All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [260]
“I don’t care.” He grasped her hand tighter. “Just stay with me.”
“No . . . ,” she mouthed. “No soul deserves a third chance. I’d just mess it up. I always have.”
“But I need that chance with you,” Eliot protested. “Us together, we can be stronger than all the others.”
“No. Let me do this one thing for you. Let me go to my oblivion.”
“I can’t.”
But even as Eliot held on tighter, her hand went limp. Her green eyes stared upward and reverted to their mortal blue as the animation faded from them . . . and she was dead.
Eliot shook her hand gently. “I’d do anything,” he told her. “Please?” His vision blurred with tears. “Jezebel? Julie?”
He felt nothing . . . except the desire to lie next to her and die—so he wouldn’t have to feel the pain he knew was coming . . . pain, heavy and cold, already filling the hollow spaces inside him . . . pain that would consume him.
How had this happened? They’d come so far—lost Amanda—risked everything to save Jezebel . . . and now she was gone?
Eliot refused to accept it.
But was she gone? What happened to the damned in Hell? They didn’t die.
He blinked away the tears that threatened to spill down his face. There had to be a way to make her whole. Like jigsaw puzzle pieces jumbled in his mind—he knew there was an answer, he just had to look hard enough to find it. He couldn’t give up.
The pain in his chest lightened. Hope. There was always hope, wasn’t there?
He’d had seen Sealiah’s soldiers blasted to bits, still moving. And those pieces tried to gather themselves back together. Why couldn’t Jezebel come back?
Eliot reluctantly extracted his hand from hers, and with the greatest care folded it upon her chest.
Robert covered Jezebel with a knight’s cloak. It was red with roses embroidered about the edges.
The others gathered about him. Fiona looked like she wanted to hug Eliot again—and as comforting as that might have been, Eliot needed answers more than anything else.
“What happens to the damned and Infernals when they get hurt?” he demanded of Sealiah.
Sealiah glanced at Jezebel with no expression, as if she looked at a piece of trash that needed sweeping up, beneath her consideration.
Eliot kept his anger in check, though, and asked, “They heal, don’t they? No matter how bad their injuries?”
“Of course the damned come back,” she told him. “Their torment must be eternal. But Jezebel is neither one of the damned dead nor a true Infernal. She is an elevated creature, born of my power, and as there is so little land and power left to me, her existence has been . . . snuffed.”
Eliot took a step closer to the Poppy Queen. “There has to be a way.”
Sealiah smiled at the challenge in his tone.
His blood burned and he struggled to keep his anger from rising. He took a deep breath, held it, and slowly exhaled.
He realized Sealiah hadn’t answered his question about what happened to dead Infernals—but he had to keep his focus on Jezebel. She was the only thing that mattered.
“She’s gone,” Eliot whispered to her, “but there is a way to get her back, isn’t there?”
Sealiah’s smile vanished. “As I said, she is tied to my power and lands. Help me recover them.”
Eliot pursed his lips. “I’ve already agreed to help you fight.”
“You must do more than that, Eliot. You must fight and win. Do that and only then can I restore her.”
He nodded. As if he had any choice now.
Sealiah moved off and shouted orders for her knights to gather weapons, ready artillery, and prepare for battle.
Eliot looked at Fiona. He needed his sister more than ever.
Fiona still looked uncertain. He didn’t blame her. This was all part of a complicated Infernal plot—and they both knew it. For his part, however, it was a plot he’d walked into with open eyes to save Jezebel. For him there was no turning back.
He glanced at his father, who looked like he had something to say, but remained silent. He’d probably tell Eliot that there is no difference from someone in love and someone damned in Hell—eternal torment for both. Maybe he’d be right.
Fiona