Rapture's Edge

“No, Ana, I’m not going to let you do this!”

“This isn’t your decision!”

“You should know it will be much worse now that you’re paying for him, too,” interrupted the Queen, still smiling that strange smile, paired now with a withering stare. “It will take much longer.”

It was that smile that finally did it. It hardened something inside her.

In a voice that was cold and iron heavy, Eliana said, “Do. Your. Worst.”

It came from some place inside her that she didn’t know existed, a place devoid of fear or doubt, and the Queen knew the truth of it, as did D, who let out an outraged, deafening roar.

The Queen’s head snapped around. She said to him, “Just remember what she offered to do for you, Warrior. And remember it was before she knew.”

The Queen reached out and seized his hand.

And Eliana watched in horror as the proud, fierce warrior was consumed.

His eyes popped wide, unseeing. His mouth fell open. His jaw went slack. A tremor passed through his chest. Then, with slow, supple grace, he sank to his knees on the floor in front of the Queen and bowed his head.

The Queen closed her eyes and made a low, humming sound low in her throat. She inhaled, long and deep, and when she exhaled it was as if a weight had been lifted from her.

“Winston Churchill once said, ‘A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets a chance to get its pants on.’ And you’ve proven him right, Warrior.” She looked down on D at her feet, bare-chested, dressed in another man’s pants, and laughed softly. “Literally.”

“Jenna?” Leander stepped forward.

She turned, glanced briefly at her husband, then finally let her gaze rest on Eliana, and spoke directly to her. “You were right. Truth is an absolute. Even with a minority of one. Or, in this case, two.”

So dry, her mouth, so loud, her heartbeat. And so, so wild, this thrum and chaos in her blood, like a windstorm descending. She tried to swallow and couldn’t. She tried to move and couldn’t. It was as if someone outside of her was controlling her entire body, some powerful force had ripped away her will and left her frozen. Breathless. Thunderstruck.

“Jenna.” Leander’s voice was firmer.

She looked back at Leander and smiled, a true smile, one that lit her whole face to radiance. “She’s innocent. And so is he. Neither of them are a danger to us.”

The tension in the room relaxed as if a held breath had been expelled. One by one, the panthers who’d retreated Shifted to Vapor and hung there in the silence of the great hall in small, glittering clouds.

“Eliana,” the Queen said, still holding D’s hand. “I apologize. That was a test, one I hope you can forgive me for. I’m not going to harm him, or you. Come here.”

Quaking, that wild hum still singing in her blood, Eliana found the will to move. She climbed slowly to her feet and crossed to the Queen, staring all the while at Demetrius, who was still on his knees, immobile, transfixed.

The Queen held out her other hand. Smiling, she murmured, “Are you ready for Truth with a capital T?”

Again, Eliana’s mouth would not work. Her lips would not form words.

“Don’t be afraid. There’s just something you need to see, if you’ll let me in.” Her gentle smile grew blinding. “Butterfly.”

And so Eliana took her outstretched hand and finally, finally understood.

41 As Good As Dead

Truth, like honor and courage and love, does not come in shades of gray. You either have it or you don’t— there is no in between.

Sometimes it takes a lifetime to uncover it, and sometimes it is clear and simple as a sunrise. Also like honor and courage and love, sometimes the truth can be lost, and you have to find your way back to it, crawling over fields of broken glass and dead bodies, your knees and hands bloody and raw, until you get to it and it’s even sweeter than before because of what you suffered on the way.

Eliana was filled with that grateful sweetness now, filled so full her heart could burst. She had seen and felt everything D had seen and felt in the past three years—in forever—and now she understood. She understood everything.

And she loved him all the more for it.

“You couldn’t tell me—you couldn’t tell me it was Constantine,” she whispered, voice breaking over every other word. The Queen still held both their hands, providing a connection that allowed her to see inside D’s mind, and him to see inside hers. “He was protecting you from my father…and you were protecting me from him, too. All those years, you watched over me, making sure nothing happened to me. Making sure I was always all right. And then, at the end…”

A scene like a painted picture in her mind: a circular, stone room, two men fighting, a naked woman chained to the wall. Her father plunging a knife into the other man’s back, the man falling to his knees, the woman screaming. D in one doorway and Lix and Constantine in another, watching in horror. Her father throwing another knife at D; its blade sunk deep into his chest.

Constantine, loyal and protective of his brother, broken down from years of abuse from her father, pointing a gun at him and pulling the trigger.

Her father falling slowly to the ground.

Then the Bellatorum helping a wounded D to his feet, Constantine handing him the gun so he could carry him, Eliana skidding to a stop just outside the door.

“He found out—about us—about you and I,” D said hoarsely, trembling as badly as she was, his face fraught with the weight of so many memories, so much pain and loss. “He would have killed me, he would have killed us all if Constantine—”

“I know,” she sobbed, on her knees beside him. “I know.”

She tore her hand from Jenna’s and threw her arms around D’s neck.

“But you didn’t when you said you’d die for me,” he whispered, his voice harsh. “You didn’t know and still you…you…”

“Because I love you, idiot.” She choked it out. Tears ran down her face and dripped off her chin, her entire body shaking. “It took thinking I’d lose you all over again to realize you’re all the best parts of me. I’m never as good as when I’m with you, and if I can’t be with you then I’m as good as dead anyway.”

Then his arms came around her, and they knelt there like that together in silence, rocking gently, until his lips found hers and he kissed her with all the hunger and possession and tenderness and love he’d always felt for her, all of it between them, bright and burning and so sweet it hurt.

I love you, God how I love you, how I’ll always love you, until the day I die.

Someone cleared his throat.

“Pardon me,” Leander said, freezingly polite, “but perhaps you’d like to…ahem…freshen up after your long journey. And then we can all talk more later.”

D broke away, breathing hard, and nodded. But Eliana could only stare back at her beloved warrior, unwilling to let her eyes stray from his face, even for a second. He rose to his feet and gently pulled her along with him, wrapped his arm tight around her shoulders and tucked her under his arm, and still she stared up at him, rapt.

“My colony,” D began, but the Queen interrupted him.

“They’re safe from us, Demetrius. But unfortunately, I can’t guarantee they’ll stay that way. The Expurgari know about the existence of all the confederate colonies except the one in Brazil. Which is why most of Sommerley