There was nothing but the brilliant purple flame.
Daniel expected the world to blow up, or at least that he would blow up, when he touched the Emperor, but it was another reality entirely. He fell into the purple fire, mind and soul, and was trapped, unable to find a way out. Everywhere he looked, there was nothing but the flame.
“Serai,” he called out, over and over and then again. For a lifetime; for an eternity. Lost in the fire, and somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered that he’d left the two of them unprotected against a dangerous enemy.
Not that he particularly cared right at that moment. If she died, he would die with her. One way was as good as another. Or so he thought, right up to the point when he thought he heard her voice.
“Daniel?”
“I’m here.” He ran, racing through the never-ending amethyst fire, searching for her voice in some sort of twisted version of the children’s game of hide-and-seek. Finally, finally , he found her, lying in another crystal case like the one she’d told him about. This one, though, looked exactly like a coffin.
“No,” he shouted, and he lifted her limp form out of the coffin and into his arms. He ran as fast and as far as he could, fighting his way through the flames, which now seemed actively to be trying to harm him.
She finally opened her beautiful eyes, but all he saw in them was death. “I’m sorry, Daniel, but I can’t fight it, and the Emperor won’t release me. It wants to pull me into its prism of power, and I’m not strong enough to escape. Please know that I have always loved you, and I always will.”
“No,” he told her. “No, no, no, no, no.”
The beserker rage fought to break free, and he allowed it. Welcomed its red-hot wrath, set it to battle the icy cold purple fire.
The rage won. The anguish conquered. Daniel broke free.
He blinked, stunned, and looked around, only to realize he was still in that damned cave.
“No. She won’t die here, trapped in the dark like a rat,” he said to Nicholas, who was staring at him with a surprising amount of sympathy. “I’m taking her away from this. Will you cover me from the soldiers?”
“They’re gone,” the boy said. “They pulled out about fifteen minutes ago. We were just waiting to be sure you were okay.”
Daniel shook his head. “We are not. We never will be again. But I thank you for your generosity.”
“You abandoned the Primus when you were finally making a difference,” Nicholas said. “I am sorry for your loss, but we needed you.”
“Then you do it,” Daniel told him, utterly indifferent. “Take the job. Make changes. Save the world. I have lived for eleven thousand years and am done with all of it.”
Ian’s eyes grew wide. “Eleven thousand years? Really? Duuude.”
Daniel didn’t even have the energy to smile. “I’m taking her to see the sun, one last time. I think she can hold on that long.”
Nicholas bowed to him as he rose with Serai in his arms. “I’ll do my best,” he said.
Daniel didn’t bother to respond. He just launched himself into the air, Serai in his arms, and headed for the most beautiful place in the entire area.
He and Serai would meet the sun on the last day of their lives on the very top of Cathedral Rock.
Chapter 39
Conlan, Riley, Ven, Erin, and the rest of their family and friends stood in a semicircle around the dazed but obviously very healthy women who’d just stepped out of their stasis pods for the first time in eleven thousand years.
“They did it,” Riley said, tears streaming down her face. “Daniel and Serai must have found the Emperor and saved everyone.”
Before Conlan could respond, the familiar shimmer of the portal formed its oval shape before them, but a very unfamiliar deep male voice sounded from within it.
“I come bearing two secrets for you from the spirit of the portal who inhabited herein before me, Conlan of Atlantis,” the voice said. “Do you wish to know how to save the saviors?”
Cathedral Rock, thirty minutes until dawn
Daniel held Serai’s unresponsive body in his arms, rocking her back and forth, wishing he had a voice made for singing. He’d love to be able to sing her to sleep.
To death.
Instead, all he could do was pour out his heart and soul in words that were meaningless and unpoetic.
“I love you” was so insignificant.
He’d waited for her—some part of his heart and soul had waited for her for thousands of years—and now that he’d finally found her again, he would lose her so quickly. His berserker fury had faded, though, as he waited here for the dawn. Rage had no place at his own dying of the light.
Fury was wasted emotion.
All his heart could contain was love, and sorrow, and regret.
A shimmering light began to glow behind him, but it was too soon and in the wrong direction, so he turned to see that the damned capricious portal was opening.
“Too little, too late,” he said, laughing or crying. “Go back to the hell you came from, demon.”
A dark form stepped out of the portal, silhouetted so that he couldn’t see its voice.
“I’ve been called worse,” Ven said, crossing the grass to him. “I hear you’ve had a rough time.”
The prince dropped to the ground to sit next to Daniel and put a hand on his shoulder. “How are you holding up, my friend?”
“You need to stay back,” Daniel said dully. “When dawn comes and the flames take us, there is no need for you to be harmed.”
“We are unhappy with your decision to die, nightwalker,” said another familiar voice. “We owe you an ass-kicking,” Lord Justice continued.
Figure after figure walked out of the portal and ranged themselves around Daniel and Serai. Conlan and his wife Riley. Ven’s Erin. Justice’s Keely. Christophe and a woman Daniel had never met. Brennan and Tiernan, who stopped to put a hand on his shoulder before she moved on. Even Reisen and Melody, who seemed to have recovered from her injury, though she wore a splint on one arm.
“The portal seems to be working again,” Daniel observed, too exhausted and anguished to respond to the presence of so many Atlanteans.
“Not exactly,” Ven said, still sitting next to him. “It—or rather, she—is kind of taking a vacation. But the new portal presence is a little more chatty, and told us a secret or two.”
Daniel stared blankly at his friend and wondered why Ven thought he would possibly care about Atlantean secrets.
“First, apparently you really do have a soul.”
Daniel just stared at Ven, still not understanding. Maybe answering would make him go away. “I know that. Soul-meld. Can’t you leave us alone?”
He pulled Serai closer and rocked back and forth, wishing again that he knew how to sing. Or play the harp. His mind was shattering. His heart had already done so.
But Ven was still talking. “Second, it seems that if you complete a third blood exchange with an Atlantean with whom you’ve reached the soul-meld, both of your lives will be saved.”
Daniel heard the words but couldn’t understand their meaning. It was too much. Too hard. Losing Serai . . .
Twenty minutes until dawn, his internal clock reminded him.
Losing Serai . . .
But wait. He tried to focus on Ven’s mouth, which was still moving. Forming words. Important words.
“What? What did you say?” he demanded.
Ven grasped Daniel’s shoulders and shook him a little. “Wake up, my friend. We’re running out of time. You need to make a third blood exchange with Serai, and you’ll both be saved.”
Daniel looked around the circle of people he mostly had dared to think of as friends. “Truly? The third blood bond?”