A second later, he came to and forced his way out of their holds, taking control of his own feet. “It’s not possible,” he shouted over the pounding of their footfalls.
“The Queen forged the charts. You were the one all along—but you weren’t supposed to live for long after the birth. Trez was the better bet—for the Queen and for your parents.”
All at once, they burst into the main audience hall, and iAm found his feet faltering again.
Up on the dais . . . his maichen—the Princess—Christ, whoever the hell she was—was having the crown of the Territory placed upon her dark hair.
As about two thousand Shadows fell to their knees on woven silk mats, their heads bowing in supplication.
“She figured it out,” s’Ex said. “She figured it all out—even though it nearly cost her her life.”
“Where is the former Queen?”
“At the feet of the daughter.”
That was when he saw the severed head off to the side, black eyes staring out at the crowd, but seeing nothing.
“I believe in fate,” the executioner said. “I believe in the stars. This is the way it was meant to be.”
iAm shook himself. This was all really too much, and nothing that really concerned him. Trez, on the other hand. “My brother . . .”
“This way.”
When iAm finally burst into the room where Trez was, he lost his breath. His brother, his blood, was on a marble table, that big body twisted up in pain.
His first thought was that it reminded him of Selena, the way she had contorted.
iAm rushed over without acknowledging the other people who were standing around. Clasping Trez’s hand, he fell to his knees. “Trez . . . Trez . . . ?”
But there was no reaching his brother. He was gone, alive but transported somewhere else, as if his body had issued a temporary vacate order.
“No,” he heard himself say. “Not after all this . . . Trez, you’re free . . . you can stay with me, we’re free. . . .”
Well, sort of free if he himself was the Anointed One. But he couldn’t worry about that right now.
Fuck.
“Don’t leave me, my brother.”
“. . . antidote. We shall have to see.”
iAm looked up and saw AnsLai, the high priest, standing on the other side of the table. “What?”
“I gave him the antidote . . . as soon as I knew.” The male glanced at s’Ex. “But it may be too late. He was in a weakened state when he came here.”
iAm started talking, blathering about . . . shit, he didn’t know what.
It was all he could do.
As his brother twisted and turned, arms and legs sawing against a pain that iAm couldn’t even imagine, iAm was helpless. So helpless.
“. . . see you?” AnsLai asked him sometime later.
“What?” he said in a voice that was hoarse. Guess he hadn’t stopped talking.
“Your blooded parents. They have heard that you are both within the Territory—that you are rightfully the Anointed One, and they would like to—”
iAm bared his fangs and glared into the high priest’s worried eyes. “You tell those two that if they want to live they will never, ever approach me or my brother again. Do you understand? Tell them that the only thing that could distract me from Trez right now is murdering them both where they stand.”
The high priest blanched. “Yes. But of course.”
iAm refocused on his brother.
And resumed talking nonsense. Just as Trez had done to Selena as she was in the grips of passing.
Sometime later, he was dimly aware that a female came into the room. And he knew who it was by the echo of his own blood, but he did not acknowledge her.
He was too consumed by trying to keep Trez on the planet when, undoubtedly, the male was busy working to make his way to the far side.
EIGHTY-FOUR
Trez got his wish.
In the course of his dying from the cleansing, he learned that, in fact, there was a Fade. And yes, people of different traditions and faiths all went to the same place.
At some point, the pain became too much and his body gave out—and the abrupt lack of any sensation was a shock. Yet he welcomed the numbness.
And the sense of flight.
Soaring, he was soaring . . . until he found himself in a vast white landscape, a foggy landscape that, as he walked along, made him feel both weightless and grounded.
Soon enough, a door was presented to him. A door with a knob that he instinctively knew if he turned, would allow him to step into what was beyond and thereby never, ever go back to Earth.
And that was when he saw Selena.
Her face and form appeared to him not on the door, but in it, as if even closed, the panel contained three-dimensional space.
Instant. Joy. And it was the same for her, her smile radiating through the distance between them, their eye contact translating to a caress he felt throughout his body.
She was healthy. She was strong. She was whole.
“My queen!” he shouted, reaching for her.
But she put her palm out, stopping him. “Trez, you need to stay.”
He recoiled. “No. I need to be with you—this is the way it’s supposed to be—”
“No. You have more to do. You have things you need to do, people you have to meet. Your journey’s not done.”
“It sure as shit is.” Check him out with the cursing. Way to do the whole reunited-in-Heaven fantasy. “You’re dead and I want to be with you.”
“I’m going to be here, waiting for you.” She smiled again, and warmed him anew. “It’s wonderful where I am—I flew because of what you did, the way you freed me. I found flight and I am free and I am going to wait for you until your journey’s done.”
“No,” he moaned. “Don’t send me back.”
“I don’t have that power. But you do. Make the choice to stay down there—you have to take care of iAm. You need to pay him back for all the years he’s been there for you. It’s not fair for you to leave him alone. He will never be at peace, and he’s earned it.”
Well, hell. That was probably the only argument she could have made that had a chance of getting through to him.
Shit.
“What about us,” he moaned. Even though that was selfish. Childish. “What about me . . . I’m nothing without you.”
“I’ll come to you in the night sky. Look for me there.”
“Let me touch you—”
“Make the right choice, Trez. You have to make the right choice. You have a debt to repay to the one you have loved all your life.”
“But I love you,” he choked out, beginning to cry.
“And I love you, too—for eternity.” Her smile resonated through him. “Infinity and back, remember? I’ll be here waiting for you and for whoever else you love. That’s what the other side is. It’s just love.”
“Don’t leave. Oh, God, don’t leave me again—”
“I’m not. We’re separated, but not lost or truly apart. Do not mourn me, my love. I have not died. . . .”
“Selena!”
As iAm heard the shout, he jerked up from the base of the slab. Shit, some savior he was. He’d fallen a-fucking-sleep holding his brother’s—
“Trez?” he said, as he realized the guy had, by some miracle, almost twenty-four hours after the cleanse, come back to consciousness.
His brother was crying, tears spilling from his eyes, rolling down his cheeks.
“Trez? Are you back?” iAm jumped to his feet and leaned over the guy. “Trez?”
Those sunken black eyes shifted to his, and there was a long moment in which Trez seemed to struggle with what was or was not real.
“Trez?” iAm whispered, suddenly worried that the poison had eaten that brain up. “Are you—”
All at once those long, strong arms wrapped around him and jerked him off his feet.
And his brother was holding him.
And speaking.
“I’m here, I’m here, I’m here . . . for you, I am here. . . .”