“You’re okay,” I whispered into her neck.
“Of course I’m okay,” she answered, scratching the back of my head lovingly. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
I pulled my head back to look into her eyes, and my brow furrowed. “Don’t you remember what happened?”
She shrugged. “Mostly, I think. We found the monsters out in the woods and had a battle. It wasn’t an easy fight, but we won. Marin even killed one, in the end. That’s the last thing I remember.” She looked around the shadowy room, lit by faint predawn light. “Based on the fact that I’m back at my parents’ house in my nightgown, I assume I passed out from overexertion.”
She doesn’t remember. I lay beside her in bed, completely stunned by the implication of the idea. No memories of the darkness, or the voice, or...death. My mouth moved without sound as I struggled to figure out what to say. We could move on like nothing ever happened. She wouldn’t have to carry that burden. I took a deep breath, then shook my head. “No. That’s not what happened.” No more lies.
“What do you mean?” She sat up and pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her chin between them. “What happened?”
I slid back and crossed my legs, sitting opposite her on the bed. “After the battle was over, the darkness came. The same darkness that took me through the void. Because our minds were so closely linked from the fight, you felt it too. The pain was...too much for you.” I fought back a shudder as I heard her agonized shrieks echo in my head. “That’s probably why you don’t remember.” Her eyes widened, but she gave me a small nod to continue.
“There was a voice in the darkness. I don’t know who or what it is, but I know it’s the reason I’m here, and why I’m...the way I am. It opened up this sort of portal, or crack, I guess. The world just sort of broke, like glass, and, uhm…” I trailed off, frustrated with my complete lack of understanding of the situation. “It broke open a crack to the void. Where I go, between worlds. And when the crack opened, another one of those monsters came out.”
Lia gasped. “So...they’re coming from that void, then?”
I shook my head. “Maybe. I can’t say for sure they’re all coming from there, but I know this one did.”
“Did you kill it? The monster?” She jolted upright as a wave of panic crossed her face. “Is Marin okay? Did it—”
“Marin is fine,” I assured her. “The monster climbed out from the void and...well, it, uhm, stabbed you. Through the heart.”
She raised an eyebrow. “If it stabbed me through the heart, wouldn’t I be dead?” The long moment of silence in response seemed to give her the information she needed, and the amusement drained from her face. She raised a hand to her chest and ran her fingers across the fabric. They froze in the spot where I knew the scar sat, currently obscured by her nightgown. “Lux?” she asked, her voice barely audible in the silent room. “Did I die?”
I reached out and took her hand in both of mine, pulling it away from the black scar. “Yes,” I nodded, “you did. Lia, I’m so sorry. It was entirely my fault. If I hadn’t—”
“If I died,” she blurted, interrupting my apology, “how am I alive now?”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure I understand it myself,” I answered. “When you died, all of your mana started to change into this...darkness. It was like the mana itself was dying, and turning into a new kind of energy. I saw it happening, and thought that maybe, if I stopped the darkness from spreading to your core, you might survive somehow.” I tipped my head towards her chest. “It worked, but I couldn’t heal the scar it left behind. I tried everything, but it wouldn’t go away. I’m sorry.”
She bit her lip. “I don’t understand. How did you stop...whatever it was that happened to me? To my mana?”
I clenched my jaw down on the side of my tongue as I fought against the overwhelming urge to lie. “There was this voice from the void. I’ve heard it in my head before: that night in the Attetsian plaza, when we broke through the Mountain gate, even in my dreams. It told me that I could control the energy that came from your death. That my entire purpose in this world was to take that energy and…” I trailed off. “I don’t know. It just wanted more death.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked quietly, squeezing my hand. “You’ve been hearing this voice for that long, and you didn’t tell me about it? Why?”
I shook my head and looked away, ashamed. I can’t say it.
“Lux, please,” Lia begged, tugging on my hand. “Please talk to me.”
When I raised my head again, I found a dozen copies of her floating before my eyes, blurry and refracted through fresh tears. “I knew that if you found out what I really was, you’d leave me.”
She shook her head. “I would never leave—”
“You would, if you knew!” I interrupted. “Marin saw what I am, after you died. She saw the darkness, and now she can’t even stand to be in the same room as me.” Finally voicing one of the thoughts that had haunted me the most since meeting Lia was enough to break the last of my composure. “Just because you don’t remember doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I killed you!”
“You saved me,” she answered, pulling me towards her. I fell into her chest and soaked the collar of her nightgown with tears as she rubbed the back of my neck.
“Lia, no, it was my fault,” I cried. “I can’t control it. If you stay with me, it could happen again, and I don’t know...I don’t know if I could bring you back again.”
“It’s not your fault,” she
