Jeaniene Frost - The Brightest Embers

Perhaps worst of all, I was endangering everyone I loved to keep looking for a weapon I might never find. It was one thing when I thought we were searching for the spearhead in a demon-free world. Now I knew that demons could pounce around any corner. How could I do that to my sister and Costa, who’d already suffered too much at demons’ hands? How could I do that to Adrian, who’d nearly died more times than I could count in these quests? I wasn’t risking only my life by searching for the spearhead—I was risking all of theirs, and the deck was more stacked against us than I’d realized.

Besides, if anything happened to Adrian or my sister, it would break me. Then I wouldn’t be able to keep looking for the spearhead anyway. But would I really not stop until one or both of them were dead? How could I do that to people I loved?

I was so engrossed in my thoughts, I didn’t think anything of the young man I passed on my way through the dining car until he touched my hand. Startled, I jerked away, only then registering the familiar faded blue hoodie he wore. He tipped it back, revealing close-cropped black hair, dark brown skin, handsome features and brown eyes. Nothing remarkable, unless you looked into his eyes. Then you’d feel what it was like to have a real-life celestial being see past all your defenses and stare straight into your soul.

“Hi, Zach,” I said, wondering why I was surprised to see him. Didn’t he always show up at pivotal points in my life? If I’d been thinking things through, I would have expected him.

“Ivy,” he greeted me, glancing at the seat across from him. “Won’t you have a seat?”

“Ooh, asking me to do something instead of ordering me,” I remarked, sounding flippant even though I felt anything but. “What’s with the new niceness?”

The faintest twitch touched his mouth, his version of a full-fledged grin. “You must have grown on me,” he said dryly.

I batted my lashes. Being a smartass was better than what I was feeling now. “Stop with the compliments. You’re making me blush.”

There was the look I was used to: half censure, half annoyance. “I am not here for meaningless banter. I’ve come to see if you’ve chosen to abandon your pursuit of the spearhead.”

That was right to the point. Normally, Zach was as cryptic as the day was long. “You’ve been here long enough to read my mind, haven’t you?” Mind reading was one of his talents as an Archon, and he had never shied away from doing it before. “Or did your ‘boss’ tell you that I was reconsidering this quest?”

His shoulder lifted in a half shrug. “Does it matter?”

“Not really,” I said, and sat down. I hadn’t wanted to finalize such a momentous decision right now, but when had life ever waited until I was ready? “Is Adrian right?” I asked, meeting Zach’s piercing gaze. “Will demons just reopen shop again eventually?”

“Of course.” Not only was there no sympathy in his tone, it actually had a faint tinge of amusement. “Did you really believe that you, a human, could defeat all the dark legions of the underworld permanently?”

Put like that, it did sound delusional, but I hadn’t thought I’d be able to kill them all or anything grandiose like that. My big hope had been to save the humans still trapped in the demon realms while also keeping others from ever being enslaved or killed by demons again. That had been worth dying for, but this?

“So what’s the point of me risking everyone’s lives to hunt for a spearhead that—in all likelihood—will kill me, if everything is only going to go back to horrible demonic normal one day anyway?”

Zach leaned forward. Tiny lights seemed to glow in the dark depths of his gaze as he stared at me. “Your best-case scenario was only ever to possibly free the thousands still trapped in the demon realms, if you found the final hallowed weapon. Not to defeat the demons or keep them from ever harming people again. That is a fight for Archons, not humans.”

“Let’s talk about that, too,” I said, gripping the side of the table so hard, my hands hurt. Still, better to feel physical pain than the hurt frothing inside me. “No one thinks I’ll be able to free the humans even if I do find and wield the spearhead. They think I’ll drop over dead as soon as I touch it. You just said ‘possibly’ free them, so you sound doubtful, too. Well? Am I strong enough to do it or not?”

Zach didn’t say anything. My anger grew, a welcoming balm over the pain.

“I’m going to die for nothing, aren’t I?” I said sharply. “And you don’t care, because you’re an Archon and humans are like ants to you, but Adrian cares. It ripped my heart out when I thought he was dying earlier, yet you want me to rip his out by dying in this quest because Davidians are supposed to die for their destinies, right?”

Again Zach said nothing. He wasn’t denying any of this, and since Archons couldn’t lie, not denying it was the same as admitting it.

A toddler suddenly scrambled out of her chair and darted over, tugging on my pants and saying, “Up!” with adorable demand. Almost as quickly, her mother ran over and swept her up.

“So sorry,” she said, then grabbed those chubby little hands before they could snatch at my hair.

I stared at the little girl. Her eyes were brown, not hazel like mine, but for a moment, I could see myself as this child. Except by the time I’d been her age, my mother had been forced to abandon me.

The dream with all its agony roared to the forefront. I barely noticed the woman leaving with her little girl. All my attention was on Zach. He hadn’t moved. Neither had I, except for my hands. They felt like they’d left indentions in the table that I was gripping as if my life depended on it.

“What about my mother?” My voice was thick with everything she’d felt that day. “Did this destiny kill her, too? Or what about my bio father? Did he have to watch her die the way you expect Adrian to watch me die?”

“Your biological father was murdered by minions years before your mother’s death,” Zach replied with infuriating coolness. “And your mother took her own life.”

I closed my eyes, my breath hitching between a gasp and a sob. I’d known that she and all her blood relatives must be dead, but I’d hoped...what? That somewhere in this world, I still had family? How naive of me. Anyone close to a Davidian was a demon target. It should come as no surprise that my bio father had been murdered. My adoptive parents had been murdered, too. Now I had no one left except for Adrian, Jasmine and Costa, yet if I continued on this quest in a world still filled with demons, they might get murdered, too.

“Tell me it’s not all for nothing,” I said, opening my eyes and staring at Zach. “Tell me that if I use the spearhead, I will save those people. Tell me, or I am walking away from this. I refuse to sacrifice one more person for a destiny I didn’t ask for, or a quest I have no chance at succeeding at.”

“I will not tell you,” Zach said, his brown gaze turning hard. “You do not get to demand answers in advance of efforts. Either continue without knowing your quest’s resolution, or do not. The choice, as always, is yours.”

I let go of the table to bang my fists on it. “You call that a choice?”

“It is,” he said, steel coating his words now. “In fact, it is a choice at its most unbiased.”

My anger rose again, dark and deep. Did he really think I was like him? That I’d blindly obey “orders” without question or care about how it affected those I loved? “Then I choose to take my chances living instead of dying,” I said, rising from the table. “That means this is goodbye.”

He said nothing for so long, I thought he was waiting for me to leave. I started to, then I felt his hand on my arm. When I looked down at him, I expected to see anger, condemnation or his usual Archon smugness in his gaze. Instead, I saw pity, disappointment and an utter lack of surprise.