The Last Thing He Kept

Jarett Cadeya let go of his daughter’s hand. For 17 years afterward, he remembered exactly how her fingers had felt when they slipped through his. Small. Cold. Trusting. And then gone. The priests of Vaelora insisted there had been no other choice. They said the same thing about everything.

               By the time Jarett returned to the capital, children had begun growing flowers from their mouths. The first appeared along the southern road. A little boy sat beneath an overturned wagon while his mother screamed for help. White petals protruded between his lips. Thin roots had crawled through his gums and wrapped themselves around his teeth. His eyes were open, but when Jarett knelt beside him, the boy did not seem afraid.

               That was worse.

               “Does it hurt?” Jarett asked.

               The child shook his head. A petal fluttered loose. “Mother says the Saint chose me.”

               Jarett looked toward the woman. She was sobbing. “No saint did this.”

               The boy smiled. A green stem pushed slowly from one nostril. Jarett stood. He wore no pointed hat, no jeweled crown, no embroidered robe announcing what he was. His coat was black wool reinforced with leather at the shoulders, worn nearly gray by travel. A sword hung at his hip, though anyone who recognized him knew the weapon was ornamental. Jarett Cadeya had never needed steel.

               His beard had grown thick during his years beyond the mountains, black streaked heavily with iron now, hanging several inches beneath his jaw. There had been a time when palace attendants trimmed it neatly each morning. There had been a time when people called him Lord Magister. Now they called him other things. The Ash Heretic. The Grave Scholar. The Man Who Would Not Die.

               The mother seized his sleeve. “Can you help him?”

               Jarett stared at the child. He could feel the magic inside him. Not around him. Inside. Something threaded through the boy’s bones like vines climbing a trellis. Ancient magic. Divine magic. Hungry magic. Jarett had encountered it once before. Seventeen years ago. He closed his eyes. “No,” he said. The woman made a sound like an animal caught beneath a wheel. Jarett continued toward Vaelora. Behind him, the boy began to sing.

               The capital had once been called the White City. Now it was red. Red banners hung from towers. Red-robed priests stood at the intersections, ringing silver bells as citizens passed beneath strings of dried flowers. At the center of the city stood the Cathedral of the Radiant Mother. Behind it floated the moon. Except it was noon. Jarett stopped. The moon hung impossibly large in the blue sky, pale and translucent, with a dark fissure running vertically across its face. A crack. “Well,” he murmured. “That seems undesirable.”

               “You always did have a gift for understatement.”

               He recognized the voice. Jarett turned. Commander Elian Voss stood behind him wearing the white armor of the royal guard. He was older, naturally. Thinner. The arrogant golden-haired swordsman Jarett remembered had become a gray-haired man with a scar crossing one eye.

               “Elian.”

               “Jarett.”

               Neither embraced. Seventeen years was too long for embraces. Elian studied him. “Your beard is ridiculous.”

               “I have been living among corpses and witches.”

               “So?”

               “They rarely criticize grooming.”

               Elian almost smiled. Almost. Then his attention shifted to the moon. “You know what that is?”

               “I have suspicions.”

               “The priests call it the Opening.”

               “Of course they do.”

               “They say the Radiant Mother is returning.”

               “The Radiant Mother does not exist.”

               “You told the king that once.”

               “Yes.”

               “He executed your wife.”

               Jarett looked at him. Elian immediately regretted the sentence. “And my daughter,” Jarett said.

               The commander lowered his eyes. “Yes.” Jarett walked on. After several moments, Elian followed.

               Seventeen years earlier, Princess Amara had contracted the Glass Fever. It began with a shimmer beneath the skin. Then transparency. Within days, muscle became visible beneath flesh. Within weeks, bones shone through like ivory beneath frozen water. No physician could cure it. No alchemist could slow it. The king ordered Jarett, then Royal Magister, to save her. Jarett failed. So, he did what desperate men do when respectable knowledge disappoints them.

               He looked beneath it.

               Deep in the forbidden archives he found references to something called the Heart Below Heaven. Not a god. Something older. A consciousness existing beneath the structure of magic itself. Every spell cast in Vaelora drew infinitesimal power from it. Every resurrection. Every enchanted blade. Civilization had spent thousands of years drinking from an ocean without wondering whether the ocean could feel the straw.

