Drowning in Fire

TWENTY-ONE

Once again, Keko found herself on the back terrace of the ali’i’s house, staring through the closed glass door at the thick silhouette of the man standing inside. It had been nearly a week since the last time she’d done this. It was night again, the sound of the birds gradually fading and the wind picking up, tossing about the trees. The whole scene was freakishly familiar.

Only now, instead of harboring threats and pleas, the Queen’s treasure burned inside her body. And she had Griffin at her back.

“Do you want me to wait out here?” His voice was feather soft near her ear, and it took all her effort not to lean into him.

She turned, and the shadows loved him. Made him appear mysterious and serious and lovely. She owed him so much—so much she’d never be able to repay.

“No,” she replied. “Come with me.”

The inside of the small house was as cool and damp as she remembered. Candles burned on various tables scattered about the dim room, their pillars low, and wax dripping around their bases. Underneath the scent of their lit wicks lingered the odor of phosphorous, the remnants of matches—even though the candles clearly had been burning for quite some time.

Sneaking through the shadows of the valley to arrive here in secret, she’d been able to pick out the various kinds of fire being wielded by Chimerans, whether she could see the people or not. Each and every instance of flame called to her in a different voice, and she wondered if this was what it felt like to be Griffin with his sense of signatures. And was this a blessing or a curse from the Source? She did not yet know.

Chief stood in front of the couch, almost exactly where she’d left him. Maybe he’d been standing there for days and days, continually praying for her success. Or her failure. She no longer knew which he valued more.

As she moved deeper into the room, she tugged aside a flap of her T-shirt. The Source released a serene glow, bright enough to mark her as different. Enough to proclaim her victory.

Chief gasped. Stumbled back. But he couldn’t go very far because of the couch, and then he wasn’t moving backward at all. He revised his steps, coming forward. Coming for her with wide, unblinking eyes and an outstretched hand.

Griffin closed in tighter at her back. Bane moved around to one side.

Keko threw out a hand, and even without inhaling or calling up or commanding her fire, her fingers rippled with a blue-white flame that appeared almost liquid. Chief stopped as suddenly as if he’d hit a wall.

“You did it,” he murmured, his eyes clear and wet.

She willed the fire to die, and it obeyed. “I did. Even though you agreed with the Senatus to stop me. Even though you sent Griffin after me.”

Chief’s eyes closed, and it seemed that in the past few days his wrinkles had deepened, elongated. He looked like he’d aged more since she’d last left here than in the past twenty years combined.

“I had to,” he said. “Aya overheard me and Bane, and she told us what could happen. I had to agree with her or—”

“Risk exposing yourself,” Keko snapped. “Yeah, I get it. You’d never dream of compromising your name, but you’d gladly let mine be dragged through the shit. You’d never dream of telling the truth to the Senatus about my reasons for searching for the Source, but you’d let them think that I was this crazed, jilted, selfish Chimeran willing to destroy part of the world just to get a little respect.”

Chief’s breath hissed through his nose. “I was secretly glad Griffin went after you and not the large company the premier wanted to send. I thought that you’d be able to escape one man. That you’d find a way to survive and succeed.”

“And heal you.” She let out an ugly, short laugh. “I should let you live without your fire. I should heal all the others and let your shame come out on its own. Watch you go down the way you watched me.”

Chief blanched. “I gave you that chance before and you didn’t take it. You’re too honorable for that, Kekona.”

She hated him for saying that. She hated him because he was right.

“Here’s the thing.” She moved closer, into the candlelight. “I’m not entirely sure I can heal you. It was all a wild gamble to begin with. But if you want your fire back so badly—if you want to protect your name and status—I think you should be the guinea pig, dear uncle. I think I should test out my new power on you first. What do you say to that?”

Chief looked to Bane, but Bane only stared expectantly at Keko.

“And if it doesn’t work?” asked the ali’i.

She shrugged. “Nothing lost, as far as I can see.” Except that she was playing a part, because the thought of not being able to cure Ikaika and the others yet to be named made her nauseous with disappointment.

If this didn’t work, all of Griffin’s sacrifices would be for nothing.

“There is great power inside me,” she said. “Even I fear it. Control is a flimsy thing and I have to fight for it constantly. I have no idea what will happen when I touch you.”

Chief’s hands turned to fists at his sides, but that was the extent of his visible reaction.

“Come here,” she said, and the ali’i approached after only a moment’s hesitation.

