With My Last Breath (Page 39)

"Die?" I breathed. "I must die?"

The chieftain nodded calmly. "You know that you cannot truly die but by Zeus’

sword. But your mortal body here must die in order to unlock the trapped souls. You yourself will become displaced, just as we are now. Just as Cadmus is now," he added.

"And you must trust us to bring you to victory, because your victory here will give you back your life. Your immortal life."

"That is quite a lot of trust," I observed, trying to still my racing heart. "And I do not know if I possess that much. I have an unborn child to think of now. And I know that if I die here, my soul will be in flux and I will forever be in eternal sleep, until the time when someone saves me."

"You will save yourself," he told me quietly. "Your unborn child is a part of you.

When you are saved, so shall it be. Trust your instincts, Harmonia. You are the one."

"I wish that everyone would stop saying that," I replied angrily. "I am nothing but the child of gods. I am…"

"You are meant to take charge of your own destiny," he interrupted firmly. "So do it. Stand up and grab it with both of your hands. This is the only way."

"Don’t!" Lucan cried from the edge of the circle, attempting to push through to get to me. "Heleyne, do not do it. There is no way to ensure that we will win. And if we do not, you will never be saved. Your soul will be lost."

But as I looked at him, at the way he was protective of me even now when he didn’t know who I was to him, I knew that as long as he was dead to me, I was dead already.

It sealed my decision.

"Yes," I murmured numbly. "I will do it."

I looked around the circle. "Who will do it?" I asked. "Who will kill me?"

Lucan was already shaking his head adamantly, intent on preventing it. Hecate stood beside him, her mouth pressed firmly shut, turning white at the corners. Her eyes were startled and she shook her head.

"Hecate, what is it?"

She shook her head slowly again, backing away from me. "I’m sorry, Harmonia. I didn’t see it… I didn’t know…"

But she knew now. Something that was troubling her so much that her eyes were full of pain and her hands were shaking. My body turned cold from fear and I took a step toward her.

"What?" I cried anxiously. "What is it that you didn’t know?"

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"It has to be her," she whispered. "She must be the one to do it or it will not work.

She…"

I was panicked as I tried to make sense of what she was saying. Fear turned me immobile, however, and felt as though I couldn’t move.

"Who is she?" I asked hesitantly. "My mother?" It would kill my mother if she had to be the one. I wasn’t sure that she could do it, which would mean that everyone would perish.

But Hecate shook her head quickly once more, her face a picture of dread.

"No," she answered limply. "It must be your daughter."

"My daughter?" I asked in confusion. "That makes no sense, witch. I don’t have a daughter."

And then the vision that I had just seen came back to me, the small hand plunging the sword into my chest and Raquel’s frightened eyes meeting my own as she wept.

I froze, unable to catch a breath as my lungs spasmed uncontrollably and I gasped, trying to draw in air. I felt like a fish out of water as I choked to breathe. And then, just as always when I was overwhelmed, my legs gave out and I tumbled to the ground. I lay there for a moment as Lucan and Hecate rushed to my side. I concentrated on breathing, on trying to absorb what I had just been told.

Visions of Raquel in the Spiritlands and in the courtyard here, assailed me. Her little heart-shaped face and her innocent eyes, her dirty smudged cheeks.

"I don’t understand," I whispered. "How can this be? How did I not know?" My hand moved to cup my stomach, where a baby even now grew.

"She is your daughter," Hecate assured me. "It has been hidden from you. I only just now saw it myself. The magic of this place revealed it to me. The Fates kept it carefully concealed." She gestured at the stones around us. "There is powerful magic here."

"But how?…" My hand dropped limply to the ground and I felt weak. "What of the child I am carrying now?" Hecate nodded sadly.

"The child you are carrying now is Raquel," she answered simply. "For the Fates’

own amusement, they allowed you to become pregnant here in Camelot. When the baby was born, they took it. They allowed her to stay in the palace on Olympus until she grew into a little girl, and then they sent her to Calypso’s island, where as you know, time stills. She has remained a child ever since."

"I’m actually pregnant here?" I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. "I thought… my mother thought… that I brought the pregnancy with me."

"No," Hecate shook her head. "No. You were pregnant here. You gave birth to the baby before you died in this life and then the Fates took your child while you continued your other cycles as a Keeper."

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I shook my head, unable to believe it. "I’ve had a child all these years and didn’t know…"

"To make matters worse," she continued, "The Fates have taunted you with it and you never even knew. They kept her as a child so that they could allow you to come into contact with her in almost every life in some way, only you never knew who she was. It pleased them."

I felt sick. I had missed my daughter’s childhood. And while that sickened me to no end, my current predicament came rushing back.

"My daughter must kill me?" my words were like ice, each one frozen on my lips.

Hecate nodded, unable to meet my gaze.

"I cannot do that," I murmured. "To make a child do that… it’s just…"

The chieftain stepped forward, his ghostly face glowing beneath the gray clouds.

"You must," he insisted. "It is deplorable, yes. But how many times in history has someone great been forced to do the unthinkable? Many, many times… all for the greater good. You are the chosen one. You must do what others would not do. That is why you were chosen. Do this," he implored. "Do this and allow us to save you. And in doing so, you will save everyone, including your husband and daughter. Don’t do it, and everyone will perish."