               Jarett found a ritual that could heal the princess. It required exchanging one life for another. The king agreed immediately. He merely objected when Jarett refused to choose the sacrifice. The priests volunteered someone instead. Jarett’s daughter, Mara. Seven years old. They told him a child possessed greater spiritual purity. They told him the kingdom needed the princess. They told him Mara’s death would save thousands.

               Jarett told them he would burn the cathedral to its foundations. The king had his wife executed for treason before sunrise. Then soldiers dragged Mara toward the altar. Jarett fought. He killed 11 or 12 men. He never remembered. He remembered Mara’s hand. He remembered gripping it while soldiers pulled him backward. He remembered her screaming, “Papa.” He remembered his fingers slipping. The ritual succeeded. Princess Amara opened her eyes. Mara Cadeya became ash. That night, Jarett killed every priest involved. Then he disappeared.

               “Elian,” Jarett said as they entered the palace gardens, “where is Amara?” The commander stopped walking. Jarett looked back. “Oh, no.”

               “She is queen now.”

               “I assumed as much.”

               “She is also the Saint.” Jarett said nothing. “The miracles began three months ago,” Elian continued. “The sick recovered. Crops grew overnight. Men who had lost limbs grew new ones.”

               “And then?”

               “The dead began returning.”

               Jarett’s expression changed. Not much. Enough. “How many?”

               “At first? Three.”

               “Now?”

               “No one knows.” They passed a fountain filled with black water. Something moved beneath its surface. Elian continued. “They come back differently. Some remember their families. But they stand outside at night and stare at the moon. Last month the flowers started.”

               “The children?”

               “Mostly.”

               “Why?”

               “We do not know.”

               “I do.” Elian looked at him. “The ritual 17 years ago did not exchange Mara’s life for Amara’s.”

               “You said it did.”

               “I was wrong.”

               That admission seemed to trouble Elian more than anything else Jarett had said. “What happened?”

               Jarett looked at the cracked moon. “We opened a door.”

               Queen Amara received him in the Hall of Saints. She had not aged. That was Jarett’s first observation. She was 36 years old but looked 19, exactly as she had the morning Mara died. Long silver hair fell across a white gown. Her throne had been removed. Instead, a tree grew from the marble. Its roots had shattered the stones. Human faces protruded from the trunk. Some whispered. Some slept. One was weeping. “Jarett,” Amara said.

               “Your Majesty.”

               She smiled. “Still sarcastic.”

               “Still alive.”

               Her smile vanished. “I prayed you would come.”

               “You prayed to the thing doing this?”

               “To the Radiant Mother.”

               “There is no Radiant Mother.”

               “You always were arrogant.”

               “And you always mistook confidence for evidence.”

               Elian shifted uneasily behind him. Amara approached. “You have seen the miracles.”

               “I saw a child being eaten by a garden.”

               “He feels no pain.”

               “That considerably improves the situation.”

               “You mock what you do not understand.”

               “No, Amara. I mock things I understand extremely well.”

               The faces within the tree began whispering faster. Jarett heard one word repeated.

               Mage.

               Mage.

               Mage.

               Amara stopped several feet from him. “You were right 17 years ago.”

               That caught him. “About what?”

               “The Heart Below Heaven.” Jarett’s hand tightened at his side. Amara touched her chest. “It spoke to me from the moment I awakened.”

               “And you listened.”

               “For 17 years.”

               “Why?”

               “Because it knew Mara.” The room became silent. Even the tree stopped whispering. Jarett stared at her. Amara’s eyes filled with tears. “She is still there.”

               “No.”

               “I have spoken to her.”

               “No.”

               “She remembers you.”

               “Stop.”

               “She remembers the wooden horse you carved for her sixth birthday. She remembers sleeping between you and Elena during thunderstorms. She remembers the song you sang badly because you could never remember the second verse.” Darkness spread beneath Jarett’s boots. Elian stepped backward. Amara did not move. “She remembers your hand.”

               The windows shattered. Every candle extinguished. The faces in the tree screamed. Jarett’s magic filled the hall like pressure before lightning. “Do not,” he whispered, “use my daughter to manipulate me.”

               Amara raised one trembling hand. “I can prove it.”

               Beneath the cathedral lay an older cathedral. Beneath that lay something older still. Jarett descended with Amara and Elian through chambers constructed before recorded history. Statues became stranger the deeper they went. Human saints gave way to winged figures, then many-limbed creatures, then smooth stone pillars carved with circles representing eyes.

