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Deet felt as if she was caught up in a sand storm that wouldn't stop. It was noisy and cold and images, horrific images surrounded her. She felt barely in control of her own body.
She tried to hold onto the last time she saw Rian, standing, bewildered in the woods, but it was too heartbreaking. She'd tried to tell him, nothing would ever be the same again. She would never be the Gelfling he had met when these woods were still green again.
Faintly, she could hear his footsteps behind her. His voice calling her name. He was in denial, didn't understand how dangerous The Darkening was.
It took every last bit of control she had to stop and turn.
"Go away."
*
"Never."
Rian's ears were ringing. It was a white-hot rage -- not at Deet, but at the powers that had taken her.
He had seen something in her darkened eyes before, a small something that he could recognize as Deet.
Now it was gone.
"Let her go," he said, in a voice that sounded more like his father's than his own.
He had no idea if the Darkening could hear him, but it was clear that pleading with Deet was only pulling her farther from him.
She turned and walked away again.
The helplessness he felt was overwhelming. A sword was no use. Words were no use.
His jaw clenched. The ground beneath him began to sway. He looked at his hand. It was glowing blue, like the moss that grew in the very heart of Thra. Glowing pebbles bounced around his feet.
"Let her go!" he called out again.
When her form didn't stop, he marched toward her with determination.
"You can't have her."
She turned and hissed at him, her face contorted.
There was no fear. He grabbed her by the shoulders and looked directly into her hollowed eyes.
"Give. Her. Back."
In a moment, he was engulfed with thick, acrid smoke, seeping into every part of his body. His sight whirled, leaving him with visions of fire and blood, of collapsing caves and the Crystal of Truth hovering before a girl lying in a pool of blood. He saw the suns align through searing, palpable pain. In the distance he could hear the sharp wails of an infant.
Then everything went dark.
*
Deet opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was was the glow, seeping out from the veined cracks in the ground.
She coughed up some dark smoke and made a face. Then, through the thick haze, she saw him.
"Rian?"
No response.
She rushed over to him in a panic.
"Rian, what did you do?"
She could tell as soon as she touched him that he was gone. She rolled him over into her lap.
"Oh," she whispered, tears falling. "You can't be. Why did you do that?"
She let out a sob. "Please wake up."
Her body started to tremble as she cradled him against her chest. Her cries made the trees pitch and the ground shake.
She felt as though they were spinning, and she had to hold on to him to keep from being thrown. She heard voices -- familiar ones, though she couldn't place them. There was a glow so bright she had to look away.
"Trust in Thra," a voice said.
"Maudra Argot?"
"Thra needs you to heal itself. It needs him."
She looked down at Rian. "But --"
When she looked up, she saw Mother Aughra, her third eye bright, but dimming.
"Oh, Mother Aughra," Deet pleaded, "can you save him?"
"No," Aughra said curtly. Then, after a pause. "Don't need to. See?"
Deet looked down to see his eyelids flutter.
At first, she was afraid to believe he was alive.
When his eyes opened, she was struck by how full of life they were.
He sat up and touched her face.
"Deet," he said, his voice cracked with emotion. "I thought I had lost you."
She blinked back tears. "I thought I had lost you."
Without hesitation, she leaned in and kissed him the way she'd wanted to so many times before. He returned it deeply.
Aughra nodded to herself as she turned and walked away. Thra had won, this time. The Darkening -- she sniffed the air -- would grow weaker without a host. Maybe, just maybe, the prophecy would be fulfilled.