Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
“Immortality is not a gift, it’s a curse, Rahvyn. And you never asked me whether I wanted this kind of forever. If you had, I would have said no.”
The bleak shock that tightened her beautiful face nearly made him take it back on the surface, tell her he didn’t mean it, that everything was fine. But he didn’t lie to himself, and he wasn’t going to lie to anybody else.
A silver tear traced the contour of her cheek and she captured it with her fingertips. “I am so sorry you feel that way.”
He looked away, to the flames, and thought about how the decisions made by other people steered the course of destinies, for the good, and for the ill.
“Nate, there are so many people who care about you, who want to help you. They have stopped reaching out after all these years, but they are still around you, ready to try again. There is no time limit on love. Even if it is up on a shelf, it can be taken down and held again in the heart—”
“Do us both a favor and leave,” he cut in with exhaustion. “You may have practiced this conversation in your head a couple of times, but it’s exactly the kind of interaction I’m not interested in having. I am not responsible for managing the emotional knickknacks on other people’s heart shelves—or whatever that sappy metaphor is. You’ve already done your best work on me once, and no offense, I’m not looking for any kind of repeat. This first go-around has been enough of a nightmare. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going inside.”
As he was turning his back on her, she said, “I can take it away from you.”
Nate stopped. Pivoted around. “Excuse me.”
With the flames flickering over her face, she was at once of the winter landscape and an ethereal specter. “If you are that miserable… I can end things for you.”
He thought of the first time he’d tested the boundaries of the whole immortal thing. He’d shot himself out in the woods, right in front of Shuli—and then he’d sat up, recovered his senses, and gotten back on his feet. The pain of dying, the suffocation, reflexive terror and sense of impending doom, were all things he’d experienced as if the result was permanent, but the regeneration had come at the end, like a computer rebooting itself after a power outage.
There had been a period in his life when he had tried to deal with the darkness inside of himself by repeating that cycle over and over again. Eventually, he’d gotten bored of it, proof that consciousness could adjust to any stressors if given enough exposure.
What the mind could not deal with was emptiness.
“You’re lying,” he said.
“No.” Rahvyn brushed her silver tears away with both hands. “If it is what you want, I will remove the spark I put into you, and you will die. Then and there.”
He took a deep breath and released the tension in his body with it. Except then he frowned. “Why is this only coming up now?”
“I had hoped you would find your way. I hoped… for a lot of things for you. I thought with enough time, you would come around to see the beauty and the possibility that is—”
“You can end me.”
“Yes,” she said roughly.
“And it’s truly over.”
“You will return to the state you were in when I brought you back.” The female put her palms forward. “But you need to think about this seriously, Nate. Take some time. Because there is no guarantee you will end up in the Fade. I do not know what happens to you.”
“Well, Dhunhd can’t be worse than my version of Caldwell.”
“I want you to make sure you know what you are asking for.”
He thought of the nightmares that plagued him, the ones that put him back in that human lab, the ones he could not escape from. Then he pictured Nalla in that alley, black and red blood on her clothes, her eyes red-rimmed and wide because she blamed herself for a death that didn’t matter for so many reasons.
Nate took a step toward Rahvyn. “Do it. I’m ready now—”
“You have to say your goodbyes first.”
“What? Why.”
“That is my condition.” Rahvyn looked to the sky as if searching for stars behind the cloud cover. “I will not do it until you say goodbye to your parents. Shuli. The Brotherhood. And you will do this properly, with sincerity. I will know if otherwise.”
“Now you’re putting rules in? Really.”
“I brought you back to save your loved ones pain, and all I see is unhappy people around you.” Her head leveled and she stared at him with hard eyes. “There is no peace for your parents. There is just a different kind of suffering from the grief I tried to relieve them of. As for you, you are no better off. I already made this situation worse once, I am not doing that again by cheating your loved ones of closure. You will do this, and then I will give you what you seek. And that is the way we will proceed.”