Heart of Ash Page 20

  When I looked at Beth and Rhys huddled together on the seashell path, it brought tears to my eyes. If I slipped into darkness, not only would I be trapped with Lucinda and Coronado in immurement, in eternal agony, but I’d miss out on so much. The children Beth and Rhys might have, their grandchildren, the generations to come. I wondered if I was making a huge mistake, but I knew this was my last chance at redemption.

  As much as it hurt to admit, Dane, Beth, and Rhys could live without me, but they wouldn’t live long if Coronado had his way.

  Maybe there was a part of me that could live vicariously through them. Through our blood. During my immurement, if I concentrated hard enough, I might be able to feel the sun on my face, taste sea salt on the tip of my tongue. Smell wildflowers and freshly tilled soil. It may not seem like much, but in the darkness, a glimmer is all you need to hold on to life . . . to love.

  My brother slipped his bony hand into mine, startling me. “Whatever you’re about to do, you don’t have to do this . . . We can run . . . we can—”

  “Mom gave me this light when she saved me. All this time I thought it was for me . . . to keep the darkness at bay, but it was really for this moment, for you and Beth . . . and Dane.”

  “But—”

  “I need you to trust me. I know I’ve said that before and—”

  “Always.” He squeezed my hand.

  It almost broke my heart how willing he was to put everything on the line for me. After everything we’ve been through, everything I’ve done. “You were always the good part of me, and as long as you walk this earth, a part of me can live in the light. Just knowing you and Beth and Dane will be safe and happy and free. That’s enough. If the darkness consumes me and I’m immured along with them, I may not be able to see you . . . or touch you, but I’ll be there. In your blood. In your heart.”

  I looked at Lucinda, kneeling in front of an olive tree, and I wondered what she was praying for—Mercy? Justice? Forgiveness?— but when I reached out to her, I found she was praying for strength.

  We were all making a great sacrifice for this to come to pass.

  And if the darkness consumed me, Lucinda would have to take me with her. Here, we would remain in this living tomb, where the only people we could hurt were each other.

  Using the scalpel, I slit open the palms of my hands, coaxing my blood forward. As soon as it made contact with the soil, I felt connected to the vortex churning beneath my feet. Beth was right. This was a place of great and terrible energy, just like Quivira. Darkness thrived here.

  As I walked a wide circle, preparing for the ritual, I couldn’t help thinking of my mother. I hoped she would be proud of me. I hoped she and Timmons were together now, watching over us.

  The moment I stepped inside the completed circle, it felt as if my ribs were being spread apart for extra air. It hurt, but the relief was overwhelming.

  The spirit world was answering my call. I felt life and death trembling from my fingertips.

  As much as I craved revenge, this was about Rhys and Beth and Dane—keeping them safe from that monster, and the monster I may become.

  And all I had to do was let go of the light and let the darkness in.

  But everything inside me wanted to hold on. That light was the last connection I had to my mother—without it, what would I be?

  It was time to find out.

  40

  I DIDN’T NEED to look back to know that Dane had emerged from the castle. The scent of burning flesh and hair flared in my nostrils, but it went deeper than that. I felt his pain . . . his confusion . . . his remorse pulsing through me.

  But as he approached, I felt something unexpected. Dane. Not the slivers of Dane that Coronado had been meting out, but all of him, all at once—a crippling wave of despair and heartache.

  And there was part of me—a very sick part—that wanted to believe Coronado was gone for good, that we didn’t have to go through with this, but that’s exactly what Coronado wanted, what the Dark Spirit wanted. Dane was nothing but a sacrificial lamb.

  “Ashlyn.” He stumbled into the circle, his flesh shriveled from his bones, his hair singed beyond recognition. “Whatever happened . . . whatever he did, we can work through this.”

  “You don’t know,” I said with a sharp inhalation of breath. “You don’t know what he’s done?”

