Unbroken

center of the earth, focused its power through the lens of his own soul, and threw it on her like a burning blanket.

It simply slid away and left her untouched. She didn’t so much as falter in her steady progress toward him.

Well? said a calm, quiet voice, echoing through the aetheric. Are you just going to let him die for nothing? Or are you going to do what Ashan asked of you in the beginning?

Venna? I whispered. I felt the echo through the world, here and not here. Her presence spread everywhere… but it was tainted, twisted, not entirely as it should have been. It was turning fragile and thin with every pulse of power.

I can’t stay with you long, she responded. I’m too damaged, but until there is a new conduit I will have to serve; Ashan chose me, even though I didn’t want the responsibility. He knew what must be done, long ago. You must finish it, now, before it’s too late. The Mother’s heart is opened. She is listening. She is vulnerable. It’s up to you to protect her now.

I felt the aetheric… stop. The entire world, all of its levels and planes and complicated, clockwork parts, stopped. All the Djinn, all the Wardens, all the humans. Animals. Plants. Insects.

Everything living stopped, caught in a moment of utter, shining awareness as the Mother opened her eyes and looked on it with full, conscious intent. It was beautiful, and terrifying. Angels would hide their faces under that merciless, merciful gaze; humans went silent and still. I was aware that even Pearl, with her merciless progress toward my family, had halted, just for a moment.

I could see the Mother’s consciousness flowing into the brilliant vessel of her Earth Oracle, not so far away from where my old physical body lay broken. She was distilling herself into one form, so that she could hear and speak to the representative of the human race. To Lewis Orwell.

While in that form, she was as vulnerable as she would ever be.

Pearl’s shining, slick form appeared now on the aetheric, and was echoed on all the levels above and below. She was ripping through reality, heading for the Mother, and when she reached her…

… She would kill her.

Now, Venna whispered. It must be now. I can’t… She, too, was losing power. The Djinn were failing, as the aetheric ripped apart in a disrupted chaos around Pearl; she was damaging the link between the Mother and her children, obscuring the flow of power.

They would die soon. So would I—I was now Djinn, one of them, and I could feel my own connection to the lifeblood of the planet beginning to choke off, dry up. A Djinn couldn’t last for long without it. Humans could last longer, but they’d go mad, and they wouldn’t even understand why they were ripping each other to pieces. Storms would rage, before an unnatural silence fell. Everything, everything, would fail.

Ashan had known it would come to this, and he’d known that I could make the choice. By teaching me about them, about humans, by making me become one, he’d connected me in ways that I’d never have been able to know in my original, uncorrupted form.

The seeds of humanity remained within me, even now. I’d never be rid of them… and I didn’t want to be rid of them. Luis was within me, and Isabel. Manny and Angela. The brave Wardens dying; the courage of humans who had no reason to risk themselves for others.

Infinite beauty and tragedy. Humanity was flawed, and angry, and cruel; it was beautiful, and creative, and kind. It had spread over every corner of the world, and where it tread, things were never the same. The aetheric was scarred by them, and yet it was also made richer and deeper by what they felt, loved, made.

No other species had ever done these things, created these things.

And they were worth saving. All of it, worth saving.

You have to do it. Venna’s last, faint whisper, a prayer from the soul of the dying Djinn as Pearl used the cutting, burning power of the human race, all their fear and hatred, lensed through the children she’d made so diamond-hard, to strike at the beating, living heart of the world.

And she was right. Ashan was right. I had been wrong, always.

I was Djinn. I was ancient, and ruthless, and powerful, and even now, with the world darkening around me, with the aetheric beginning to shatter and crumble into dust, I had one great and singular talent. I could kill better than any other being who had ever existed, throughout creation.

And now, I had to use that skill. Pearl’s power came from humanity, from the souls of all of those packed into this busy world—six billion and more, each holding a spark, a connection, that when connected was a source of astonishing power. Only Pearl had ever tapped into it.

And now that source had to be cut off.

I gathered them up. Every human life, every boy or girl drawing their first, fragile breath, every old man and woman drawing their last. Every heart, every soul, no matter how good, no matter how evil.

Every Warden, as well.

I could hold them all in my hands, all the billions of precious, fragile lives. All the stories and histories and potentials.

And I could end them.

I felt Pearl turn her startled attention toward me as I rose on bright, burning wings, with all of humanity held in my hands.

You can’t, she said, her words written in crystal on the aetheric as it began to burn. You love them too much now.

I did love them; I honestly did. Ashan had given me that gift, though whether he’d meant it as a gift or a curse was a mystery. He’d wanted me to learn something; I had, but I wasn’t sure if it was the same lesson he’d meant.

But what I learned gave me the strength, the compassion, to do what had to be done.

I killed them.

Every heart, stopped.

Every breath, taken.

Every scrap of life, drawn into my own aetheric form, saved and protected.

No Djinn was made for this, not even me; I was a killer, not a protector, but I couldn’t let the tiny sparks of their souls go out. Their bodies fell.… Luis, collapsing on the floor, entirely gone. Isabel. Esmeralda. Beyond, a roomful of Wardens snuffed out on a single breath. Cities full of bodies falling. Countries. Continents.

Not one single human breathed on earth, for the space of a full minute.

And Pearl’s power supply failed.

She didn’t realize what had happened for a wild second; she cast about for energy, failed to find it, and was immediately forced to break off her attack; the energy she’d siphoned from those doomed children had been meant to fuel a war, not her own life, but she no longer had a choice. Every second that passed ripped more away from her, because without that connection through humanity, she had nothing.

She was nothing.

The Mother was safe now, and the aetheric began to stabilize, though vast pieces of it had been burnt black; it would take years, maybe centuries, to heal the damage that had been done in only moments.

Pearl hung on, grimly, pouring power into her own existence, but it was like pouring water into a hurricane. She couldn’t hold.

I watched as pieces of her ripped away, flying into the Void she’d created; she was no longer a glossy, freshly born goddess, but a crippled and blackened thing that fought to back away from the blackest, most starless void.

She ripped at the aetheric, trying to find something, anything to hold herself in life, but there was nothing for her now, no human to clutch and drain.

Death came for her in a silent rush, but she was not quite finished yet; Pearl sensed my presence hovering near her on the aetheric, and she turned on me, howling her defiance.

Grappling with me, on the edge of the Void.

We fell together toward the end of all things, and I felt her last, hot burst of triumph. I made you