He shakes his head. “Foolish girl.” He smiles. “The Void empowers me. It gives me purpose. Tell me, how can I hate my friend for giving me all I ever wanted?”
Power. Ugh. He’s further gone than I realized. Is it too late to reverse his course? He needs more than the love of power. He needs true and actual love. The kind that gives you a reason to get up in the morning. The kind that makes you know, no matter what, you’ll always have someone to turn to.
I consider the boy beside me. So very lost. So very in need of something even more powerful than the Void.
I must destroy the darkness for so many other reasons than to simply be the heroic queen everyone needs. Ending the Void could mean Jasyn’s salvation. It could mean saving Kyaphus from the same fate my grandfather met. I reach into the corners of my heart. Seeking. Searching . . .
Nostrils flare. Fists clench.
I. Hate. Him.
Eyelids squeeze. Teeth grind.
Kyaphus. Is. My. Enemy.
And he must be destroyed.
“No!” I gasp the word, clutch my throat. “No,” I say again. Softer this time.
Jasyn takes two steps back. Looks at me as if I’m possessed.
I must tear down this hatred. I will not be the person who breaks another’s heart. Rafaj may have tried to block heartbreak, but I’ll welcome it if it means sparing another. I must free Ky of the darkness whether I like him or not. Does he relish it as Jasyn does? Is his “love” for me little more than a hunger for power?
Disgusting.
I close my eyes, calling on the Verity within. Help me know what to do here. Give me some guidance. Some—
Immediate compassion replaces my disgust. For any being who has ever experienced the weight of life as the Void’s vessel. My soul shatters. “Oh, Grandfather.” The whispered endearment marks the first time I’ve called Jasyn this out loud.
“Pardon?”
“Does it hurt to fight it? Is that why you pretend to love the darkness?”
His face is an emotionless mask. If the question pains him, he gives nothing away. “I do not pretend.” His tone could turn the canal to ice. “You cannot begin to understand these things.” On “you” his gaze intensifies, studying me rather than merely grazing. His soundlessness unnerves me. If I closed my eyes, I might not know he’s here.
So I do, if only for a solitary, clarifying second. My eyelids flutter, and I tuck away into myself as only an introvert can. Am I the first concern he’s encountered? What must it feel like to share life with the Void?
At the internal question a new memory surfaces. Excruciating pain in my arm. The Void snaking its way up, attempting to take hold. The recollection is isolated, a cigarette burn at the end of an old film reel. Dust and debris surround me. I cough, try to catch my breath. I hear voices, cries. Someone speaks, but their words are loose, inaudible. I look down and there it is, the detail I might’ve missed but can’t ignore.
A hand in mine.
Click. I snap a photo with my mind. Grasp for dear life as if the image is life or death. Then I see Joshua, completely covered with blackened veins, a sudden flashback that has me recoiling to my brain’s opposite end. I make a fist around his necklace concealed beneath my blouse, clutching a fistful of fabric with it.
“Swear you’ll never remove it.” Joshua stared at me as I fastened his gift to my neck last spring.
“I swear.” It took every bit of self-control I had not to beam like a giddy idiot. “Never.”
He nodded and that was that. I’ve worn the treble clef–heart charm for nearly a year.
My fingertips trace the curves of silver, unable to avoid the added trinket resting so close beside. I’ve decided to call the rose button “the lost thing.” An item washed up on the never-shore of my heart, looking for a place to call home. When all is restored, perhaps this memory will return as well. I’ll bet it’s a good one. Could this necklace be from Joshua too? Doesn’t seem like him. Much more me, actually.
“He knows me better than I know myself,” I say.
“Are you ill?” Jasyn asks, abrupt as ever.
I shake my head, returning to the task at hand. Perhaps instead of trying to convince him I can help, which he’s already decided no one can, I might appeal to his pride. “Why did you leave the meeting?”
“I am merely an accessory. It is Aidan who leads. I simply provide a listening ear. Who am I if I cannot support my liege?” He’s back in Amulet mode again, casting a façade around his insincere words. This man does not for one second believe he’s an accessory to Aidan.
“I don’t believe that,” I say, candor fitting me like a new pair of Chucks. “They spoke of Shadowalkers. Who better to aid their cause than someone who has personal experience with the Void?”
“That is the thing, is it not? I must conceal the truth. How can I help when I am unable to let on to my knowledge?”
Now we’re getting somewhere. Perhaps he does not love darkness as much as he claims. “Why not talk to the king—er, Aidan? He already knows you carry the Void. Surely he’ll listen. He trusts you. He can take your insight and use it against the Shadowalkers.”
He rotates his head and quirks a brow. “Aidan wishes only to focus on the good. The light. He is much too pure of heart to consider what must be done.” Jasyn says “pure of heart” as if the phrase tastes foul.
“And what must be done?”
He sighs. “Shadowalkers cannot be reasoned with. Aidan believes with the Verity on our side, we have a fighting chance. A way to turn those blasted Void worshippers from their wicked ways. But no matter how much we fight in the name of the Verity, it does no good unless a Shadowalker desires to turn. And even then, the struggle is far from over. The love of darkness is an addiction, and not one easily broken.”
At that he turns away, hands clasped behind his back, and walks along the canal’s edge. “The only place for a Shadowalker is at the bottom of the sea. A swift death is the only way to be rid of them for certain.”
“No. There’s another way. A better way.”
“Do tell.”
“Shadowalkers can’t be Shadowalkers if they have nothing to follow. No Void to worship means no worshippers, yeah?”
“No Void?” He continues his stroll, his expression growing more inquisitive with each step. “No Void, you say? Would that not be something?”
I can’t tell if his “something” is good or bad. Resolve moves me forward. If you’d asked me last November if I ever thought I’d follow Jasyn Crowe anywhere willingly, I’d have answered with, “Void no!” But now, as I creep behind him, dawn lighting our way, I latch onto my gut feeling. The feeling telling me Jasyn is my best chance to get home. My best chance at changing things.
And maybe, just maybe, my chance at getting to him before the Void takes him too far. Can I change him? Would doing so cause some kind of chain reaction? If it does, would the choice to help Jasyn be worth it? Do I even have a choice in this?
“There’s always a choice,” a memory whispers in my head. Joshua again.
I ignore the fact he sounds like Kyaphus.
I repeat the words to myself until the sun blinks over the horizon. When it about blinds me, I shade my eyes.
That’s when my sixteen-year-old grandfather shoves me into the canal.
FIFTEEN
Ebony