Fractured Soul

Epilogue: Until We Meet Again

Everything was in a hazy blur. The prince wasn't sure if he was awake or dreaming. He definitely wasn't dead. Death shouldn't hurt that much.

He saw light, and half-remembered faces. Voices tried to pull him up, but they made no sense. He didn't care. If they couldn't stop the pain, they should let him die.

Because he couldn't live with himself knowing that Mella, a fragment, no, a person that had defied all odds, was very possibly dead.

The prince didn't know how long he was like that. He was aware, however, that the pain was finally leaving. The world slowly came into focus. There were leaves above him. Only Koa was like that.

Wesley still wasn't very with it. The pain had been replaced by numbness. Life continued around him, but he did nothing to add to it. He was little more than the puppet Rin had made him to be until Mella had set him free. He was still trying to take in everything that had happened.

Against everything he had been told, Drake had followed them on foot with Ferrous and Hal. But by the time they had reached them, Wesley's magic had already been taken. The trio had gotten the two of them back to Koa. Hal found the spells to save Wesley from death, but no one knew how to help Mella. They wouldn't take him to see her, making him fear the worst. There was a hole punched in his chest, straight through to his heart, the absence of Mella.

One night Wesley had had enough. He needed to see her. He stumbled and staggered to where he had heard the others going every day. He pushed the vines out of the way and sat in the nearest chair before he fell.

Ice lit the bed Mella was lying in. She looked dead, but her slightly moving chest told otherwise. She was alive. Barely. Raitiena had made good on her promise.

"Mella…why?" Wesley whispered, hugging his arms. Mella didn't move.

"Wesley, you should be in bed." Gareth had found him. "There's nothing any of us can do for her."

"That can't be it!" Wesley shouted, tears beginning to run down his face. "Surely there is something you can do! Koa has some of the best healers in Rhydona! You have to do something, anything!" Wesley was grasping at straws. This couldn't be all that Mella would ever be. The girl, always looking in awe and wonder at the world, couldn't be trapped in a bed, never to blink her violet eyes or smile again.

This couldn't be happening. Not after everything the two of them had worked to set out on. They had barely begun, and they had come crashing to a halt.

"We will do something." A new voice said from behind them. Wesley and Gareth turned.

A new woman was standing before them, her face hidden by a cloak. She was looking at the bed where Mella was lying. "I was too late…" she whispered. She looked up at the two of them. "This is her? Part of the next elementalist?"

Gareth nodded. "I'm sorry, but who are you?"

The woman pulled back her hood. Wesley already knew who she was. He had met her before, in Elt, from the very beginning. Grey eyes studied them, her silver hair just past her shoulders. For all of her silver and grey, she wasn't old. She was young, but tired. Like she had seen too much for anyone.

"My name is Bri Tivena. The elementalist. I know how to save her. And you, Wesley Roxas, you're going to help me."

~~~~End Book 1~~~~