining ash over the carnage. She’s talking about a fight, I think. Though it was yesterday for her, it was over a decade ago for me. That argument was buried deep in the archives of my mind. Untouched and preserved since the day she left.
“The argument we had,” I clarify, rubbing Dellilian’s head resting on my lap. “Ten years ago.”
Sapphire tries not to show it, but I’ve wounded her.
“It was only a couple of days ago for me,” she replies sadly.
My hand finds the side of her smooth face. The sensation flutters through my brain like a thousand angel wings. I still am unable to comprehend that she is here, sitting directly in front of me. I have fantasized for years about putting my hands on her. Feeling how soft and feminine her skin feels against my scarred and battered hands. The smell of her hair. Those heterochromatic eyes that make me feel drunk and dreaming all at once.
I don’t know if the fear of her disappearing again will ever not be ever-present, crushing me from the inside out.
“A lot has changed for me in that decade, Spitfire. Including the stubborn asshole who wanted to stop you from warning your dad.”
Her eyes light up.
“New history path!” Dellilian adds sleepily. “Haven’t done this the first time.”
“What does that mean?” Sapphire asks.
