It's been a long time coming, but we're back for the final chapter. I know I'm notoriously bad at keeping up with posting chapters. It's been seven months now, hasn't it! But as promised, this one's from Maven's perspective. All rights to Victoria Aveyard, naturally.
MAVEN
"They couldn't make me leave if they tried," Cal murmurs.
The pain is fading now. It was so sharp before. The tear of a dull blade through my skin. The cut through my heart because I knew whose hand had done it.
But it's all fading now. I don't remember much. I don't feel much at all. Just the rise and fall of Cal's chest as we breathe together in the darkness.
He holds me like he used to, through the nights when we were children and Mother would tear through my mind like a wildfire. My memories, my weaknesses, laid bare to her as I slept. I would wake screaming, the pain in my head still searingly unfamiliar then.
It must have been unfamiliar once.
Before Mother could realize I had awakened, I would steal down the corridor to Cal's room, my bare feet padding on the carpet. I slipped in the door and crawled into his bed beside him. Beside him, I was safe. I was protected. She couldn't get me here.
He said he knew it was me from the chill in my skin when I curled close to him.
I am growing cold now too. I cling to Cal's warmth as I feel my own fade. His fire was always stronger than mine. His flame will live on after mine is blown out.
As it should.
When we were children, he beat me in every fight. I would grumble when he received all of the praise, but on the walk back to our chambers, he would murmer tricks and tactics in my ear, teaching me everything. Speed. Precision. Strength. Power. He was a mentor, an ideal. A protector.
I returned from the Choke at sixteen, but my heart never left. It remained by an unnamed grave, my tears still pouring to put out the flames of the tragedy I had created. No one had words for what I had done.
No, that's not true.
They had words, horrible words. I had killed hundreds of Red soldiers with my unruly flames. Hundreds of bodies who shed their blood before they could even reach the Lakelanders.
And what for?
My feelings for a Red. My love for a boy. They couldn't decide which was worse. Father refused to speak to me, but his anger and humiliation cast a shadow that trapped me in darkness. Shadow of a flame. Mother pried inside my mind whenever I dropped defenses. Picking, tugging, trying to find the rotten fruit that had poisoned her precious child.
Find it and burn it.
But Cal protected me. From the moment I knocked on his door, my uniform singed and damp with red blood, he didn't hate me. He didn't blame me. Perhaps he couldn't understand what I had done, but he tried. He tried to keep Mother away, to let me mourn in peace. But his defenses kepts her away from me, not me away from her. The pain became too great and I ran to her. On my knees, I begged her to take away the loss and the emptiness.
She just made more.
I wanted her to help me forget. To help me forget him. But she made me forget it all.
At last I am remembering.
I feel my life fading, my body falling asleep. What happens now? In a time long past, we learned that there had once been gods in the sky, great beings who placed us in the world. Once we died, we returned to them. But then the gods came down from the sky. I am one of those gods. Was one of those gods.
Now I'm just molten metal spilling on the floor.
Time is running out. I feel it, or better, I don't feel anything. Cal knows it too. He holds me tighter, smoothing my hair tenderly. I look up at him, mustering up the strength to speak.
"Cal, I love you," I whisper in a rush, my chest shuddering for breath. "I want you to know that. Forgive me. Please, forgive me."
My fingers reach for Cal's, squeezing with my remaining strength. He looks down at me, his fiery eyes sparkling as everything fades away into darkness.
"Forgiven."
The End! Let me know what you think! I'm honestly unsure what I'll post next. I might bring some of my old Harry Potter fics out from the cupboard under the stairs, or maybe a School for Good and Evil fic. If you have any preference, let me know! Thank you for reading!
