Immortal Reign(87)

“Timotheus . . .” Lucia’s tone had calmed. She clasped her hands before her as she gazed up at the image of him on the side of the tower. “Where are the others to help you?”

“The others are gone,” he replied flatly.

“I . . . I saw Mia. I saw her in a Paelsian village not far from the monolith.” She shook her head. “She couldn’t remember anything—not being an immortal, not the Sanctuary, not meeting me before.”

“You did that to her,” Jonas said, filling in the blanks for himself. “You hurt her . . . you stole her memories. And the others as well.”

“Jumping to conclusions, like always,” Timotheus replied. “Hasty in your decisions, rash and bold and, so very often, wrong.”

“Then what actually happened?” Lucia asked.

Jonas didn’t want to listen to any more lies. It had been a waste of time to come here. He was about to say so when Timotheus finally replied.

“I called in a favor from an old friend,” he said. “One with the means and the magic to erase memories. There were so few of us left, and no one but me knew the truth of what this place has become. They only thought it to be a beautiful prison, one they could leave in hawk form to gaze upon the lives of mortals. Over the centuries, some chose to stay in your world as exiles, their magic fading over the remainder of their limited lives. Exiles, as a whole, I’ve found, are happy with their decision to leave. To live a mortal life that is imperfect and short and beautifully flawed.”

“So you gave them that chance,” Lucia said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “All the others that were left. You exiled them and had their memories erased so they could live a mortal life without ties to the Sanctuary.”

Timotheus nodded.

Jonas wanted to hate him. He wanted to pull the golden dagger that Timotheus had somehow given to him that night through his dream and throw it at the tower right here and right now.

But he didn’t.

He studied the old and weary face of this man, this man who had lived for countless centuries, with one question rising in his mind that he desperately needed answered.

“Why not you too?” Jonas asked. “If what you say is true, why wouldn’t you choose to live a beautifully flawed life as a mortal?”

“Because,” Timotheus said sadly, “I had to hold on for just a little while longer. I had to hope that in these last moments, someone somewhere might surprise me.”

“Surprise you how?” Lucia asked.

“By proving me wrong.”

“Come down here,” she urged him. “Help me imprison the Kindred. Everything will return to normal then—here and in the mortal world. You can recover from what has happened to you, and . . . and then you can be whatever you want to be, wherever you want to be it.”

“I had hoped that might be possible, but it’s far too late for that now.” He looked down, shaking his head. “The end is here. Finally, after all these years. And now, if you have any hope of survival you must—”

He flinched then, as if a wave of pain had hit him. When he looked up at them, his eyes were glowing with a strange white light that was nearly blinding.

“What?” Jonas asked as Lucia clutched his arm. “What must we do?”

“You must run,” Timotheus said. And then he yelled it. “RUN!”

The glow from his eyes brightened so much that the entire image of Timotheus turned stark white, and then he disappeared completely.

A piercing beam of light exploded from the narrow spire, along with a painful screeching sound. Jonas staggered backward, away from the tower, and clamped his hands over his ears, meeting Lucia’s wide-eyed gaze.

When the sound ceased, Lucia turned back toward the tower. “He’s dead. Timotheus is dead!”

Jonas stared at her with shock. “Dead? But how can you know that for sure?”

She frantically looked around as if searching for something specific. “His magic is gone. It was the only thing keeping this world from complete destruction. That’s why he stayed here. That’s why he never physically left this place.”

And then Jonas heard a cracking sound in the distance that reminded him of thunder during a powerful Paelsian rainstorm. But much louder. Much bigger. When he looked toward the tall silver tower again, the new reflection on its surface turned his blood to ice.

Beyond the city walls, the world was falling apart. Literally falling apart. Massive chunks of earth crumbled off the side of a cliff. The eternally blue and cloudless sky shattered like glass and dropped away to reveal darkest night. Green hills and fields fell into a bottomless black abyss.

Jonas was frozen in place by the horror of it all—a nightmare come to life.

“Jonas,” Lucia shouted. “Jonas!”

He finally looked at her as the first crystal tower fell, shattering into the gaping chasm.

“I refuse to die here,” she said as she grabbed his wrist. “There’s too much left to do. Come on!”

He didn’t argue. He ran by her side as they moved toward the tower itself. Lucia searched frantically for a door until one slid open seemingly out of nowhere.

“Where are we going?” he demanded.

“There’s another monolith in here. It’s how Timotheus sent me back to the mortal world last time.”