               At the bottom stood a door. There was no wall around it. Only a door. Black wood. Brass handle. Child-sized handprint burned into its center. Jarett stopped. He knew the hand. “No.”

               Amara whispered, “Open it.”

               “No.”

               “She is waiting.”

               “Elian.”

               The commander drew his sword. Amara looked shocked. Elian positioned himself between her and Jarett.

               “I brought him here to stop this.”

               “You traitor.”

               “Yes.”

               Amara raised her hand. Elian exploded. There was no flash. No spell. One moment he existed. The next his armor collapsed empty onto the floor. Jarett stared at it. Amara began crying. “I did not mean…”

               “You killed him.”

               “I was frightened.”

               “You killed him.”

               “I can bring him back.”

               That frightened Jarett more.

               Amara reached toward the armor. “Do not.”

               Something moved inside the breastplate. A wet hand emerged. Jarett blasted the armor with black fire. The thing inside shrieked. Amara screamed at him. Jarett continued burning it until nothing remained but molten steel. Then silence returned.

               “He could have lived,” she whispered.

               “No,” Jarett said. “Something could have worn him.”

               He turned toward the door. The handprint glowed. Papa. His knees nearly buckled. The voice had not come through his ears.

               Papa?

               He had imagined her voice every day for 17 years. Memory changes voices. Softens them. Distorts them. But this…

               This was Mara.

               Jarett stepped forward. Amara smiled through her tears. “I told you.”

               Papa, I’m scared.

               His hand touched the brass handle. The world disappeared.

               Jarett stood beneath a black sky filled with thousands of moons. Below them stretched an ocean without water. Instead, bodies rolled in endless waves. Millions. Perhaps billions. Every person healed by magic. Every person resurrected. Every life unnaturally extended. Fragments of souls accumulated across centuries. And beneath them…

               Something dreamed.

               Jarett saw no body large enough to contain it. He saw an eye beneath continents. A mouth beneath centuries. A creature for which human civilization was not food, exactly. More like mold growing upon forgotten bread. Yet something else stood before him. A little girl. Seven years old. Brown hair. Yellow dress. Jarett could not breathe. “Mara.”

               She ran to him. He fell to his knees and caught her. For 17 years Jarett Cadeya had imagined this moment. He thought he would scream. Weep. Beg forgiveness. Instead, he pressed his face against his daughter’s hair and smelled lavender soap. Exactly right. “Papa.”

               “I have you.”

               “You came.”

               “I have you.”

               Her arms tightened around his neck. He felt her heartbeat. Then Jarett opened his eyes. No. Not heartbeat. Something slower. Deeper. The pulse shook the world beneath them. Jarett pulled back. Mara smiled. “What is wrong?”

               He touched her cheek. Warm. Perfect. Too perfect. “What did we call the mouse?”

               Her smile remained. “What mouse?”

               “The mouse that lived behind the pantry. Your mother wanted me to kill it. You cried until I promised I would not.”

               Mara stared at him.

               “You remember the horse,” Jarett said. “The thunderstorms. My song. What did we call the mouse?”

               “Papa…”

               “What was its name?”

               Her face changed. Only slightly. Then her mouth opened too far.

               “We know everything she knew.” Jarett closed his eyes. That hurt more than losing her the first time. When he opened them, Mara was still there. Crying now. “Parts of me are real.” Jarett froze. “We know everything she knew,” Mara repeated. “Because she is inside us.”

               “We?”

               The ocean moved. Millions of faces turned toward him. “We are tired.”

               Jarett understood. The Heart Below Heaven was not invading Vaelora. It was dying. Human magic had fed pieces of humanity into it for millennia. Memories. Pain. Souls. Every miracle left residue. It had awakened beneath the weight. And it wanted the process to end. “The flowers,” Jarett whispered.

               “Roots.”

               “Into what?”

               “Everything.” The moons above cracked simultaneously. “We are making the world one thing.” Jarett stared at his daughter. “No death.” “No separation.” “No pain.” “No individuals.”

               Mara tilted her head. “Those are the same problem.”

               A horrifying logic. Precisely the kind gods preferred. “Amara thinks you are saving us.”

               “Amara wants everyone returned.”

               “Returned from where?”

               The child smiled sadly.

               “There is nowhere else.”

               Jarett awoke before the door. Amara held his shoulders. “You saw her.”

               “Yes.”

               “You understand now.”

               “Yes.”

