His magic.
His life.
What he did next wasn’t part of the plan, but a surge of the recklessness Elloven loved to bust his balls over. She’d been too upset in the swamp to notice what hadn’t happened to him when Fabrien had stolen his flame.
Jesstin reached for the diadem, prayed please don’t be fucking wrong, and ripped the chain cleanly from his neck.
The Conductor went bone stiff. Then it seemed to... expand, sideways and upward, accumulating mass, but when nothing happened to Jesstin, it settled again and was, for the moment anyway, speechless.
Jesstin cocked his arm back and hurled the light into the blood-red snow, far into the distance, where it disappeared.
He marched past the bloated Conductor and into the tableau, lifting his legs over the shimmering edge. He shoved his way through the fervent crowd, joining their chanting and laughing as he pumped his arm. More than one drink sloshed him as he squeezed by, and he was almost halted by the nostalgic aroma of spit-roasted boar, his favorite, but he made it to the scaffold without anyone recognizing him.
Jesstin planted his hands on the boards and leaped up. Elloven was at the part when she’d revealed herself as a daughter of the Curia, to save him, and Past Jesstin was growing more and more agitated with her misguided impulse.
No one seemed to notice there was a newcomer standing on the stage, except Taven. They’d understood one another before. Jesstin counted on it working again when he nodded at Elloven, then back at him. Taven returned it and marched up the steps, headed her way. It wasn’t the first time they’d found common ground on the matter of her safety, but Jesstin hoped it was the last.
While everyone else responded to the commotion, he moved to the hangman’s rack. Seeing himself in person was nothing like looking at his reflection. He could smell his own dirt, sweat, and fear. When he placed his hand on his past self’s chest, the beats exceeded that of the fastest song he could think of.
Past Jesstin didn’t react to his presence at all.
Jesstin reached for the noose and removed it from his past self’s neck. “Go, I’ve seen to her safety, go,” he hissed, knowing the other him couldn’t hear, even without the deafening savagery, but he hoped, prayed, and believed it would reach him somehow.
“Kill him!”
“Get on with it!”
“Oy, where’s he going then?”
Past Jesstin spun in confusion, no doubt wondering who had freed him and why. His stunned gaze landed on Netherworld Jesstin only a second longer than it needed to, and he knew his words had found their mark.
Past Jesstin did as he was told and ran.
A splintering crack formed through the center of the scaffold. Netherworld Jesstin leaped just in time to avoid falling through. Terror-filled shrieks resounded as the ground rumbled, tearing several chasms into the field.
He searched for Elloven and found her straining against Taven’s efforts to guide her down the steps. Her screams followed Past Jesstin.
Look at me. See me, Elloven. See me. Jesstin ignored the world coming to ruin and waited. See me, Elloven. See me!
Elloven stopped squirming. Confusion interlaced her panic. She breathed in, and her mouth hung, bewildered, on her slow exhale. Her attention turned to where Past Jesstin had fled, then back to him. Behind her, Taven was anxious but waiting.
I love you and I will find you, Jesstin mouthed and waited only long enough for her expression to reflect her understanding. He nodded at Taven to get her the hell out of there and jumped off the scaffold just as it caved in on itself.
The sky darkened and pummeled the earth with hail the circumference of small cannon shots. One smashed into a man’s head and knocked him to his knees. Another sent a child into a crevasse as wide as a trail.
Jesstin ducked beneath a tree to reorganize. From there, he could see the totality of the pandemonium. The field was unrecognizable, half of it rent open, the rest marked with craters. Bodies were strewn everywhere, blood painting the dried grass. People were running, sobbing, and crashing into one another. One hurled himself into a chasm after kissing the mouth of a dead woman.
He’d upended the Conductor’s game, but had he actually changed the future by running before the bond was sealed?
Roots from the tree ripped from the ground like they were climbing out. Jesstin scrambled to his feet, looking for his next move, and found the Conductor striding his way, its lips peeled back in a lethal snarl. It was no longer the elusive gamemaster, the cryptic riddler, or the duplicitous merchant. Whatever the eventual consequence, Jesstin had gotten under its skin and had upset the outcome, and the savageness sizzling in the creature’s eyes made it clear it was not merely surprised but apocalyptic.
It was a grim victory though. The Conductor had fashioned a maze of death and destruction that left Jesstin nowhere to go. He darted to the next tree, but it unearthed itself, and so did the next. His only chance was to keep running.
Jesstin shot out from the safety of the boughs with both arms over his head. Hail slammed the ground on his left and right, another landing right where his boot almost had. Instinct screamed at him that he must find a way out, that his death in the illusory world would become canonic. He pivoted onto a diagonal path that cut far too close to the Conductor, but there wasn’t a better way, nor the time to find one.
A man slammed into him, hard enough to slow him, but it was the disruption to his balance that betrayed him. He hit the ground hard, his face inches from the edge of a chasm that smelled of scorched sulfur.
Pain split him as he shoved upward, but he stopped midway. What was he doing there anyway? He’d never actually stood a chance, battling an ancient demon—one man against an unstoppable force, a man who was just vainglorious enough to believe he could not only resurrect the woman he loved but free millions of dead people.
