Chapter Thirty-Six
TIME WAS AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE, and it moved on even though it seemed impossible. For most, time passed in endless searching for the one thing that would complete them, yet escaped them. Most never came close to figuring out what that one thing was. Candra had figured it out.
Sebastian made her complete, not in a way that meant she was less of a person before him but in a way that made her always want to be better, to try harder, to never give up. Sebastian was the carrot dangling in front of her, forever pushing her forward in moments of weakness. He was the blanket, wrapping comfort around her when she felt the chill of loneliness and fear. He was the book she peered into a thousand times, until she knew the scent of the pages and the imperfections in the printed ink, yet presented her with fresh ideas and new adventures at every occasion. He was unexpected.
Brie came back after a time and draped a comforting arm around Candra’s shoulder. Neither of them said anything—there was nothing to say. Words wouldn’t bring Sebastian back. Candra’s eyes stung from tears, and her chest ached dully from the heavy sobs that wracked her body for however long she had been sitting there. Pins and needles raced up and down her legs from sitting still but hadn’t reached the point of being painful, so she guessed it couldn’t have been long.
Brie’s comfort brought on a fresh wave of fat tears that rolled unbidden down Candra’s cheeks. Gabe knelt down in front of her and tentatively reached forward to move Sebastian’s lifeless body off her lap.
As if her brain suddenly switched back on, she realized they were here to take her away.
“No.” She struggled with Gabe’s hands, removing them from Sebastian. Brie hushed her and tried to pull Candra’s hand.
Gabe sat back on his heels and was joined a moment later by Draven, Nathaniel, and Sandal. Candra looked to Brie, her voice too choked to speak yet. Brie’s eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, the skin across her cheekbones taut with a scattering of red blotches. Candra could tell that she’d been crying heavily. The black hole that seemed to take up occupancy where her heart should have been wouldn’t allow her to empathize. No matter how irrational it seemed, she didn’t want to share Sebastian, not now…and she couldn’t put herself in Brie’s position. The only thing her mind allowed her to take in was that he had been here and now he was gone forever. The one thing she had left of him was his body lying limply against her own.
Candra looked up. The others watched her as she sat on the floor, rocking Sebastian’s lifeless body in her arms. Their shared pain gave her no comfort, and none except Draven met her eye. They all believed Sebastian wasn’t a soul within a body but a soul manifest. There was nothing to go on; his soul had perished. What the Arch had told her gave her reason to believe that might not be true. Perhaps Sebastian still existed somewhere out of reach. Irrationally, Candra wanted to die too. She wanted to know the truth. A blistering wail shook her body, and she continued to rock him, whispering pleas for Sebastian to stay with her.
“Please,” Candra managed to force out, although it sounded more like a heavy breath than a word. She wasn’t sure what she was asking for. There was still a small part of her hoping this was just another dream, and any moment now, she would wake up at home in bed. Perhaps she wanted time, a chance to go back and make different choices. If only she hadn’t given up on him so easily. If she had doubted his lies and pushed for the truth that day at the lake, he wouldn’t have done this. They could have found another way together.
Brie’s face crumpled into a frown for barely an instant before she regained her composure and sniffled, shaking her head sorrowfully. None of them could give her what she wanted.
“Candra.” Draven quietly placed his hand over hers, where it still gripped onto Sebastian’s shirt. “He wouldn’t want this for you. You know he wouldn’t.”
Nausea twisted Candra’s stomach into knots, and she cramped violently. Draven tightened his navy eyes, trying to read her. He swallowed, and his jaw clenched, making the muscles in his cheek jump.
Candra resentfully accepted he was right. Sebastian hadn’t wanted her to see him die, and he certainly wouldn’t want her wailing over an empty husk. His body was already decomposing, turning cold and hard. A tiny misshapen circle of bluish flesh had already appeared at the front of his ear. Everything that had been Sebastian was gone.
