Skye
It’s raining in Maatua. Pouring, actually. Rain pelts the familiar metal roof while I stand on the porch, my fingers curled around the handle but frozen in time. I can already feel the vacuum-like sensation of doom hanging heavy in the air when I take a deep breath and pull. The humidity dries out, turning the air warm–but it’s just as heavy–as the door closes on a phantom wind behind me.
Voices speak in muffled tones in the kitchen just down the hallway in front of me. A tea kettle whines against soft voices I recognize without seeing the faces they belong to. My mom. My aunt Brie. Aviva and Cole. Lexa and Nora. Other cousins and family friends.
I look up at the ceiling, where the wide, open living room bleeds into a lofted hallway, and the upstairs bedrooms are cast in rainy shadows pouring from the skylights.
One door is open.
“Sweetheart.”
I look straight ahead and find my mom in the kitchen archway. She bunches a rag in her hands before walking out of sight and returning again, looking worn and thin, dark circles ringing her large, deep blue eyes.
I remain frozen in the front hallway, my heart pounding in a slow, heavy rhythm against my ribcage as she says, “Your dad’s upstairs.”
She has no reason to explain what’s happening. I can feel it in the air. A shift in the timeline. A fraying lifeline in the tapestry. An end.
I silently, robotically, turn to the stairs and climb.
Six people linger in the shadows, painting my great-grandfather Isaac and great-grandmother Maddy’s bedroom in shades of black and rich blue. Misty sits at her bedside, leaning forward at the waist as she holds her mother’s hand tight, whispering words I doubt I’m meant to hear. Ella smooths Maddy’s hair away from her face, tucking the long, pearly white locks behind her ears.
Maddy remains as still as death–because that’s what this is.
Maddy was… incredibly beautiful when she was young. The thick, dark wine-red hair she passed down through the generations is still strong. Both of my brothers have it. I have it, even if mine is much darker than Maddy’s ever was. She’s beautiful still, her head resting on a silken pillow, her eyes open to glassy slits, and her chest rising in slow, shallow breaths.
“Do you remember,” Ella whispers, a tear gliding down her cheek, “when we first met? You’d never seen a washing machine before. Hannah and I thought–we thought that was the funniest thing.” She shakes her head, tears flying. “I still think of us as that young. I’m so surprised every time I look in the mirror.”
Movement in the far corner of the room catches my attention. Uncle Ryan and my Grandfather Sydney are standing by the windows in silence, watching Ella fawn over their mother. Watching their sister stroke their mother’s limp hand.
But it’s my great-grandfather Isaac who’s sucking the light out of the room. He’s sitting in a chair in the corner, his eyes open but withdrawn as he stares at the bed where his mate is dying.
It hits me at once. I turn back to Maddy, my chest so tight I can’t relax my lungs enough to take a breath, and reach for the clasp of my bracelet.
But then I catch my dad’s eyes.
“Don’t,” he says into my mind, his voice level, calm. “She’s not hurting anymore.”
“We can stop this. You can–”
“It’s her time. This is what she wanted, Skye.”
I tear away from his gaze and look back down at Maddy. Oh, there’re so many pictures of our family that she’s taken over the years. She was the kind of mother who kept every piece of art, every little note that her kids made. There’re dozens of albums scattered throughout the castle in Crescent Falls and here, in Maatua, of our side of the family throughout the decades. So many memories. Four generations of memories… because she kept them. She was the heart of the family. A normal shifter. No power to speak of. The friend. The lover. The mate. The Luna.
The one who baked cookies every single day when her grandchildren and great-grandchildren came to visit. The one who wrote letters and always answered a call on the first ring.
I notice the faint glow of Misty’s powers under Maddy’s skin, but I already know she’s not trying to heal her. She’s keeping her comfortable. That’s all.
I had no idea Maddy was sick.
I scrub my hands against my cheeks, finding them wet with tears.
“Hannah is going to meet you there,” Ella says, her voice cracking so painfully Ryatt takes a tentative step away from the wall toward his mate, but he stills when she continues, “Cosette, too. And Artyom and Cassian. My parents… Goddess.” She grips Maddy’s hand, sniffling. “It’ll be a party. Ryatt and I… we’ll take care of things here for you. We’ll take care of Isaac. I promise, Maddy. You can go whenever you’re ready.” Ella turns her head so no one can see the pained grimace shattering her beautiful, ethereal face.
Ryatt closes his hand over her shoulder, bowing his head as she silently sobs.
But I’m looking at my great-grandfather, and he’s looking at me.
“Skye,” Dad says into my mind in warning, but my bracelet slips off my wrist, and I curl it into my fist. Yet, the voices constantly dancing through my head remain quiet–nothing more than a gentle hum, even as the room begins to fade, and the tapestry opens wide for me.
I’ve never looked into the lifelines of my family members. It was a promise I made to myself when I was old enough to understand that my powers weren’t gifts at all. They’re a burden I carry. Knowledge damning enough to turn me inside out. I make an exception today that I swear I’ll never make again.
Isaac’s lifeline is so long. He has to know, doesn’t he? That he’ll live on without his mate for another decade, at least? He’s like Ryatt, Ella, and all the other powerful, magical people in this family. He was blessed with a long life but cursed to live it without her.
I shake my head as my tears trickle like a leaky faucet. It’s unfair. He thinks it’s unfair. I try not to read his mind, to see inside, to look at the sensitive memories he’s slipping through like a book, but his mate is dying, and he’s showing me. Begging me to look. To understand.
