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that she was not being deceived.
So she believed he loved her. But how could he?
And how could she live with herself? She d wanted to live with him, grow old
with him, and in the end die with him. But that wasn t the way it would work.
Sadly she closed her eyes and pictured him, filled with her love for him and
her anguish at the future she saw spreading out before her. She would live now
until she chose to die until she found the courage and the strength to remove
the necklace and walk away from it for good. In the meantime, she would watch
Seolar grow old and die while time left her untouched and after him, she
would, perhaps, find some other beautiful young man, and perhaps after him
another. The echoes of the lost Vodian, whispering to her in the silent room,
mourned not their own lost youth, for they had never lost it, but the lives of
every creature they had ever dared to care about.
She could go through their biographies to find out the details of their lives,
but she now knew the key piece to the puzzle, and knowing it, she could see
already the most important fact in each of their lives. Each of them had held
in her hand the chance to be immortal, and had eventually
chosen chosen oblivion. That truth terrified Molly. For her there would be
nothing after death. She was real; she felt, she yearned, she hoped, she
loved but her soul was gone, and when she died she would simply blink out like
a snuffed candle. And all around her would go on to the afterlife. To
infinity, to wherever souls went, to do whatever they did.
Molly had never felt so alone or so adrift.
Or so angry at Seolar for hiding the truth from her; at herself for being
stupid and not getting Jake to safety in time; at Lauren for having put her
into a position where she had to make two decisions she didn t want to
make first, to leave Oria when she wanted to stay, and second, to save Jake
when she knew she would die if she did. She was angry at the world and her
life and the soul that she no longer had and the dark gods who hung in the air
above, waiting for something& something& that would permit them to destroy
her and at the knowledge she was more like them than either the sister or the
man she loved.
She put her hand on the necklace. She could save herself a lot of time, a lot
of pain and heartache. She could take the necklace off, walk out onto the
balcony, and call the rrôn down to her. They would end it quickly she d suffer
one more death, probably faster than the last one, and no new awakening. If
her life was a nightmare waiting to get worse, then death would be freedom,
wouldn t it? Or at least surcease from horror.
Page 47
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Pity she sat in a room with no windows, no balconies, no outside access. She
could have been outside and the deed done before anyone could stop her before
she had a chance for second thoughts.
But.
The easy path was almost always the wrong one. Lauren needed her. So did the
veyâr.
Molly had not chosen the duties placed on her shoulders, but if she did not
carry the burden, no one else would. No one else could. Without her, her world
would likely end quickly and horribly.
She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs.
With her chin on her knees, she began rocking back and forth. Live and suffer
and fight, or die forever?
Back and forth. Back and forth. She was a coward. She could see what was
coming, and she didn t want it. She wanted quick and clean and done once. She
wanted life and love and Seolar. She wanted to fight beside her sister. She
wanted to run away. She wanted everything and nothing. Finally, she wanted a
solution, an escape, a happy ending, and that was the only thing she knew she
could never have.
Molly closed her eyes tightly, and rocked and wept, and waited for morning.
Cat Creek
Pete got himself out of bed well before dawn, and was just driving into
Charlotte as the sun rose behind him. No problem in looking eager to Eric that
could only work in his favor. And getting into the city early allowed Pete to
figure out how he was going to set up a meeting something that was going to be
damned difficult to do.
He couldn t use the usual protocols scrambled lines, secure phones, code
phrases. He was breaking new ground this time, and he had to admit it had him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]