P.C. Cast - Burned

Aphrodite was jolted from the vision and lifted out of the grove so quickly her stomach gave a nauseating lurch. “Oh, ugh! Too far, too fast. I may barf.”

A warm wind passed over her, calming her dizziness. When she began to move again, her nausea was gone, but not her confusion.

“Okay, I don’t understand. Z pulls herself together, but she stays here with Heath instead of going back to her body?”

In this version of the future, yes.

Aphrodite hesitated and then, reluctantly, asked, “But is she happy?”

Yes. Zoey and Heath are content together in the Otherworld for eternity.

Aphrodite felt the sadness, heavy and thick, but she had to continue, “Then maybe Z should stay where she is. We’ll miss her. I’ll miss her.” Aphrodite hesitated, quelling an unexpected urge to cry before she continued. “It would definitely suck for Stark, but if this is where she’s meant to be, then Zoey should stay.

What is meant for each person changes with their choices. This is only one version of Zoey’s future, and like many choices that are made in the Otherworld, hers has threads that change the tapestry of the future on earth. If Zoey chooses to stay, behold earth’s new future:

Aphrodite was sucked down into a scene that was all too familiar. She was standing in the middle of the field she’d been in during her last vision. Just as before, she was one with people who were burning—humans, vamps, and fledglings. She reexperienced the pain of the fire, along with the abstract agony that had enveloped her during the original vision. As during the last vision, Aphrodite looked up to see Kalona standing before them all, only this time Zoey wasn’t with him—making out or saying whatever she’d said in the second part of the vision that destroyed him. Instead, Neferet stepped into the scene. She strode past Kalona, staring at the burning people. Then she began tracing intricate patterns in the air around her, and as she did so Darkness bloomed all around her. Spreading from her, it stained the field, extinguishing the fire, but not taking away the pain.

“No, I won’t kill them!” She gestured with one finger, and a cluster of tendrils wrapped around Kalona’s body. “Help me make them mine.”

Kalona absorbed them. Aphrodite concentrated on him and, like a mirage materializing, the tendrils of Darkness that encased the immortal’s body became visible. They writhed, causing the fallen immortal’s skin to twitch and shudder. Kalona gasped, and Aphrodite couldn’t tell if he felt pleasure or pain, but he smiled grimly at Neferet, spread his arms wide to accept Darkness, and said, “As you wish, my Goddess.”

Covered in the tendrils, Kalona moved up so that he stood in front of her, and then the fallen immortal dropped to his knees and bared his neck. Aphrodite watched Neferet bend, lick Kalona’s skin, and with a greedy fierceness that was frightening, she sank her teeth into Kalona and fed from him. The tendrils of Darkness quivered, throbbed, and multiplied.

Utterly grossed out, Aphrodite looked away to see Stevie Rae enter the field.

Stevie Rae?

A dark thing moved beside her, and Aphrodite realized that Stevie Rae was standing next to a Raven Mocker, right next to him—as in so close they appeared together.

WTF?

The Raven Mocker’s wing spread up and out, and then curled around Stevie Rae, as if holding her in an embrace. Stevie Rae sighed and moved even closer to the creature, so that his wing totally enveloped her. Aphrodite was so shocked by the sight that she didn’t see where the Indian kid came from—he was just suddenly there, right in front of the Raven Mocker.

Even through the pain and shock caused by her vision, Aphrodite could appreciate how incredibly gorgeous this new kid was. His body was amazing, and he was mostly naked, so there was a lot of it showing. His hair was thick and long, and as black as the raven feathers that were braided into its length. He was tall and muscular and just super hot in general.

He ignored the Raven Mocker and held his hand out to Stevie Rae, saying, “Accept me, and he’ll go away.”

Stevie Rae stepped out of the creature’s winged embrace, but she didn’t take the kid’s hand. Instead she said, “It’s not that simple.”

Still on his knees in front of Neferet, Kalona yelled, “Rephaim! Do not betray me again, my son!”

The immortal’s words served as a goad to the Raven Mocker. He attacked the Indian kid. The two of them began to battle each other brutally while Stevie Rae stood there, doing nothing except staring at the Raven Mocker and crying brokenly. Through her sobs, Aphrodite could hear her say, “Don’t leave me, Rephaim. Please, please don’t leave me.”

On the distant horizon behind all of them, Aphrodite saw what she thought was a blazing sun rising, but as she squinted against the brightness she realized it wasn’t the sun at all but an enormous white bull climbing over the slaughtered body of a black bull as he tried, and failed, to protect the remnants of what was once the modern world.

Aphrodite was lifted from her vision. Nyx held her in a caressing breeze as her soul trembled. “Oh, Goddess,” she whispered. “No, please no. A choice made by one teenage girl is able to mess up the balance of Light and Darkness in the entire world? How can that even be possible?”

Consider that your choice for goodness opened a path for an entirely new breed of vampyre to exist.

“The red fledglings? But they already existed before I did anything.”

Yes, but the path to regain their humanity was closed until your sacrifice—your choice—opened it. And are you not simply one teenage girl?

“Oh, for crap’s sake. Zoey has to come back.”

Then Heath must move on from my realm of the Otherworld. That is the only way Zoey will choose to return to her body if her soul becomes whole again.

“How do I make sure that happens?”

All you can do is to give them the knowledge, daughter. The choice must rest with Heath and Zoey and Stark.

With a jolt, Aphrodite was pulled back and back. Gasping, she opened her eyes and blinked through pain and the haze of red tears to see Darius bending over her.

“Have you returned to me?”

Aphrodite sat up. She was light-headed, and her head throbbed behind her eyes with a pain she knew too well. She brushed her hair from her face, surprised at how badly her hand was trembling.

“Drink this, my beauty. You must ground yourself after a spirit journey.” He handed her a goblet and helped her hold it to her lips.

Aphrodite gulped the wine, and then said, “Help me get to Stark.”

“But your eyes—you must rest!”

“If I rest, I take a chance that the whole fucking world goes to hell. Literally.”

“Then I will get you to Stark.”

Feeling weak and in way over her head, Aphrodite leaned on her Warrior as they returned to the Fianna Foil, where very little had changed. Sgiach was still watching her Guardian as he slowly and methodically continued to cut Stark.

Aphrodite didn’t waste any time. She went straight to Sgiach.

“I have to talk to Stark. Now.”

Sgiach looked at her, taking in her trembling body and her blood-filled eyes. “You’ve used your gift?”

“Yeah, and I have to tell Stark something, or it’ll be bad. For everyone. Really bad.”

The queen nodded and motioned for Aphrodite to follow her to the Seol ne Gigh.

“You will only have a moment. Speak quickly and clearly to Stark. If you hold him here too long, he will not be able to retrace his path to the Otherworld until he has recovered from today’s journey, and you must understand that recovery could take him weeks.”