Page 69

Despite the pain, Gabe scrambled forward, fumbling the shards of the broken Fount even as Hestraon tried to take over his fingers and make them fall, convinced He could somehow win Apollius over.

One, carved with leaf and wind and wave, slotted into place.

The other, marked with a sun, settled beside it.

Gabe scrabbled in the dirt, following the wavering golden path. No bigger than a pebble, the flame-carved shard winked from the ground. When he picked it up, his hand felt like it was made of stone.

It’s a mistake. Even now, Hestraon couldn’t admit defeat. Couldn’t bear the thought of hurting Apollius. They’ll never love you like you need. Isn’t this proof enough?

The fear of it threatened to pull him under. Gabe was not someone who trusted in love. Nothing in his life had taught him it was safe. If Lore had never known a love not colored with violence, he’d never known one that didn’t end in betrayal. His father. Anton.

But if he had to have faith in anything, it was Lore and Bastian.

And even though he was afraid—even though he relished the feeling of power singing down his veins, the security of a magic that had made a home in him—that faith was enough. He was enough. They’d shown him that.

He thought of what he’d said to Bastian on the ship. That he had the most to atone for. Part of him still believed that, but love cast out fear. He would be loved, no matter his past, no matter his magic or lack of it. Just as himself, he would be loved.

I am not You , he said to the god in his head. And Lore is not Nyxara, and Bastian is not Apollius. We are our own.

He fit the flame-carved piece into the lip of the Fount.

The Fount glowed golden. The song swelled.

Nothing else happened.

Lore glanced at the newly whole Fount dismissively. “Well done,” she said. “But you’re too late, and too wrong. Without the waters, the Fount is nothing. And It never fixed anything. She knows that now. Why go back to the way things were, when a new world is possible?”

His mouth was bleeding. Pain splintered through his abdomen with each heartbeat. All of Gabe was one pulsing ache, a worse hurt than having his eye pulled out, a worse hurt than anything he’d ever endured.

The thing Lore had become spread her hands wide, the lighthouse shine of her eyes beseeching. “I got My answer, Hestraon. I know what happens after death.”

Gabe wiped blood from his lip. He didn’t try to rise, staring at the god, chest heaving. Keeping his energy, knowing this fight would just keep going and going.

Maybe not , Hestraon said in Gabe’s head. He didn’t sound anguished anymore. He sounded thoughtful, and so tired. Maybe not.

I’m not giving her up , Gabe snarled.

I’m not asking you to , Hestraon replied. I am asking you to think of a different way. A pause. Be better than Us. You already are.

Lore slumped. The expression on her face now was familiar, even if the dimensions were made alien by divinity—defeat. Utter, trampled defeat. And hadn’t they both known it would come to that? Hadn’t they both known that when you go against gods, your chances are paper-thin?

When she spoke again, it was her voice. “There’s nothing after death, Gabe. Nothing. No personal hell, no Shining Realm. Just darkness.”

And he wished he could be surprised. His whole life, he’d labored in anticipation of the Shining Realm, and now he knew it didn’t exist, and he wished he could be surprised.

Apollius’s voice, now, Lore’s only there in under-rhythm. “There is no world beyond this world. You pass into nothing. Something the Fount could form, but chose not to. I tried, out there in all that dark. It would not yield to Me. I couldn’t make it anything but a void.”

Fear in His voice. God-size and all-consuming.

The god straightened. Held out a gold-seamed hand. “So give Me Your power. Become one with Me, that We may become something that can outlast any death. Not two deaths, but none at all.” He paused. “I’m giving You what You want, Hestraon.”

The golden hand beamed the light of the stolen sun.

Lore’s voice now, unsure and wavering. “All you have to do is give up the magic, Gabe, and we can all be together still. You, and Bastian, and me, just a different Me. There has to be something new. We can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again. ”

And this, too, was something they’d both known, a conclusion reached together on that beach, still slicked with the other’s sweat.

The same thing as before would not save them.

Not the Fount, left here all alone, untended and unrevered, inhuman in Its decisions.

Not the gods, stealing divinity to assuage Their own fears.

Not the religions built around Them both, scaffoldings of superstition to make death seem kinder, to try to force it to be kinder.

You cannot make a thing be good , he thought at Hestraon. You cannot make gods respect human feeling, or ask compassion from something that has forgotten it. You cannot force love from something incapable.

I know , the god mourned. But I have to try. All I ever did was try.

So when the god urged him to stand, foreign consciousness tugging at Gabe’s muscles, he followed that leading.

Vision spangling, bifurcating into looking at Lore and looking at a woman with claws and dark hair, looking at a blue sky and a shining cathedral and then ruins in a god-shaped shadow, Gabe held out his arms. Lore had moved so the Fount stood between them; cautiously, she crept to Its lip, staring at him across Its emptiness.

“This can’t happen, Lore,” Gabe said quietly, addressing only the woman he loved.

“It’s too much. No one can hold it, only the Fount.

” He laughed, a humorless bark of sound.

“Even if It is an unfeeling, alien thing. It seems most gods are.” His arms stretched farther, making himself a target, showing the depth of his love in full surrender.

“I know you’re in there. I know you’re stronger than He is.

Come to me, and we’ll fix it. Come home. ”

She crept closer, again, making her slow way around the Fount.

Her beacon eyes were soft; tears still spilled down her cheeks.

Step by step, Lore approached him, until she stood directly by his side.

This close, the monstrous, godly changes were even more evident—she was taller than him, a miraculous first, and every vein in her skin ran gold.

Gabe turned to her, his posture one of surrender. “We can make a different way,” he whispered, his voice, Hestraon’s. “You and me and Bastian. A new way all our own, with no gods in it.”

Her hand came up. Caressed his cheek, still that acid burn, but Gabe leaned into it, because it was her.

“Give it to Me,” Lore murmured, and it was her voice but Apollius’s desire, the two of them so muddled together now. “Gabe, just give Me the magic. Someone has to hold it, and I will be better than the Fount. I remember being human. I remember how to be kind.”

He wanted to believe her. He couldn’t.

She brought her lips close; her breath smelled of sunshine and blood-salt. “Once all the power is Mine, I can make you something undying. All three of us.”

He was tempted. Of course he was. It was Lore who always said to fuck the greater good, but he hadn’t quite lost his grip on it. It had only grown loose.

But it was enough, for now. To think of the world and not just of himself was enough. He was thankful for Lore’s selfishness, thankful for all the ways it had saved her. But that wasn’t him.

He shook his head. “We can find another way.”

“There is no other way,” she whispered, Apollius’s voice, hers a scream beneath it.

And then Gabe’s neck snapped.