After that it is the baker’s wife who appears, along with her daughter, not as the bairn I tried to save twenty years ago, but as the young woman she would have been if she’d survived. Then it’s the farmer’s daughter who I stepped in to help too late, when she was trampled by the horse. The twins who died in the river, whom I was brought to after they’d gone cold and gray, but tried anyway—ten years ago?
And now there are more of the ones I did save over the hundreds of years I was in my village, those who went on to live good lives and enjoy the time they should have had before finally dying of old age. Men and women they are, all those babies over all the years I didn’t know were passing, that I brought back from death. From the illnesses I cheated out of their victims. From the injuries that should have been mortal. I remember each and every one of them, including the babies I lost because I came too late—most especially them I recognize, even if their faces show the maturity they would have enjoyed if I’d just gotten there a little sooner.
Though in life they were all not able to thank me, or even acknowledge me, now they bow their heads to me with gratitude and deference before turning to the Dark King. It doesn’t seem to matter whether I was successful in my revival or not; their gratitude to me seems to be tied not at all to the outcome, but more to the suffering I saw… and what I tried to do about it.
As I stepped in for them then, so they step in for me now.
There are ten, now twenty. Thirty, then a hundred.
Then a thousand.
My father has been collecting souls… but now I see that so have I. Andunlike him, I did not want to claim what is not mine to take. I just wanted them to live and be with their families, and love who they chose and have the time upon Anathos that they deserved.
It is the dragon’s miracle coming at the right time once again, except this is so much more. This is the culmination of all my efforts, over all the years, everything that I have given to the world without expecting a return, returned back as it was granted.
With love.
And it is delivered by the family I created with whatIdid with the time I had.
The Dark King stands now on the other side of a great wall of light. Through the swirling illumination, he seems confused, but with no surprise, he recovers quickly and he is angered beyond measure.
“You think this show stops me?” he growls, his voice warping.
With an unholy roar, he braces his hooved feet and puts both his palms forth, unleashing his black magic upon the chain of souls.
He’s so powerful, it’s like the entire ocean comes in on a single wave.
Ninety-FiveLove.
And yet the shield of souls protects me and Merc.
However much my father projects, however strong his evil is, he is no match for my army of light and the protection they provide. Except it is more than that. As the deluge of evil magic hits the wall of illumination, it is sent back to the Dark King, as a mirror would reflect whatever is before it. He is hit by his own dark energy—
The horned monster is blown apart in a great warping explosion that expands outward above us all in a mushroom cloud big as the whole sky.
I can only stare upward in wonder and disbelief—
As massive as the explosion is, the retraction is just as intense. What extends up and out curdles back on itself, the forceful suction so great that it leaves a fresh fissure in the red earth.
That pulls him down and holds him in.
Before sealing back up.
In the aftermath, the silence is deafening. And then I feel the hand in my own and look at Merc.
I reach for him as he reaches for me. Shaken and weak, we embrace on the ground, holding each other.
As I feel a sprinkling on my cheek, I look up. Black snow is falling, everywhere. On us, on the demon army that remains, on the red ground.
But not on the souls. They are untouched.
My ghostly family turns back around to me, and I see all the calm, glowing faces, of all the people whose lives I changed when I thought I didn’t matter. The lesson, I know now, is that kindness is never, ever wasted. It is the sunlight against the darkness of the cold, hard world, and as with how the Sooth defined truth, so it is also the way with mercy:
Kindness does not need to be acknowledged to exist.
And we cannot survive without it.
All at once, the souls begin to drift off, but not into the split in this plane of existence they came through and certainly not into the fissures in this horrible place.