She could feel the Source stretching out to him the closer he got. As though it knew this man had the magic deep inside but could no longer command it. Maybe all the chief needed was a kick-start, a charge. Maybe if she opened up the conduit between the spark inside her and his body, she could feed him enough power to get through whatever blocks the disease had built.

No time to wonder. No time to doubt.

Calling the blue-white flame to her hand again without taking a breath, she slapped her palm over Chief’s right pectoral. The little chunk of lava rock—the symbol of the Queen she’d once coveted—bounced on his chest.

He cried out, his face instantly contorting in pain. His legs buckled. He went down, knees hitting the tile, but she bent forward and held on. Source flame, intense and blue-silver like the dusk, rolled down her arm in waves and sank into the chief’s body, like he was the shore and her power was high tide.

She had to battle for control of it. It kicked and fought, and wanted free rein to explode into him, but she knew if she did that—if she let it take control—he’d die. She could also feel it working. Could feel the fire pumping back into him, restarting his system, cracking through invisible barriers, and feeding back to him what had been withering inside.

A long, low moan streamed up out of his throat. His whole body shook with violent tremors. She’d never witnessed such agony—on his face or the face of any Chimeran—but he didn’t resist. Didn’t try to pull away. Despite everything he was, everything he had said or done to her, she had to commend him for that.

The pain and power grew and grew. It got so bad that he ceased making any sound or movement at all.

In the end, it was not Chief who stopped the flow. Of their own accord, the flames pulled out of his chest and retreated back up her arm, then flickered and died. The second she removed her hand from his skin, he pitched forward, just barely catching himself on his hands before striking the floor.

A fine line ran between healing and death.

Bane rushed forward, taking Chief by his shoulders and helping him to sit back on his heels. The ali’i’s head lolled on his neck, his arms limp at his sides, and his chest . . . Bane saw it the exact moment Keko did, and her brother looked up at her in panic.

Griffin came to her side. “Is that . . . ?”

It was. Her handprint, charred and black, embedded in Chief’s flesh. Proof that he’d needed healing. Proof that he’d needed her.

Chief looked down and saw it, too. Bane released him and the ali’i scrambled to his feet, his shaking fingers picking at the edges of her mark like a scab, his face ashen.

“Did it work?” Bane demanded, the desperate tone of his voice clearly speaking for another diseased Chimeran male. “Are you healed?”

Chief finally stopped staring down at the permanent charcoal reminder, and lifted his chin to meet Keko’s eyes.

“Reach for your fire,” she told him.

Chief drew a Chimeran breath. Upon the exhale, he raised a hand to his lips and blew out a thin stream of gold and orange flame. The tips of each finger danced with gorgeous fire and he watched them with a childlike glee.

He started to cry. The venerated ali’i of the Big Island Chimerans was crying.

Between his sobs he inhaled, sucking the fire back into his body. Then he relit his fingers with a laugh, rolled the flame into a ball, and passed it from hand to hand. Holding it before him like an offering, he gazed over its flickering top and said to Keko, “Thank you.”

She hadn’t done this for him. She did it for all Chimerans, whether they’d lost their magic or not. She did it for the fire itself, the element that wanted to be used by her people. And she did it for the Queen whose dream was finally realized.

No, she hadn’t done it for her uncle . . . but she couldn’t help but be moved by his reaction. By this reunification. It gave her a tremendous joy and satisfaction to see the same on his face.

It made her feel completely selfless.

She sensed Griffin edge even closer, and when she turned her face to him he was watching her carefully.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

The Source sent white-hot waves of power and strength and excitement shooting through every vein in her body. She tried to think of something to compare it to. Maybe sex, if every time could be like that last time with Griffin in the coastal B and B. Perhaps love, if it was absolute and unshakeable. If it were perfect. If it were undeniably mutual.

But unfortunately, love was none of those things.

Griffin looked at her with grave concern. She wanted desperately to share this feeling with him, for him to experience the power, the healing, the giving of something to help another in need—but then, it was entirely possible he already knew.

She didn’t know if she could love him any more than she did at that very moment.

“Keko.” His voice was a breath, a small, invisible container of emotion she could not dare herself to believe in.

The brush of air by her ear was his hand as he raised it to touch her. How she wanted that! But she could not chance it. Not when he had no loss of fire magic to cure. Not when she’d seen the great pain she’d caused the chief—and the resulting mark. She ducked out of Griffin’s touch. Not a big movement, but enough to warn him off.

He sighed and let his hand fall yet again.