“You don’t want to see what happens next,” Brie said, smoothing Candra’s hair away from her face. Sandal came around the other side of Candra and slipped her arm beneath hers. Candra made to move; she wanted to fight them and searched inside herself for the shimmer of light to come forth, but she stopped herself. The power of the Arch wasn’t something to abuse.
She looked down to Sebastian and saw how his body was changing. His complexion seemed to take on an almost glassy sheen, as if he were made of porcelain rather than a flesh-and-blood being.
Sandal repeated Draven’s words. “He wouldn’t want you to watch.”
“What’s happening?” Candra’s abdomen spasmed, and all of a sudden, she panicked about losing what little food remained in her stomach. This wasn’t right. It was so far from right that Candra couldn’t wrap her head around it. This wasn’t meant to happen. Sebastian should have lived through this with her.
“What happens to us all,” Sandal answered.
She didn’t fight them when Draven and Gabe lifted Sebastian away. Nor did she fight Brie and Sandal when they helped her to her feet and hurried her toward the arched door of the vestry. They passed Nathaniel standing back, seeming reluctant to interfere.
“I’m sorry,” Candra told Brie, clinging onto her as if she too might disappear at any moment.
“It’s okay,” Brie said back, her voice husky. Another sign she had been crying. “You didn’t do anything to be sorry for.”
“I mean I’m sorry for you,” Candra explained as they made their way around the back of the altar. “I know you loved him too.” She still wasn’t sure she could make herself mean it, but it was the right thing to say.
Brie smiled tightly. The tendons strained in her slender neck when she gulped down tears she clearly didn’t want to cry in front of Candra. “I feel so stupid. I was a warrior once, a soldier of heaven. I’ve killed, for goodness sake. I shouldn’t be crying. I should be strong, for you and for the other Nuhra out there.”
Candra paused at the arched door. “Crying isn’t weakness. Crying shows compassion and heart.”
“Don’t look,” Sandal gently warned her when Candra attempted one last glance before she went through the door. Over the place where Gabe and Draven stood, a rainbow-colored dust cloud caught in the breeze coming through the still-open door.
Brie nodded and squeezed Candra’s shoulder before they entered the room. Lofi stood immediately. Her seat by the desk scratched across the tile floor and echoed in the stone room. Her long hair had come loose from her upstyle and hung in long pink tendrils down the side of her ruddy face.
“I’m sorry.” Her eyes darted anxiously between Candra’s and Brie’s. “I couldn’t watch. I couldn’t see him like that. He’s…he was family.”
Brie let go of Candra and went to Lofi, wrapping her in a hug. Candra watched them crush together and shut their eyes, holding back tears and blocking out the world. She felt separated from it all. She wasn’t a part of their grief. They had known Sebastian so long. His time with her had been a drop in the ocean in comparison. The concept of eternity was too much for her to comprehend. All she knew was that it might never include Sebastian.
Candra swayed, imagining eternity without him stretching before her. She stood on the edge of an abyss, looking into fathomless blackness, and finally understood her purpose. She would never see heaven; she was never meant to. Heaven was a place reserved for humans and angels. She was something else, something made to hide the Arch so he could send Lilith back to her prison. Love had only ever been a boon along the way, not her destination.
Their love hadn’t been just about ridiculous smirks and meaningless words. With their love came truth, an ability to see the world clearly, both good and bad. Sometimes, the truth had the power to devastate, and sometimes, it showed the way.
“I’m fine.” Candra shrugged off Sandal, who tried to help her into a seat. She didn’t need to sit.
“You should rest,” Brie suggested to her, releasing Lofi.
Candra stepped away. “I don’t have time to rest. We have to plan.”
Brie’s eyes narrowed, as if the statement confused her.
“We can’t just sit here and wait,” Candra said dubiously. They were safe inside the building for now, but it would eventually make them sitting ducks. “Look how far that’s gotten us. I won’t just sit here and wait for the city to burn.”
“We don’t even know what we are fighting. We don’t know how to fight her,” Brie retorted, crossing her arms and taking the stance of a mother scolding a child.
Candra sighed. “That’s not true. You know what Lilith is. You haven’t been completely honest, have you?”