  “I must’ve lost control. The last thing I remember is asking you to marry me. And you said yes,” he recalled with a hazy smile of remembrance. “And then there was darkness. When I came back, I was on fire.”

  It was sickening to watch him in so much pain, but he had to know the truth.

  “You married me. You killed Spencer before he could tell me the truth about Coronado . . . and then we . . . I . . . I slept with you . . . but it wasn’t you. And then I discovered all the immortals—you killed them with Rhys’s blood. You’ve been keeping my brother in a torture chamber . . . underfoot.” I winced. “All that time he was right below my feet. And you were going to imprison me next to him, so you could control the cure and the curse.”

  “No,” he murmured as he staggered back, his flesh slowly starting to regenerate. “That wasn’t me. I can promise you with everything that I am . . . everything that I have, I didn’t know. He fooled me just as much as he fooled you. But this is me,” he said, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Tell me you feel it . . . tell me you know the difference.”

  “For now, but as soon as your flesh heals, Coronado will take over again.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The only way to force Coronado to give up control is pain. That’s why Lucinda was hurting you. She was trying to help us.”

  As he looked down at his body beginning to heal, he said, “I can stay in control. I can do this.”

  “You have no idea how much I want that to be true, but when it comes to you and Coronado, everything we feel . . . everything inside of us is a betrayal.”

  Looking at his ravaged face, his twisted body, pained me. This wasn’t the boy I’d fallen in love with. This was what loving me did to him. Did to us all.

  “But I can fix this. I can help you,” I said. “I’m going to use my light to take Coronado from you and put him in Lucinda. She wants this. He’s her twin.”

  Dane looked confused at first, but when he realized what this meant for me, what giving away my light would do to me, he panicked. “If you use your mother’s light, the darkness could consume you.”

  “I have to take that chance. If I go dark, Lucinda has agreed to take me with her, but you’ll need to let me go.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can and you will. This is bigger than you and me. Promise me you’ll look after them.” I glanced back at Rhys and Beth, holding hands just outside the circle.

  “Of course,” Dane replied. “But you need to promise me something in return,” he said as his hair began to grow back, the burns healing on his face. “There’s light inside of you that’s yours alone. I saw it in Quivira, long before your mother saved you. Find it. Hang on to it. Not for me . . . not for Beth and Rhys, but for yourself. Because you’re worthy of it. Believe in that.”

  Dane clutched his stomach, dropping to his knees, and when he looked up at me, I felt the tiniest shift.

  “I come to you in amends,” he said.

  “Amends?” I studied him, trying to discern every detail. “Dane would never say something like that.”

  “It’s me. What do I have to do to prove that?” he said, looking at me with nothing but love in his eyes.

  “That’s the thing.” I shook my head rapidly as I backed away, tears blurring my vision. “There’s nothing you can do or say. Neither one of us can be trusted anymore.”

  As I raised my hands toward the sky, he got to his feet. “What are you doing?”

  “I’ve been holding on to my mother’s light al
l this time, for this reason. I’m going to rip you from Dane’s body. It’s time to end this” he said.

  “Go ahead, waste your light—the darkness suits you—but without a vessel, it’s a pointless exercise. I can think of so many better ways to exert your energy. Really, mi amor, all of my relations are dead. I saw to that. Do you take me for a fool?”

  “I do, actually,” Lucinda said as she emerged from the olive grove, stepping inside the circle. “Did you forget about me? Your dear sister . . . your twin?”

  All the blood seemed to leach from his face, but he tried to cover his shock the best he could. “Thank God you’re all right, Lucinda. I was horrified to learn what Dane tried to do to you, but I knew you were too smart to fall for that parlor trick.”

  “But I did. Oh, how I fell,” she said. “But Ash saved me, and there’s no better vessel in the world than a twin. Just think, we’ll be together, as we once were inside the womb.”

  “That’s madness,” he said. He tried to force a laugh, but the tremor in his voice gave him away. “Let’s be civilized about this. We can work out a schedule. A time-share, if you will. Two nights with Dane, two nights with me. You two can fight over who gets me for the extra night.”