“I’m fine,” she said to Griffin. Then she turned to the ali’i who was still playing at his flame as though he were a child just come into his powers.

Bane had locked his hands around the back of his skull again, and he stared with undisguised horror at the askew black handprint on Chief’s chest.

Keko went to her brother and said low, “They’ll all be marked. If they want to be cured, they’ll have to wear shirts to hide it.” No other way to keep it secret, not in their culture of bared skin. “They’ll have to make the choice. No magic or a scar.”

Bane unlaced his fingers and turned to her. “But you will get no choice. If the people find out about the disease, they’ll know about the cure. They’ll have to know about you.”

She saw the devotion in his eyes, what she’d seen when he’d fallen to his knees once before. “I’m still no Queen.”

He tightly shook his head. “That’s not for you to decide.”

But it was for her to believe.

“Bring me Ikaika,” she said, deliberately changing the subject, “and let him be the first to make his choice.”

Bane pressed both fists to his chest, a gesture of worship usually meant only for ceremonies involving legends of the Queen. The ali’i, seeing this, stiffened but said nothing. He could not, after all. Not when he was no longer the most powerful in the valley.

Bane hurried out. Keko moved to stand before Griffin.

“You know about Ikaika,” she said, “but not the others. I think, for the sake of their privacy and the sanctity of our culture, because you are Ofarian—”

“I’ll go.” Griffin glanced at the ali’i. “My oath still stands, Keko. My word and my stars are yours.” Then he turned and left, the latch in the glass door making a soft click that sounded far too loud in the dense, silent room.

A short while later, Bane returned with Ikaika through the shadowed and secret back entrance, both men slightly out of breath. Bane’s eyes glimmered in anticipation. Ikaika’s brow furrowed in confusion when he finally saw Keko.

“I know about your fire,” she told Ikaika without preamble. When the warrior threw a harsh look at Bane and then a fearful look at Chief sitting on the darkened corner of the couch, Keko held up a hand. “Your general said nothing. It doesn’t matter how I know. You’ve lost your magic. But I can give it back.”

Ikaika sucked in a breath. His eyes kept darting toward the ali’i, and Keko gestured for Chief to come out of the shadows.

“I can give you back your fire,” Keko said, beckoning Chief even closer, “but you will be marked. As the ali’i is.”

Ikaika gaped in horror at the handprint, and then in clear shock at the face of the man who wore it. “What then? Will I be sent to the Common House?”

Chief replied quickly. “No. I’ll think of something to explain the mark, but in the meantime, you have to hide it.”

Keko could not think about honesty or shame or pride or worthiness just then. Those were for Chief to weigh and live with, and if he could roll over and sleep soundly at night knowing he was covering up something he would have easily used against any other Chimeran just a year ago, then that was his issue. He would never admit to the weakness himself, and she chose to be grateful that it meant she would not be called out as Queen.

She just wanted to make her people whole again. It was not about the power. Not anymore. She was not marking her subjects or declaring herself above them. She was giving back what was rightfully theirs.

“Do it.” Ikaika stomped to Keko, looking every bit the fierce warrior he’d proven himself to be. “Do it now.”

He grabbed Keko’s arm and slapped it to his bare chest, just below the band of white beads around his neck. The Source fire responded immediately, blue-white flame surging from her body to his. Only this man did not fall to his knees as Chief had done. Ikaika remained standing, fists balled tightly at his sides, veins and sweat popping out all over his body. His head dropped forward and his jaw shook, but he never faltered. Not even when it was finished and Keko fell back.

Bane came free from the granite stance he’d assumed in the corner, stalked across the room, and grabbed Ikaika’s shoulders, forcing him to look up. The two men stared at one another, Bane’s fingers digging into the slick brown skin where Ikaika’s tattooed shoulder sloped up to his neck. Then Bane softened, leaning forward. Their foreheads and noses touched in a delicate honi—the sharing of each other’s breath and well-being. The exchange of life.

When they exhaled, a flicker of flame escaped each of their lips, mingling in midair, and then their mouths came together. Brief, but full of passion.

Chief turned away, but Keko could not. She’d never seen such naked emotion in her brother, had never known him—or any Chimeran, really—capable of such stirring intensity. And that had always included herself.

Until she’d met Griffin.

It was Ikaika who stepped back first, even though Bane did not seem to want to let him go. Ikaika looked to Keko with such awestruck gratefulness that she could not help but smile in return.

