Excerpt: Another Place to Fall

I was so angry I was shaking. How could he do this to me! I had the chance, I could save him, I could offer myself up, be strong, make the sacrifice I was longing to make. I could deserve him at last, even if I died in the attempt but he wasn’t going to let me have it. He was going to leave without me and leave me alone, wondering every day of my life, if I could have conviced him, if I could have been there in time, I might, just might have been able to save his life. I would live and breath it every day, longing for the chance that would never come again. I would be alone. But not for long. There was nothing the others could do to stop me when he left. I would follow him, I would not be left to breath and have being when he was gone beyond my reach.
His face twitched up at the corner’s a little and his mouth moved, clumsily, like a child sounding out their first words.
“I…I Love you.”
His eyes twinkled for a moment and love washed over me. Here he was dying and he was still loving me. After all that had happened, after I had gotten us into this mess because of my pigheadness after we were so close to a having a life without the threat of Ravana.
Ronan opened his mouth to say something, his shield wavering with the effort, this time I was ready.
My hand shot through the shield the edges burning my skin. It hurt, more than anything else I had felt in my life but I didn’t stop. My palm was already glowing when it touched his skin. There was blood everywhere, seeping though his shirt and onto the floor in a massive puddle that was growing by the second. I forced my mind to focus on my hand though and ignore the rest. It was hard through the shield, the counteractive draw made it hard to focus my energy, it blocked some of the flow of my Bless, but not enough to stop it completely.
My hand started to glow, growing brighter and brighter by the second.
Roan moaned softly but I ignored him, ingnored everything and concentrated on the flow of power, on everything I had learned, everything I had been taught.
It was hard to harness the joy when it came, rising like a laughing tide, as destructive as it was healing. It took all of my will power to focus it to a small point and direct it. It felt something like wrestling a whale through a pin hole. I had never done anything so intricate or ilaberate before in my life and the consquences of messing up where too painful to bear. It made it difficult to slow my breathing and my thoughts.
Think Helena, concentrate! The only way we’d both survive this was if I let it all go, let the past and the furute melt away and concentrate only on my hand on Ronan’s chest.
I could feel the power now, growing and spilling from my palm I let it go, let it flow into him even as it weakened me.
I held my breath, coiled to move when he would resuscitate, to retreat behind his sheild. It would soon be my only source of protection in the minutes to come.
He was still for a long moment, weather from fear, or from pain I couldn’t be sure. I knew what was coming next and I prepared my mind for it. I had heard about it’s power and strenght when it gained control. The wild rearing thing he would become. I was scared, but not for myself. Doubt creeped into my mind. What if I messed this up? What if I was hurting him now, and he couldn’t tell me? But no, I would be able to tell if that were the case. I would be able to feel the change in my Bless, feel it darken and change. And so, I waited.
Ronan had told me of it, but nothing, nothing could have prepared me for the reality.
All at once Ronan’s eyes shot open. His hand resting lightly on his chest moved faster than I could think and he grabbed my arm wrenching it painfully. Instead of throwing me aside as I had expected, he drew me in, until I was pressed up against his body, my hand still held to his side.
His eyes were no longer the grey green that I had come to love, they were changed now, dark and sinister, almost entirely black, all sign of human understanding gone. Now he was no better than a monster.
No, I musen’t think that way! I told myself. Ronan was in there somewhere, and he loved me, and I was not going to let him go for anything.
I stared up into it…his eyes. “Ronan! I know you can hear me. Ronan I know you’re in there! You are strong enough! You can fight him! You can change your future. You have a choice…!”
A small cry escaped my lips as the thing that had once been Ronan twisted my arm harder. There was no blood now, just the sticky remnants of a passed flow. He was healing, and quickly. I should have been grateful, but it was hard to see past the moster. Ronan’s face was contorted with greed and hate, totally unrecongnizble and yet hauntingly familiar. I had seen that face before. It was Ravana’s face. The face I had learned to fear and hate, it was the face of power gone wild, fear beyond control. It was the face of death.
I felt suddenly tired, so tired I could hardly stand, but I managed somehow, pouring my strength into this thing, no, into Ronan. He was still there. I could see him in the shape of the moster’s jaw, the subtle cowlick on one side, the feel of his body close to mine. He was in there, he would rise out, he would save me, and we would get out of this alive. That was all I could hope for, all I could dream about, and it was enough for me.
My arm began to feel numb the pain reduced to a dull throb. It was almost a relife. Almost.
I didn’t get much time to enjoy it though because a new pain arose, the pain I had been waiting for and dreading. It was the pain of all of my strength, all of my will being sucked out of me.
By the time I felt it it was too late to reverse the flow. One moment I was pouring energy into Ronan’s battered body, the next it was being sucked out of me, stolen from every inch of my body, drainging my strength my very essence, who I was. Everything.
It was the single most painful experience anyone could have. Worse even then death’s cold embrace. Every muscle, nerve and cell in my body screamed, lit with an icy fire that sucked the life out of it. It was so powerful that I could hardly breath, my very heart slowed as my very life’s energy was syphoned from it’s chambers.
“Ronan…” It was a struggle to speak, but somehow I managed it. The thing that had been Ronan wrapped both it’s arms around me tripling the effect of the drain. I screamed.
To an outsider it would look like no more than a passionate embrace, but there were no outsiders. There was no one to hear me scream. I was alone, and I was dying.
I summoned up all of my remaining strength to speak the words that I hoped would bring Ronan back to me. The words that had sparked the first real hope in my heart. The words that bound us together more strongly than any words I had ever spoken to anyone. The were my benidiction, my plea. Even as I felt the light dim, I was glad, glad that he was here with me, somewhere, at the end, glad that these would be the last words to pass my lips.
“Ronan…I Love you!”
I smiled, as I said it. Filled it with all the love that was in my heart. I had done it. I had saved him, and he would live on to free the world that his older self had destroyed. He could start anew, make a life for himself, and maybe, just maybe, he would think of me.
I let the smile fill my face as I gazed at him for the last time. Even with all the pain, staring into those dark eyes, all I could feel was love, all encompassing, passionate love. I had been prepared to die for that love and providence had given me the chance.
“I…Love…yo…”