I’d just relearned how to walk after spending over a week in a coma because of the staff, so I don’t know why I said what I did next. Maybe, I just had to hear it out loud.
“I have less than a million-to-one chance of surviving if I use it, right?”
“Yes,” Zach said, and the single word was cruelly spoken. “And as you know, I will not raise you up if, or when, it kills you. So, Ivy, you who believe that you can do better by people, I say again—prove it. Be willing to almost assuredly sacrifice your life for theirs. Or—” his dark gaze became even more intense “—do not. No one can make you do this. Your fate, and theirs, is in your hands alone. By your will, hundreds of thousands of humans will either perish or get the chance to live. As you wished, the choice is yours.”
A sob tore from my throat. This wasn’t what I’d wished for! How could it be? I didn’t want to die, especially now, when I had so much to live for. Why should all of this be dumped on me? I hadn’t asked for this destiny, and I sure as hell wasn’t the one who’d stood by while those people were enslaved by demons in the first place. So why were my options only limited to live, and doom many, or die, and save some?
“What about Adrian?” I asked, struck by an even more awful thought. “We’re soul-tethered now. If I die, does that mean he dies, too?”
Zach’s expression became shuttered. “Adrian is half-demon as well as the most powerful Judian ever. Your death would mortally wound him if he were only human, but his humanity is the smallest part of him. His Judian lineage plus his father’s blood will ensure that he survives.”
So I was the only one who had to die, if those people were to get a chance to live. I let out a short, despairing laugh. For months, I’d complained that I wanted my destiny in my own hands, and now it was. Worse, just minutes ago, I’d sworn that I could do a better job at playing God than the real God could. Now, as Zach had so bluntly pointed out, it was time to put my money where my mouth was—or my life where my convictions were. Talk about being careful what you wished for.
“Don’t listen to him, Ivy,” Adrian said, appearing in the room. He ran over to me and then gripped me by the arms. “Archons might not lie, but whatever he told you, it’s an exaggeration and a trap. Don’t you see? He wants you to die because that’s what destiny says you’re supposed to do. Screw destiny, you deserve to live! You’ve done enough.”
Oh, I wanted to believe that! I wanted so, so badly to think that I’d given all I could, and to spend the next fifty or so years living happily with Adrian. But even as I considered that, those same reels of faces seared across my mind.
My parents. Father Louis, Edgar, Tomas, the people I’d pleaded with in the desert house, the ones I hadn’t been able to save during the campus attack and every single, suffering person I’d seen in the demon realms. If I turned away now, I’d be saying their lives weren’t worth saving, and all of them had wanted to live just as much as I did. How could I consider my life worth more than hundreds of thousands of lives just like theirs? And what kind of life would I even have, if that’s the person I chose to become?
Zach said he’d given me a choice. No. No, he really hadn’t. “Adrian...” I began.
He dropped his hands and spun away, lunging violently toward Zach. As soon as his hands closed over the Archon’s throat, Zach simply disappeared.
He reappeared behind me. I turned around, and a flash of near-blinding light made me throw up my arm in front of my eyes. That light also stopped Adrian from charging at Zach again, and he, too, used his arm as a shield against the beams of light shooting out of Zach with the brightness of several nuclear detonations.
Even with my eyes closed and my arm shielding my face, it still felt as if the light was burning its way into the back of my skull. Then the painful light dimmed enough for me to risk opening my eyes. When I did, I gasped again, and lowered my arm.
Zach’s trademark blue hoodie and jeans were in a heap on the floor. So was his human body, which looked like a crumpled-up flesh suit that someone had tried on and discarded at an elaborate costume shop. The being in front of me had no skin. No distinct form, either. Instead, amid that halo of incredible light, I saw what looked like wings made of lightning surrounding a shape that I guessed was humanoid only because I thought I saw arms and legs.
Then, just as abruptly as it had appeared, all the dazzling light was gone and a young man stared back at me with ordinary brown eyes and a mocha-colored face that was partially shielded by a low-hung hoodie.
“Why did you do that?” I managed to gasp out, blinking to get the hot spots out of my vision.
“Now that you have chosen to see your destiny through to its conclusion, I wanted you to see my true form,” Zach said, his deep voice sounding slightly husky. “You have often wondered what I felt for humanity. I used to love it, but after many millennia watching your kind tear each other apart, I began to long for humanity to reap its well-earned judgment. Once it does, the last war between Archons and demons will be fought, and I will finally be able to avenge the blood of my fallen brothers and sisters.”
I’d often wished that Zach would drop his cryptic way of speaking and just tell me what he was thinking, but now that he finally had, it hurt me to the core. “So, you’ve always wanted me to fail?” I said, fighting against the burn in my throat that threatened tears at this confirmation of one of my darkest fears.
“At first, yes,” he admitted, a hard smile ghosting across his lips. “Yet my ‘boss’ forced me to watch over you. Witnessing your struggles, your pain and even your recklessness reminded me why I loved humanity to begin with. It wasn’t because your race was ever good, or even better than it is now. Your race has always been fatally flawed, yet they are also ever hopeful. They might be cruel, yet they are also capable of great love, and while each of you is inherently selfish, you are also able to sacrifice, when the time comes.” He shook his head slowly. “I am very powerful, yet I have never had to struggle against myself the way that your race does every day of your lives. Now that I am reminded of that, I no longer wish for humanity’s end to hasten. My fallen brothers and sisters can wait a little longer for their vengeance.”
Then Zach reached out, brushing my cheek in a gesture that I would’ve called affectionate, if he were anyone else. I was as stunned by that as I was by his many revelations. He hadn’t painted a pretty picture of humanity, but we weren’t pretty. Still, most of us tried. I didn’t have much to say for myself aside from that, and according to him, it was enough.
“But you still want Ivy to sacrifice her life,” Adrian said, and the bitterness in his voice broke my heart. “Even now, Zach, you still don’t care enough to help Ivy save her life. Instead, you want to help her to end it.”
“Adrian, please,” I said, reaching out to him.
“No,” he said sharply, and the look he gave me chilled me to the bone. Those weren’t his eyes. They were his father’s eyes.
Just as suddenly, Adrian’s gaze softened, making me mentally lash myself for ever thinking such an awful thing. Then he held out his arms, and I gratefully ran into them.
“You’re right, I’m blaming him and it’s not his fault,” he said, kissing my face with light brushes of his lips. “We’ll figure something out with the last weapon. We always do. You’ll be okay, Ivy. I promise.”
“I love you,” I replied in a choked voice. “No matter what, I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said, his voice deepening with single-minded intent. “More than you’ll ever know. We’ll get through this, I promise you. Both of us.”
I held him tighter, glad for what had to be soothing lies despite his promises that he’d only tell me the truth. We both knew how this would end, but at the moment, I needed reassurance more than I needed honesty. Maybe Adrian did, too. He sounded like he really believed what he was saying, even though we both knew that he was most likely wrong.
Still, right now, we had each other. Life was only lived in the present, and so I’d put everything I had into whatever present we had left. From the tightening of his arms around me, I knew that Adrian would, too. Besides, it could take months or years to find the spearhead. I could grow stronger by that time, perhaps even strong enough to withstand the final weapon’s devastating effects. Maybe, just maybe, I would beat those million-to-one odds. After all, destinies were sometimes made to be broken.