Rachel Caine - Unbroken

And she was right. Ashan was right. I had been wrong, always.

I was Djinn. I was ancient, and ruthless, and powerful, and even now, with the world darkening around me, with the aetheric beginning to shatter and crumble into dust, I had one great and singular talent. I could kill better than any other being who had ever existed, throughout creation.

And now, I had to use that skill. Pearl’s power came from humanity, from the souls of all of those packed into this busy world—six billion and more, each holding a spark, a connection, that when connected was a source of astonishing power. Only Pearl had ever tapped into it.

And now that source had to be cut off.

I gathered them up. Every human life, every boy or girl drawing their first, fragile breath, every old man and woman drawing their last. Every heart, every soul, no matter how good, no matter how evil.

Every Warden, as well.

I could hold them all in my hands, all the billions of precious, fragile lives. All the stories and histories and potentials.

And I could end them.

I felt Pearl turn her startled attention toward me as I rose on bright, burning wings, with all of humanity held in my hands.

You can’t, she said, her words written in crystal on the aetheric as it began to burn. You love them too much now.

I did love them; I honestly did. Ashan had given me that gift, though whether he’d meant it as a gift or a curse was a mystery. He’d wanted me to learn something; I had, but I wasn’t sure if it was the same lesson he’d meant.

But what I learned gave me the strength, the compassion, to do what had to be done.

I killed them.

Every heart, stopped.

Every breath, taken.

Every scrap of life, drawn into my own aetheric form, saved and protected.

No Djinn was made for this, not even me; I was a killer, not a protector, but I couldn’t let the tiny sparks of their souls go out. Their bodies fell.… Luis, collapsing on the floor, entirely gone. Isabel. Esmeralda. Beyond, a roomful of Wardens snuffed out on a single breath. Cities full of bodies falling. Countries. Continents.

Not one single human breathed on earth, for the space of a full minute.

And Pearl’s power supply failed.

She didn’t realize what had happened for a wild second; she cast about for energy, failed to find it, and was immediately forced to break off her attack; the energy she’d siphoned from those doomed children had been meant to fuel a war, not her own life, but she no longer had a choice. Every second that passed ripped more away from her, because without that connection through humanity, she had nothing.

She was nothing.

The Mother was safe now, and the aetheric began to stabilize, though vast pieces of it had been burnt black; it would take years, maybe centuries, to heal the damage that had been done in only moments.

Pearl hung on, grimly, pouring power into her own existence, but it was like pouring water into a hurricane. She couldn’t hold.

I watched as pieces of her ripped away, flying into the Void she’d created; she was no longer a glossy, freshly born goddess, but a crippled and blackened thing that fought to back away from the blackest, most starless void.

She ripped at the aetheric, trying to find something, anything to hold herself in life, but there was nothing for her now, no human to clutch and drain.

Death came for her in a silent rush, but she was not quite finished yet; Pearl sensed my presence hovering near her on the aetheric, and she turned on me, howling her defiance.

Grappling with me, on the edge of the Void.

We fell together toward the end of all things, and I felt her last, hot burst of triumph. I made you kill them, she said, and it was like all the evil in the world shrieking its last, hot breath into me. I made you fall.

I’m not falling, I told her, and came free with a sudden, flashing beat of silver wings that broke her into tiny flakes of ash and smoke, screams and despair.

She was a nightmare that humanity had dreamed, and now she disappeared into the Void.

I beat my wings and fought my way back up, away from the black pull of death, to the last whispers of light at the very top of the world.

The Void closed.

Pearl was gone with it.

The Djinn were silent now, amid the countless human dead, staring up at me. I had just murdered an entire race. The Mother was safe, but the agony of what I’d done would echo forever. Nothing would be the same. Nothing would be saved, not of the race that I’d come to love and cherish. Their cities and histories would fall into ruin, into silence, into dust. Not even their whispers would remain.

Unless I righted the balance.

I couldn’t do it alone, and wordlessly, I sent out a call.

I felt them coming to me, on the aetheric—all my brothers and sisters, True Djinn and New, powerless and powerful. Some were bound in nets of glowing thread—those enslaved to bottles. Some were free, and wild with power.

One drifted close to me, and I recognized the tense, restless boil of blue-black energy within the netted cage that bound him. Save yourself, Rashid said. Don’t do this.

But it had been Ashan’s plan all along, and I was, finally, at peace with it. Ashan was gone, but the conduit remained.… Venna, though frail and broken, stood ready, and I reached out to her on one side, and to the caged, brilliant coppery flare that was David on the other. Together, they were halves of a whole, a key to the heart of the Mother.

Down in the human world, only a moment had passed. Long enough.

I let go of all that I had drawn in, all that I’d taken from those lifeless human forms. All the energy. All the breaths. All the heartbeats. But there is no perfect transfer of energy; there is always loss, both going and coming.

I’d known from the beginning that not all those I’d taken could, or would, come back. I had no control of that, or choice. Some hearts restarted. Some breaths were taken. For many, the seconds that had just passed went unnoticed, except as a nightmare.

I gave everything I had to make them live. Everything. Every last drop of power and energy that made me what I was, flowing out through Venna and David. When I had no more, I let go.

I had done what I’d been fated to do, and I was content with that. My light was going out of the world.

And then… something touched me. Something huge, gentle, kind… and wise. Not the Mother. Something beyond, as great in proportion to her as humans were to the tiniest insects.

I had been touched by something divine, and as the last of the Djinn Cassiel passed away…

… My consciousness flowed back into flesh that I’d left behind.

Outcast, again, but this time, by my own choice.

Unfortunately for me, that meant that I had fallen back into a body that wasn’t just drained of life, but dying . I had one breath left, maybe two, and a single heartbeat left before Esmeralda’s very effective venom destroyed it beyond all repair.

“No!”

That was Isabel’s raw scream in my ears.

My eyes were still open, but now I blinked away a film and focused on the girl’s sweaty, white-streaked face. She was shaking and gasping, but she put her hands on my chest and drove healing power into me, warm and rich and golden, a flood of peace that quickly turned toxic as it battled the intense venom Esmeralda had injected. The damage was grave, and Isabel fought for me, fought so hard that the pain that came with it was something I could only accept, and embrace. My blood burned. My nerves fried under the stress. Organs pulsed and wept poison. Muscles ripped and re-formed. Bone knitted.