               “Then help me.” The cathedral shook. Dust fell from the ancient ceiling. Above them, bells began ringing. Hundreds. Thousands. The Opening had begun. Amara laughed. “She is coming.”

               “No,” Jarett said. “It is.”

               He struck Amara with enough force to crack stone. She flew backward. Jarett raised both hands. Darkness poured through the chamber. Amara rose slowly. “You cannot kill me.”

               “I know.”

               “I have died 38 times.”

               That explained much. Jarett grimaced. “Excessive.”

               She screamed and unleashed white fire. Jarett caught it. The flesh burned from his palms. He spoke a word older than kingdoms. The shadows obeyed. They wrapped around Amara’s arms, throat, legs. She tore through them. Jarett spoke another word. Blood ran from his eyes. The floor split. Amara fell to one knee. “You cannot stop God!”

               Jarett walked toward her through the flames. “Every tyrant eventually promotes himself.”

               She struck him. Bones snapped. He fell. She climbed onto him and wrapped both hands around his throat. “You would destroy Mara again!”

               Jarett stopped fighting. Amara stared down. He smiled. “No.”

               Dark symbols appeared across his skin. “I am destroying magic.”

               For the first time, Amara looked afraid. Jarett had spent 17 years searching for revenge. Instead, he had discovered something better. A way to sever the world from the Heart Below Heaven. No magic. No healing spells. No resurrection. No mages. The severance required one final spell. And because magic demanded balance, destroying the source of magic required consuming every living person through whom enough of its power had passed.

               Every archmage.

               Every magically sustained creature.

               Amara.

               And Jarett.

               Possibly tens of thousands more. The alternative was every human being becoming part of the thing beneath the world. Jarett had once condemned a king for sacrificing one child to save a kingdom. Now arithmetic had come for him. Amara understood. “How many will you kill?”

               “I do not know.”

               “Then you are exactly like my father.”

               Jarett hesitated. That was the cruelty of truth. It rarely bothered choosing sides. “Yes,” he said. Then he completed the spell.

               Across Vaelora, miracles ended. The dead collapsed first. Flowers withered inside children’s mouths, roots retreating from bone. Dragons fell from the sky. Ancient kings sustained by enchanted blood finally became dust. Priests screamed as divine light abandoned their hands. Swords lost their voices. Floating cities fell. Cursed forests became merely forests. And beneath the world, something enormous opened its eye. Jarett heard it scream. Not in anger. In relief.

               Amara disappeared in his arms. For an instant she became 19 again. Frightened. Human. “Was she really there?” she whispered.

               “Yes.”

               “Will she be gone?”

               Jarett knew what she meant. When the Heart died, the fragments inside it would die too. Mara. His wife. Everyone. “Yes.”

               Amara nodded. Then she was ash. Jarett collapsed beside the door. His own body had begun disappearing. First his fingertips. Then his hands. The black beard he had worn for so many years turned completely white. He laughed when he noticed. Mara would have teased him mercilessly. The door opened. She stood on the other side. Not entirely. Perhaps not even mostly. But enough.

               “Papa.”

               Jarett could no longer stand. She sat beside him. The world trembled as magic died. “I’m sorry,” he said.

               “You came back.”

               “Too late.”

               “You came back.” His chest began turning transparent. He could see darkness where his heart should have been. Mara reached for him. Her little hand rested inside his fading one. Jarett looked at their fingers. Seventeen years ago, armed men had dragged them apart while he screamed and begged and promised his daughter that he would not let go. He had spent every day since believing that moment defined him. His failure. His cowardice. His reason for surviving. The universe had somehow offered him the impossible cruelty of experiencing it again. “Will it hurt?” Mara asked.

               “No.”

               He did not know if that was true. Parents lied about certain things because love sometimes required it. “Where do we go?”

               “I do not know.”

               “Are you scared?”

               “Terribly.”

               She smiled. “So am I.”

               The darkness beneath the world began folding inward. Mara’s fingers started slipping through his. Jarett tightened his grip. For one desperate moment the old instinct returned. Hold on. At any cost. Destroy kingdoms. Murder gods. Break death itself. Never lose her again. Then he finally understood what the thing beneath the world never could. Separation was not the flaw. Loss was not the flaw. Death was not even the flaw. They were the price of having ever belonged to anyone.

               Jarett kissed his daughter’s forehead. “I love you.”

               “I love you too, Papa.”

               The last magic in the world began to die. This time, when Mara’s hand slipped from his, Jarett Cadeya let her go.