“Bring me the others,” Keko ordered Bane gently, before Ikaika could name her Queen. “One by one.”

• • •

Twenty-two afflicted Chimerans. Twenty-two of her people—from all status levels and born into every major family—walked shaking into the ali’i’s home believing their ultimate secret had been exposed and that they were being delivered to him for punishment. Twenty-two made their choice. And all twenty-two Chimerans stumbled away from Chief’s house bearing the handprint of their cure beneath a shirt.

She had not allowed one of them to call her Queen, though she’d seen the name shining in their eyes and dancing in the restored fire on their tongues.

Bright sunlight now lit up the scraggly garden out back. She’d been channeling the Source all night without sleep or pause, yet she’d never felt more awake, more alive.

Movement out in the garden, and she realized it was Griffin sitting on the crooked steps of the terrace. He leaned back on his hands, stretching his neck, then cracking his back. The small burn mark on his temple, the one she’d given him during Nem’s first attack, drew her attention. The sight of it made her heart twist. Such a tiny thing, but it was a reminder of all that he’d done for her and her people—and what he’d given up for his own. Like the handprints, he would wear her mark forever. The cuts and bruises from their cliffside brawl and the battle with Nem would fade, but that burn would remain.

She exited the house, the sound of the door opening bringing Griffin to his feet. As she approached him, she marveled at how every time she thought she looked upon a beautiful god in human form, he managed to somehow look even better the next time she laid eyes on him. Even now, when he was as dirty and ragged as she.

He held his breath as she went up to him.

“Will you come with me?” she asked.

He smiled. “Always.”

She skirted around the morning meadow that was filling with Chimeran warriors preparing for their drills, a shouting Bane and a shirted Ikaika at the front.

She brought Griffin to her hidden spot high up on the cliff, the one that had views of the valley and the ocean. The place where she’d incinerated his coat when she believed herself cured of his presence in her mind and heart. Who had she been kidding? Even back then?

He climbed without complaint, though he must have been exhausted. There was no place else to take him, however, since she could not bring him to the Common House in broad daylight, and she had no other home. If she’d demanded Bane vacate her old house he would have done so, but that would draw unwanted attention.

“Griffin.” She turned to him, a million things to say on her tongue, but the two words that mattered most came out. “Thank you.”

Then he was on her. Pushing her against a rock.

Touching her.

She tried to scramble out of his grip, to save him. The Source . . . who knew what it would do to him?

“It’s okay,” he whispered, his hands firmly wrapped around her arms, the hard length of his body pressing against hers. “I am water.”

And when he kissed her, she sensed his smile. His joy. His pride.

Inside she felt the Source reacting, trying to get out, flinging itself against her skin and coming up against a sparkling, formidable barrier in the man she never wanted to stop touching. Because she could touch him. Deep down she knew that she would never be able to touch another Chimeran man in this way again, but Griffin . . . he was water.

Her opposite. Her complement.

She kissed him back, eyes squeezed shut in near pain. Because they floated in a dream of a future she was sure they would never be able to have. He lead his people. They depended on him, and he would return to San Francisco with a slate wiped clean—all that he’d worked for, all that he’d promised the Ofarians, gone—thanks to what he’d done for her here. The amount of work ahead of him was astronomical. He could not be tethered to a Chimeran woman, not if he hoped to focus on strengthening future Ofarian generations.

And the Chimerans needed her. This was still her home, still her culture, and she could not simply walk away. Maybe she could not allow herself to be Queen, but she was still a cure, and the disease might strike again. Maybe that’s what the Queen had intended for her original quest all along: to discover the illness’s origin and eradicate it forever. That was a noble purpose and one Keko could easily dedicate herself to in this day and age.

She did not want to walk away from Griffin, but she just might have to.

The realization ripped a sob from her throat. She had not cried before when she believed he’d double-crossed her, but she did right then with his mouth on hers, the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She cried for what she’d learned and discovered and unearthed inside herself. She cried because she chose to believe that he really did love her, even though he had not spoken it.

This belief she grasped tightly and wrapped around her heart. She channeled it into a deeper, more frantic kiss, an almost frightening urgency to her motions. She let herself be ground into the rock at her back, not feeling any of her injuries, only feeling Griffin. Tasting him. Loving him.

His spirit was his own Source. His selflessness gave him a purpose she’d always found foreign but now accepted with a profound understanding. His fair, considerate concern for the well-being of anyone other than himself was a bottomless well that would never run dry. It was counter to the Chimerans’ way of life and it humbled her greatly. But it also gave her something to strive for, and a gift she could slowly feed to her own people.

