Hazlitt howled with rage at my interference. “You spoiled, ungrateful brat!” he shouted at Ava, and the clashing of their swords sounded off the walls. “I raised you!”
I was losing the energy to spark jump, so this time I ducked under a high swing, collapsing onto one knee because of the weakness in my other leg. It put me at the perfect level to reach out and grab the soldier’s thigh with a current of sparks. Only three more to go.
“I gave you a roof!” Hazlitt continued breathily, blocking a daring swing from Ava. “I gave you every luxury you could have ever wanted! And this is how you repay me! How you repay your father!”
“YOU ARE NOT MY FATHER!” Ava screamed, at such volume and so full of fury that it nearly froze every one of us on the spot. Hazlitt stared at her in shock for all of a moment before she charged at him, and she was so angry that she went on a powerful offensive. “My father was a good man!” she hollered, striking at him with a strength and a fierceness I’d never seen in her before. “An honest!” she smashed out strike after brutal strike, “gentle!” beating Hazlitt back toward the side of the dungeon, “loving man!” But when her voice cracked, it wasn’t with exhaustion. It was overwhelming emotion. “And you killed him!”
I spark jumped again, getting behind one of the final three soldiers and shoving my sword through his back.
“You destroy everything I love!” Ava yelled, her voice breaking with tears as Hazlitt’s back hit the wall. “And I hate you!”
It happened too fast to think. Ava swung at Hazlitt a final time, but he countered it with a mighty strike of his own. It was so forceful that it knocked the sword out of Ava’s hands, and he instantly reached out, grabbed her, and switched their positions. Her back slammed against the wall, and Hazlitt’s sword would have been through her stomach the very next second if I hadn’t reached out with my mind. I stopped him, put all my focus on keeping him from killing her, and it gave her the opening she needed. Ava’s hand didn’t hesitate to shoot out faster than I could blink. She grabbed the dagger from Hazlitt’s belt and sent it flying upward, burying the point of it through his chin and into his skull.
But that opening, that lull in my focus, it was just enough for one of my enemy soldiers to land a strike of their own. The man rushed, and right as Ava killed Hazlitt, his sword went clean through my heart. I didn’t even feel it. Just knew that everything had stopped and I couldn’t breathe or hear or speak, and my gaze met Ava’s just long enough to take in the horror on her face before everything was dark.
It felt like only a moment before I opened my eyes again, but nothing was the same. I wasn’t the same, and wasn’t even in the same place. I was standing elsewhere, but I watched the man who’d killed me withdraw his sword from my chest. My lifeless body collapsed to the dungeon floor at the same time Hazlitt’s did, and Ava raced away from him. She sprinted over, her face pale and panic-stricken as she dropped to her knees where I’d fallen without even acknowledging the two remaining enemies. They looked surprised about it as she grabbed me, tears already streaming down her face as she pulled me up to hug me to her. One of the men decided to kill her, but just as he raised his sword, an arrow shot through his skull. The other had hardly turned toward the dungeon exit before meeting the same fate, and Nira and the others came bounding down the stairs.
But Ava. Ava was crushed. More devastated than I’d ever seen her. More than that day in castle. Even more than when I’d left her with Hazlitt. And me? I was… “What have I done?” I whispered, throwing my hands to my head as tears filled my eyes. I was dead, but my heart wasn’t breaking because I hadn’t wanted to die. It was because I was all Ava wanted. The only thing she’d cared about and so desperately wanted was getting her life with me after this was over, and I’d sacrificed it all on a whim. After everything she’d been through, all I ever wanted was for her to be happy, and I’d stolen the last glimmer of hope she had left. I couldn’t watch this. Couldn’t watch Ava sobbing over me, because a sob broke in my own throat as I whimpered, “Gods, what have I done?”
“Kiena,” murmured a familiar voice from behind me.
I wheeled around to meet it, facing three looming figures, and at first I thought I couldn’t be seeing right. I swiped at my eyes to rid them of moisture, hoping that freeing them of the blur would help me see more clearly, but I wasn’t mistaken. I was seeing exactly what I thought I was, and met the gaze of the person on the left.
“Elder Numa?” I said in shock, and glanced at the figure in the middle. “The witch from the Black Wood…” And the one on the right. “…My sword instructor…” I took in a shaky, emotional breath to try and ask a question, but I didn’t know what to say. I wiped at my cheek as another tear fell, but I couldn’t look behind me. It hurt too much. “You’re not dead,” I said. That was all I thought I knew for sure. They couldn’t be.
“Never dead,” the witch answered.
“Never living,” said my mysterious sword instructor.
“Always both,” added Elder Numa in their soft voice.
“I don’t understand,” I stammered, sniffling and choking on another sob.
“You’ve long been a favorite of ours, Kiena,” Elder Numa said, and I finally remembered why their voice had sounded so familiar to me when I’d met them in the mountains. My dreams. When Ava and I were separated, Elder Numa’s was the voice in my dreams urging me to find her. “So few even remember us anymore.”
“The gods?” I breathed.
“I am nature and natural magic,” Elder Numa explained.
“I am the physical and the wills of man,” said my sword instructor with an introductory bow.
“And I am the space between,” finished the witch.
“But you’ve,” I began, and I swallowed down a lamenting whimper as my focus bounced between them, “you’ve come to me. You’ve interfered.”
“As much as we could allow ourselves, yes,” Elder Numa confirmed.
The witch made a proud sweep with her hand. “A potion for you and Ava.”
Elder Numa gave a soft smile. “Sending the wolf when you most needed purpose.”
The sword instructor’s lips curled too. “Trying to make you a swordsman.” I let out a teary laugh. “Hazlitt went unchecked for far too long. It was imperative that his life end.”
At the reminder of life ending, I couldn’t help but start sniffling all over again as my mouth curved into a deep frown, and the witch was studying me with something like curiosity. “You don’t cry for the reasons most mortals do when they come here.”
Fresh tears spilled down my face, and I risked a look behind me to see that Nira had knelt at Ava’s side, but not even Nira could comfort her. “This is the most selfish thing I’ve ever done,” I wept. Ava’s shoulders were shaking with heavy sobs, but her entire body was trembling with grief. “I couldn’t watch her die,” I inhaled a stuttering breath, “and now I’ve made her…” I was so overcome with despair that I couldn’t stay straight. I squatted down, setting my elbows on my knees so I could bury my face in my hands as I broke down crying. “Is this the afterlife?” I sobbed to myself. “Am I bound to watching the misery I’ve caused her?” I’d been so careless that maybe I deserved it… but not Ava. Ava never deserved this.
“This is the entrance to the afterlife,” Elder Numa answered.
The witch added, “But it’s not the end of yours.”
It took a long moment for what the witch had said to sink in. Then I swallowed down another sob, removing my hands from my face so I could look up at them. Did she mean what I thought she did?
Elder Numa gave another smile as the sword instructor strode forward, offering me his hand. “You’ve played your part in helping Ava fulfill her destiny,” he said, helping me to stand. “But it’s not your time.”