  “That’s very generous,” I said. “But I think we’re good with this. Right, Lucinda?”

  “I’ve been waiting nearly five hundred years for this moment.”

  Coronado attempted a smile. “I had no idea the two of you had grown so close in that special way, but I suppose I can work with that. It’s good to have a change every once in a while. The three of us can go to France—I think they’re much more accepting of that lifestyle.”

  “I have somewhere else in mind,” Lucinda said. “A little closer to home.”

  “Ego sum qui pecavvi,” I whispered in his ear. “I am he who has sinned.”

  “No . . . no,” Coronado murmured right before he turned and tried to run, but the circle wouldn’t release him. “Anything but that. Anything but immurement. I’ll do anything you ask. I’ll—”

  Jabbing the scalpel into his stomach, I twisted it until Dane came back to me.

  “Immure me,” he panted. “As I am, with Coronado inside of me. There’s no reason to give away your light. Let me do this for you . . . while I can still make that choice.”

  “Haven’t we suffered enough?” I kissed his trembling lips for the last time. “It’s time for you to be free.”

  “But without you . . . ,” he gasped.

  “Fight to stay in your body, and I promise you, I’ll fight the darkness inside of me.”

  He nodded, tears streaming down his face. “Ashlyn,” he whispered one last time.

  “Dane,” I whispered back.

  As I pulled out the scalpel, Dane slumped over in pain, clutching his stomach, and I took my place in the center of the circle.

  Breathing in the magic all around me, I spoke Katia’s words.

  As I chanted the spell, I watched in amazement as a golden glow began to beam from my skin . . . just as vibrant as my mother’s light when she took Katia’s soul from me. At first, it pulsed forward in fits and spurts, but then it became a steady flow, reaching straight into Dane’s chest. Lifting him in the air, I felt his heart as if it were beating in the palm of my hand.

  Fight him, Dane. Don’t give in.

  Opening myself up, I thought of every good memory I had of Dane—when we first met at the junkyard and he brushed his thumb against my hip bone . . . how I used only my senses to find him at the wreathing ceremony . . . sitting with him by the fire . . . holding his hand in the corn . . . the way he carried me into the lake, washing the blood from my skin . . . our first real kiss . . . being with him under Heartbreak Tree—and the light grew stronger, enfolding him, protecting him. Using the last of my mother’s light, I coaxed the darkness toward me, lulling it out of Dane’s body, until a slow black ooze of smoke began to seep from Dane’s mouth. Coronado’s soul. Without hesitation, Lucinda stepped toward Dane, inhaling deeply, taking Coronado’s sickness into her lungs, as if she were born to it. She kissed Dane with such ferocious need that it made me woozy. Love and hate. Hurt and betrayal. Possession and rage, swirling all around them.

  Dane’s body convulsed and buckled beneath her lips, but Lucinda held on tight, until there was nothing left. And when Lucinda finally let go, both Dane and me collapsed to the ground like empty shells, staring across the circle at each other.

  As the light began to fade from my skin, I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to look at him as I turned into a monster. As I lay there feeling the darkness slip between my bones, infecting every cell in my body, I caught a sliver of light. At first I wasn’t sure if it was a mirage or an errant ray of sunlight seeping through my eyelids, but the more I homed in on that light, the stronger it beamed. And inside that tiny sliver were memories—Rhys and Beth, all dressed up, exchanging rings under a canopy of honeysuckle; little kids running around, with Beth’s eyes, my brother’s smile; Dane and me holding hands on the edge of a cliff, staring off into a never-ending horizon—and I realized none of these things had happened. They were images of the future—one that didn’t include me being immured with Lucinda and Coronado.

  The darkness was still there, it always would be, but if I concentrated on that sliver of light inside of me, I could nurture it, make it grow, fill it with new memories. There would still be death and heartache and sorrow—that’s just a part of life, but I could choose to live in the light every single day.