Griffin pulled away, leaving her breathless not from the broken kiss, but from the depth of the emotion on his face. His hands slid up her arms and shoulders, and the Source fire traced his fingers’ path underneath her skin, making her shiver with awareness, kicking up the pleasure of his touch. Taking the flaps of her ripped T-shirt—his T-shirt—he parted them gently, exposing her chest but not her breasts.

The Source glowed, a tranquil spot of light, until Griffin bent his head and kissed her skin. Right over the gift he’d given to her people.

This time the Source did break free in a flash of blue-white. Keko gasped, but Griffin only smiled with his lips and hands on her as a cool sheen of Ofarian water trickled over her skin. Rising in equal challenge to the fire inside her. Claiming her.

Deep inside her mind and body, fire and water magic clashed together. They tangled briefly, a sexy tussle, then they found a way to interlock. To accommodate one another without losing what made their element unique and powerful.

When Griffin released her, his lips were moist with magic and his eyes were dark and filled with understanding, and she knew that he’d experienced exactly what she just had.

He took her mouth again with a deep groan, eliciting from her a bone-deep shiver, heightened by the dual, opposing bits of magic. Heightened by him. Indeed, the whole world seemed to vibrate.

And then the world actually did vibrate. Tiny stones somersaulted down on them from above. Nearby, the tree branches, covered with giant, waxy leaves, trembled. The ground shook under their feet.

Griffin shoved away the same moment Keko felt the rock shift at her back. Instantly she knew what it was. Instantly she knew that the Child of Earth had returned.

Keko knew no fear.

She spun toward the rock as it folded and clinked and rolled back in ways that seemed to dissolve and eat itself and transform all at the same time. Shoving Griffin behind her, she called Source fire to her hand, more than she’d ever dared before, ready for Nem’s newest attack.

But it was not Nem who appeared.

Keko watched, wide-eyed, as Aya’s familiar, diminutive human body and pale, streaming hair gradually replaced the elements of earth. When her transformation was complete, she merely stood there, taking in Griffin and Keko with sad green eyes.

Keko could feel Griffin behind her, his chest pressed to her back, the way his heart beat faster, the struggle of his lungs. He was afraid.

“I’ve come to demand punishment,” said the Daughter of Earth, her attention shifting solely to Griffin.

If Keko had held on to any doubt that Griffin had told her the absolute truth about his reasons for coming to Hawaii, she regretfully let it go now. Aya’s presence and demand confirmed everything.

Griffin asked, “Were any Primaries hurt?”

Aya briefly closed her eyes. “No.”

He pressed on. “And did the eruption cause any other damage that might put Primaries in danger?”

Aya’s glare hardened. “No. The new volcano, relatively small as it is, is far enough away from civilization to not have a direct effect, though it’s caused a slight sea level rise. But no loss of life, no.” She lifted a graceful hand. “That was not our agreement, Griffin, and you know it. The terms were for you to make sure the Source remained untouched or Keko is ours. The Father is aware of what’s happened and he demands retribution.”

“No. I won’t let you.” Griffin tried to push out from behind Keko, but she steeled her arms and legs and refused to let him pass on the narrow path. He took a breath as if to say something more, and Keko sensed he was about to tell Aya the true reason behind her quest. Then he went still, and she knew that he was holding true to his vow. Even though it killed him not to defend her.

Aya stepped closer, having to lift her chin to look up at Keko. Before, during their talks outside the Senatus gatherings, Aya had always seemed somewhat childlike. Now she was decidedly adult. Eerily composed. And perhaps a little regretful.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Aya said.

“Yes,” Keko replied, blinking back surprise but not letting down her guard.

“I don’t want you to be punished any more than Griffin does. I am trapped between my heart and my duty, but, in the end, my race and the Primaries we protect must come first.”

That didn’t make much sense to Keko, but behind her Griffin gasped. “You protect them?”

Aya nodded. “It’s why I wanted you to go after Keko. It’s why I wanted you on the Senatus. Because you and I, Griffin, we want more for the elementals and more for humanity than our races believe in, and I see in you many good things. I would’ve sided with you, and we could have made so many changes, but now you’ve destroyed your chance. And since Keko touched the Source, I have to take her Within.”

“She didn’t—” Griffin began.

Keko wouldn’t let him finish. She couldn’t allow him to sacrifice any more.