“Skye, get out of his head,” Dad warns, but I can’t help it. I want to see. I want to know what it felt like for him during that first war when he was ready to fall on his sword to ensure she was safe and had a future, even if he wasn’t in it with her. I want to know what it felt like when he readied for battle that next time, when he kissed her goodbye and told her he wasn’t coming home without their daughter–the daughter now squeezing her hand and silently crying, her tears wetting the mattress beside her mother’s arm.
I want to know what it felt like to be in love… and to have someone love you so much they’d let you go.
I want to know what he wants me to do now.
“Skye!” Dad hisses out loud, but Grandpa Isaac turns his gaze away from mine to look at Maddy. He doesn’t rise. He’s already said his goodbyes. He’s been saying them for two months, when they returned from Kieran’s wedding and Maddy finally admitted how tired she was. I listen to the promises she made him keep while my heart cracks and threatens to shatter.
We’ve built such a beautiful life. I regret nothing. It’s my time. I can feel it. Can’t you?
That was the problem. He couldn’t feel it. His age barely has an effect on his body. But he was watching his mate, his wife, the mother of his three children, slip through his fingers, a constant reminder of how different he is, and how fragile she’d become over the years.
He was born with breath in his lungs because of the Diamond of Faith. He would have died–should have died–but the Goddess intervened.
And She won’t intervene now.
But I can.
He knows that.
He wants that.
“Isla?”
I blink back tears and look at Maddy. Her voice rings through the room. She’s staring at the ceiling, her white hair falling over her shoulders like a halo of pearly satin. Her lips part again, and the last sound she makes is a deep, relaxed breath, tinged with Isaac’s name. I’ll wait for you. I’ll be here when you’re ready to rest. Her inner thoughts dissolve in my mind, floating away against a blanket of stars only I can see.
I press my fist against my chest to keep my heart from shattering as the room bursts into a strange kind of silent chaos. Misty sucks back a wail of dismay and shudders so violently that the bed shakes. Ryan and my grandfather Sydney close in around the bed while Ryatt wraps an arm around Ella’s chest and pulls her close while she sobs.
I’ve never seen her cry before.
I choke on the sob that erupts from my throat without warning. The voices in my head grow so loud I can’t drown them out. Dad is standing on the other side of the room, torn between going to the bed where his grandmother just took her last breath and stopping me.
I look at Isaac through a torrent of tears. He’s still in that chair, still looking at his mate, but his eyes are dry and set in grim determination when he turns his head to look at me.
“Do it,” he says so softly I could have easily missed it, losing those two words–his last–to the aether.
It’s like plucking an apple off a tree. Like throwing a pebble into a body of water and losing sight of it. A flick of the finger. Yanking a thread from a sweater. It’s easy. So easy.
And I do it. I pluck my blood’s thread from the tapestry.
It's silent and painless. A secret he wants me to keep.
And then he’s just… gone.
Isaac’s eyes remain open and locked on mine as the light fades from him. He stills, his body finally relaxing, like he’s just fallen asleep.
Somewhere, in a place I haven’t been able to find regardless of my powers or my research, I imagine he’s taking Maddy’s hand and guiding her home. He’s seeing his parents again and reuniting with friends, and he’s with her. He tried to promise he’d go with her, but he knew he couldn’t, not without help.
“Dad?” Misty wipes her tears on the back of her hand and looks at the chair in the corner. “Dad? D-Dad, are you okay? Dad!”
I shake my head, trying to focus on the sudden shift–the bodies, the blur of movement and sound as shocked, raised voices cut through my dimming powers and the room comes back into focus.
I gasp out a breath, a jolt of cold spreading up my spine, and look from the bed to Isaac, where Ryan is shaking his shoulder and calling out for him, his expression falling with every second his father doesn’t answer.
But then I look at Ryatt, who’s still holding Ella. His violet eyes hold mine with an intensity that slices me into pieces… but he knows.
And he’s… thankful.
Dad grabs my shoulder and yanks me out of the room. The hallway is a mess of bodies. Mom shouts his name, but he barrels through the sea of concerned family members who are running up the stairs and into the room to see why Misty was yelling.
My fault. My fault. I didn’t think. I let my powers act. I didn’t–I don’t regret it. He wanted it.
I did it. I did it.
Dad closes us into a bathroom. It’s a snug fit. My back hits the pedestal sink with a crunch, and he’s still holding my arm, digging into the pocket of the jacket I never had a chance to take off. “Where’s the bracelet? You need to put it back on.”
The charms cut into my fists when I squeeze with all my strength. “No.”
We lock eyes. His swirl with magic that I feel in my veins. Magic he gave me. Magic we were both cursed with. “Skye, what have you done?”
“What you couldn’t do even though you knew he wanted you to do it,” I gut out, my eyes watering so violently his image blurs. “He asked you, didn’t he? And you–said–no.”
He takes a shattered breath, his grip loosening. “You shouldn’t have.”
He lets me go, and I pull inward, letting my powers explode, letting them drag me back to where I need to be, even if I can’t voice it. The bracelet slips from my fingers, disappearing into the void, forever lost.
I gasp in pain and heartbreak when the world funnels back into view. The air is familiar–dry and synthetically warm. It’s dark, like always. The stars are bright and flickering beyond the ceiling-height windows….
Of Alex’s condo.
He’s standing a few feet away, dressed for bed, his eyes wide. He drops the glass of water he was holding, and it shatters on the ground between us.
I take several hard breaths, my lungs refusing to function, and choke, “I didn’t know vampires needed to drink water.”
His lips part, his brow furrows, and I see the look of concern that flashes behind his eyes as he reaches for me….
I shatter, falling to my knees, and sob.