  As I crawled over to Dane, I asked, “Is it you?” But I didn’t need to. I could feel him all at once, the sorrow, the tenderness, the love crushing down on him. On me.

  “Yes,” he said, weeping, still unable to fully move. “And it’s you,” he said, straining to touch me with his fingertips.

  All that remained were the best parts of us, reaching out to each other in forgiveness, hope, and love.

  I was nearly there when I was jerked back.

  Whipping my head around, I saw Lucinda, dragging me by my ankle out of the circle.

  “Lucinda, stop! It’s Ash. I can stay. I won’t hurt them. There’s still light inside of me.”

  “You belong to me,” she said, but the cold veneer in her eyes gave it away. This wasn’t Lucinda anymore. It was Coronado.

  Twisting my body around, I jabbed the scalpel into her leg.

  “I don’t belong to anyone,” I said, digging it all the way in until I hit bone.

  After a few tortured seconds, I watched a softness pass over her face as Lucinda returned to me.

  “This is where we part ways,” she said as she stared off into the horizon, as if she were trying to memorize every last detail. With her black hair, wild and loose, the sun rising in her eyes, I’d never seen her more at peace, more beautiful.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my eyes welling up with tears at the sacrifice she was making.

  “This isn’t the end. It’s a new beginning . . . for all of us. How it was meant to be.”

  As she turned to limp toward the burning castle, her blood seeping down her leg, into the soil, I swore I could hear worms and maggots rise to the surface, in the wake of her footsteps, feeding on one another in an endless cycle of life and death.

  With each step closer, the wind grew stronger, the ground trembled, and by the time she reached the entry, the energy encircling the castle had reached a fever pitch.

  But I wasn’t the one doing this. Maybe it was the Dark Spirit, welcoming them home.

  And the moment Lucinda stepped over the threshold, disappearing into the veil of flames, a huge explosion ripped through the wreckage. The ground grumbled in defiance until it finally gave way, opening up like the deadliest bloom, swallowing the castle whole, then sealing back up again.

  And then there was silence.

  Not a crow to be heard.

  As we stood the
re, staring out over the barren patch of land, tiny flecks of white began to fall all around us. It looked like snow, but it wasn’t cold. I caught one of the flakes on my fingertip, to find it was only ash.

  A surge of raw emotion rushed through me, through all of us.

  “Is this what you saw in your vision?” I asked Beth. “The four of us together under a snowy sky that wasn’t cold?”

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” She smiled as she twirled around.

  “It is.” I let out an unexpected laugh.

  Dane reached out, removing a speck of ash from my eyelashes.

  The gesture was so simple, so sweet, it nearly brought me to my knees.

  I looked up at him, expecting to feel that familiar push and pull, but it was gone now. It wasn’t about our blood anymore—light and dark, me bending to him or him bending to me—it was about being together as equals, standing side by side in our pain. It wasn’t perfect. But it was real.

  It felt good knowing that from here on out, nothing was predestined or left to fate. Our future belonged to no one but ourselves. Whatever we made of it.

  The black silk ribbon curled through the air, but it passed right by us to dance over the barren spot of land, the place of Coronado and Lucinda’s immurement. That kind of love didn’t belong to us anymore. Without it, I felt untethered. I felt free.

  I couldn’t help thinking of the first time my brother and I stood in front of the corn at Quivira.

  “Remember when I told you that it was good to be afraid? That it meant you still had something to live for?”

  Rhys slipped his hand into mine, squeezing tight.

  “I’m not afraid anymore. Of anything.” Tears streamed down my cheeks, but I didn’t wipe them away. “I don’t need the fear anymore to know I’m alive,” I said as I looked at every single one of them. “I have love instead.”

  Saying good-bye to the blood and salt of my youth, my heart of ash, I turned my back on the past and set out to become the woman I wanted to be.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS