Page 72

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

BASTIAN

Behold, You always make a way.

I t had occurred to him while he sat with Gabe—Gabe’s body, but he refused to think of him like that, as just a corpse—and watched Lore embrace her mother that he was probably going to die tonight.

The thought wasn’t new , of course. There had been part of him entertaining the possibility pretty much since Apollius vacated his body, since he boarded Jax’s ship bound for the Golden Mount.

He should have been worried over the political implications of suddenly going against Kirythea’s plans, how he would deal with his court’s newfound religious fervor.

But those things had been far from Bastian’s thoughts, and not just because he was, when you came right down to it, not a very good King.

It was because he’d known, somehow, that those things would not be his problem.

That they would be left to better-suited minds than his own.

Because this was his part. Dying for Lore. For the rest of the world, too. But mostly for her.

He watched her slump, after her mother was gone, swollen with magic then swallowed by the Fount.

There’d been surprise in Lore’s face, when Lilia disappeared and the star-void materialized in her place, erupting from the Fount like a geyser of black-and-gold water.

He’d had no such surprise. He knew something more was coming.

There was always something more.

But Bastian took his time, even as Lore railed at the Fount, as he felt the world going to threads around him. There was time, because he was going to die, and his dying would end it. A cork in the wine bottle of eternity, sealing it closed.

Gabe’s eye was open, glassy; Lore hadn’t had a chance to close it, full of shock and god.

Bastian did it for her, gently closing Gabe’s lid over the shining blue iris.

He ran his hand over the stubble on Gabe’s chin, raked his fingers through that red-gold hair until he’d broken up most of the dried blood, brushed the flakes away.

He kissed him, one last time, though he could hardly stand to do it when Gabe’s mouth was stiff and cold.

For a man who always tried to appear stiff and cold, he’d never, ever kissed like it.

Bastian had only experienced those kisses a handful of times, but he was confident in his assertion.

Gabriel Remaut had always kissed like fire.

Then Bastian stood up and walked over to his other love.

There were no tears left in Lore. He knew that feeling. She lay limp in the ruined courtyard, utterly defeated as the Fount began the process of unspinning the universe, trying to work up the courage to die. Gently, Bastian reached out and tangled his hand in her hair, a gentle pressure.

She didn’t understand at first, when he said they’d come to his part.

Bastian’s fault; his flair for the dramatic dictated that he not just say Never mind all that, I’ll die for you instead , especially when it seemed that he would not get many more opportunities to be dramatic.

But when she did, those perfect eyes blew wide, her jaw went tight, and her chin came up, a picture of defiance as familiar to him as the scar on his palm.

“No,” she said simply. No cursing, no fighting, just simple negation. “I won’t allow it. Please, Bastian, I can’t lose you both.”

“It seems one of us is going to have to lose the other two, or the world will end. How’s that for fairness?

” He smoothed back her hair, and she leaned into his touch, so tired.

“Lore, dearest, there could be a life for you beyond this. Let me do this for you.” He knelt next to her, pulled her forward so his lips brushed her forehead. “Let me be the hero, just once.”

“I never wanted you to be a hero,” she murmured. “Either one of you. I didn’t need that.”

“Of course not.” He smiled against her skin. “I would say you wanted to be your own hero, but that’s not quite right, either. We just didn’t need heroes, any of us. I’d like to try, all the same.”

Her grip on him tightened. All around them, the Fount sang, eternity hummed, and the void in the air slowly, slowly grew.

“Please, Bastian.” She didn’t know what she was pleading for, not really. The words were just the shape her desperation took. “Please, I can’t do this.”

“You can, though.” He brought her hands to his lips, kissed her rough knuckles. “You’ve fought so hard to live, Lore. You’ve survived things no one else should, and there has to be a reason for that. Let me let you keep it.” He spoke against her fingers, hushed. “Let me be your hero.”

“You were, anyway,” she murmured, tears sheeting down her cheeks. She did nothing to stop them, so he did, instead, wiping them away. “Both of you were better than I deserved, for however long I had you.”

“Hush.” He kissed her forehead. His own throat was a sawblade, but damn him if he’d let her see, if he’d let her know just how afraid he was.

All that yawning black, and the thought of that door leading to Apollius’s memories, that endless void.

“We were for one another. All three of us. So I’m going to be for you now, all right? ”

“I won’t let you.” She stood on unsteady legs, hobbled toward the Fount and the yawning void above It. “I finally have something worth sacrificing myself for—”

He grabbed her arm, and she fought him, and even though she was weak it was still a struggle.

Bastian pinioned her arms against her sides and hugged her to him, hard.

“I’ll knock you out if I have to,” he whispered into her hair.

“I know the exact place on the back of your head to press. Watching Gabe so closely paid off there.”

Lore shook her head. He enclosed it tenderly between his palms to stop her, his eclipse scar rough against the one on her temple. “I’m not afraid,” he lied. “You said maybe you could find him in all that nothing. Maybe I can, too.”

Bastian hadn’t been one to pray, even when he thought there was something to pray to. Now he knew there wasn’t, but his words had a talismanic quality anyway, full of hope. As if by saying them, he could will them true.

She was sobbing now, his Lore, his dearest. He wished there were a way out of this that didn’t cause her pain. But there wasn’t, and if there had still been gods to curse for that, anything but the unfeeling Fount, he would have done it.

He held her close until the sobs subsided, as much as they were going to. He wiped at her cheeks. “Take a breath, love, you look a mess.”

One sob turned to half laughter. Lore buried her face in his chest. “Is that how you’ll remember me, if you’re… if remembering is something you can do?”

“No.” He cradled her jaw in his hands. “Do you recall that first night at the boxing ring? When I devised a very clever trap to catch you? I do. I looked across the ring, when I knew Michal was coming, when I knew he would see you. And you had this look on your face. Surprised, your mouth open—delectable, might I add—and your hair wild, and your eyes bright. You looked like you could kill me, and I would have let you. And there was our Mort beside you, so noble, ready to jump to your aid, but watching me move like a starving man all the same. That’s how I’ll remember you.

Both of you. Fierce, and beautiful, and at a beginning rather than an end. ”

She sobbed again, choked it back. Relaxed her hold on him, gradually, until he could ease away.

It felt wrong not to touch her, but this couldn’t be put off any longer.

Bastian thought of it as any other duty he didn’t care for, as he turned to the humming void, the doorway into eternity that would eat the world if it wasn’t closed. One more task, then he could rest.

“I love you,” he called to Lore. Casual, the same way he’d say it when leaving breakfast. “Remember that. We both loved you up until the very end, and whatever is left of us will love you long beyond that.”

He stood in front of the hole into eternity, giving it the same unimpressed look he’d give a courtier he didn’t like. “Well,” he called to the Fount. “It seems You need an erstwhile god to die, and I am applying for the position.”

“ You would suffice. ” The Fount sounded bored. The making and unmaking of worlds was nothing to It. “ You would mend the seams. ”

“And the world will go on?” He didn’t want to be fearful, but it crept into his voice all the same.

“ We will go on as We always have. ” Waters splashed against the side of the Fount. “ It will be interesting to watch, at least. ”

“At least,” Bastian agreed. He turned to look at Lore again. No more words; he’d said them all. But he raised his hand, kissed his scar. Lifted it in the same wave he’d give her if he were only leaving for a meeting, as if he’d see her again soon.

Willing it true, with every scrap in him, every piece that had once held power.

Then he stepped through the door, into the dark and stars and molten gold, to whatever waited next.