“Neither have you,” Draven answered from behind her. “You knew about the Creation Blade.”
Candra turned to see him enter the room, backed up by Gabe. “And you knew exactly where Sebastian was, didn’t you? Both of you knew.”
“Sebastian made a choice. I warned him this could go wrong.”
“You need to give that to me,” Candra ordered blackly, and a tingle rushed over her skin. She concentrated on the well of energy inside her, keeping it at bay.
“No.”
The atmosphere inside the small room thickened, and Candra stood straighter.
“Sebastian died to get this blade. What are you going to do? Hand it back to her?” Draven demanded.
Candra approached Draven slowly, ignoring the others in the room. “It can release all those souls inside Lilith—including Ivy’s. Then I’m going to send Lilith back where she belongs.” She narrowed her eyes. The air inside the room suddenly seemed stifling. Candra took a breath, and perspiration gathered over her top lip, making her skin itch. Every inch of her skin felt grubby, and her patience had reached its limit. “What? It never occurred to you that if the blade can open a gateway to heaven, it can free those souls inside Lilith? I won’t lose anyone else.”
Draven’s expression hardened, concealing some thought she suspected he was trying to keep from her. His eyelashes fluttered before his eyes closed, and his hand slid over the blade. Candra watched his fingers tighten over the gnarled handle.
“What is going on?” Lofi demanded. She stepped up behind Candra, glaring at Draven.
Nathaniel stood, towering over them all and making the room seem even smaller.
“Either you give it to me, or I will take it,” Candra warned him.
His eyes flashed open and burned with passion. “Try,” he snapped furiously.
“Whoa,” Sandal exclaimed, stepping in between them with one hand on Draven’s shoulder and one on Candra’s. “How about we take the tension down a notch in here? What happened to ‘we’re all in this together’?”
“No human could get close enough, and no angel can use it,” Draven snapped.
“I guess it’s a good thing I’m neither.”
Draven glowered at Candra, and she glared right back at him, refusing to be the first one to break eye contact. She didn’t even breathe. Inside her veins, her blood tingled. Every muscle strained with anticipation to end this. He didn’t move or blink, his gaze boring into her, challenging her. Candra understood that Draven must be angry with her. He and Sebastian had been scheming behind her back too…and Gabe, how could he? Regardless, a standoff while people outside their sanctuary continued to die couldn’t be an option.
“Okay,” Candra said quietly. “I guess it’s down to me to share. Lilith offered me a trade: the lives of everyone I care for, and in exchange, I had to allow her to take possession of me. She showed me the Creation Blade the day of Ivy’s memorial. I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want anyone to stop me.”
“What?” Brie shouted. “How could you keep that to yourself?”
Draven kept Candra locked in his gaze. A tremor ran through his body, and it seemed to be taking all his control just to stay standing, as if he’d already guessed what she planned to do. Sandal didn’t move. Her eyes flickered repeatedly between Candra and Draven, apparently waiting for one of them to stand down. He never would, without significant persuasion. He’d promised Sebastian he would protect her. She imagined that promise would include not allowing her to fall on her sword, so to speak. However, they were out of options.
“I’m not the weapon.” Candra breathed hard, clenching her fists by her side and refusing to back down, although the look on Draven’s face threatened her resolve. “The real weapon is inside me.”
A blush rose up his neck, and the artery in his neck pounded violently. If she looked down, she was sure his fists would be clenched too. A shimmer danced over his shoulders.
“Don’t you dare,” Candra swore, and the shimmer foreshadowing his wings disappeared as fast as it appeared. “This is the reason I’m here. Why do I exist, if it’s not to bring an end to Lilith…to end all this? I have to end this. I have to do what I was made to do.” She inched closer to Draven, standing on her toes and ignoring Sandal pressing her fingers harder into her shoulder to keep her back. The blade was the final piece in the puzzle, and Sebastian had given his life for it. She needed that blade. “Give. Me. The. Blade,” Candra ordered Draven.
He pushed his face closer still, forcing Sandal to back up. “No.”