“The volcano was my doing,” Keko blurted, because it truly was, when it came down to it.

“There was a man,” Griffin growled, “a Son of Earth who attacked us twice and escaped through the earth both times. Did he tell you what happened on that island?”

Aya looked disturbed and mournful. “No. Nem never returned. We don’t believe he got away from the island before the volcano destroyed it. Not even a Child can survive something like that. He was . . .” She shook her head, trying to compose herself. “He wasn’t supposed to go after you, but something about him isn’t—wasn’t—right.”

“Am I being blamed for his death?” Keko asked.

The tension in Aya’s expression told her yes. Keko looked to the sky.

So the only two people alive who knew that Griffin had been the one to go down to the Source were standing right here. It was another secret she would make him carry. There was no way she would let him take the fall for her actions. There was no way she could allow herself to be more indebted to him than she already was.

A calm settled through her. Maybe this was what she’d known was coming when he’d kissed her. Maybe her mind had already realized her punishment and their separation were imminent, and it had to convince her heart that it must happen to protect them both.

This way, the Chimerans would never learn about the Queen’s treasure and the Source, and the afflicted’s secret would never get out. This was better, the only way.

Keko raised her hand, the one still rippling with the Source flame. She used it to tug aside the T-shirt so Aya could see what she bore, and part of the black fabric burned away before she willed the white fire to die. She pulled away from Griffin, away from his touch.

“A part of the Source is in me,” she told Aya. “I own the magic. And I will pay for it.”

Keko cast a long gaze over the valley, seeing each and every face of the Chimerans she’d healed. They had fire again. They could smile, and that brought her a profound sense of peace.

“I argued against death,” Aya said, “because you, Keko, changed me. Helped me to see the Aboveground world in a way I’d never imagined. I want you to know that you made me want to become human.”

Keko could not say anything for the shock, unaware she’d affected Aya in such a way. Unaware that the Children even had such a choice.

Griffin exhaled.

“But you disturbed something you should not have,” Aya went on, her face darkening, “and caused offense to the Earth. My people will not kill you, but you will serve us Within. Your magic will not work down there and there is no sun. It was the will of the Father, who rules us. I am truly sorry.”

Keko finally turned to face Griffin, and she was nearly knocked over by the fierce protest in his eyes and the terrible tension in the coil of his muscles. She saw everything on his face—their entire tumultuous history and the future that would never be. She saw it all, and couldn’t help but be grateful for ever having experienced and known him, for however brief a time.

“No,” he said. The single word of defiance came out harshly, though the look in his eyes was tender and soft. Then he reached out and yanked her to him, enveloping her in his arms. She had to concentrate very hard on keeping her fire under her control. When she went Within, she wouldn’t have to worry about that struggle anymore.

“Let me,” he whispered in her ear, low enough that Aya couldn’t hear. “Let me tell her the truth.”

Keko merely shook her head, her face against his neck. “Before you,” she said, just as softly, just for him, “I thought love a weakness. Before you, I thought only fire and fists mattered. I was wrong.”

She pushed away, and he reluctantly let her go. Though his hands were at his sides, she could still feel him reaching for her.

“I love you,” he said between gritted teeth, his eyes filling. And then again, “I love you.”

Those words—the ones she feared and longed to hear, finally spoken in his voice—painted themselves over her skin. She would never be able to wash them away, nor would she ever want to.

She touched Griffin’s face with great sadness and aching loss and all the love she’d been gathering and storing her whole life, awaiting the appearance of this man. She could not look upon those three years apart from him as a waste. Instead she chose to look on the time they were given as a blessing.

She kissed him, quick and chaste. “And I love your stars.”

With the reminder of his vow, his head dropped forward on his neck, his chest heaving. One hand came up to dig his thumb and forefinger into his eyes.

This was her time.

Keko turned to Aya. “It’s done.”

Without hesitation, Aya snatched her in arms made of skin and stone, and whipped Keko’s body around. The Source fire wanted to be let out, to fight, but Keko kept it in check. She would not oppose this.

Griffin’s head snapped up, his face a mask of terror and despair, his arms reaching for Keko, his feet grinding up dirt as he lunged. Keko saw her name on his lips but could not hear him for the roar in her ears.

Aya threw Keko against the rock, and she braced herself for impact, for pain. But there was none. There was only the vision of a hopeless Griffin charging after her, and a sickly, strange sensation of a hard world going spongy all around her.

Then all went black and silent as Aya took them both deep into the earth.