She always loves you.
Don’t hurt her more than necessary when it happens. Let her at least enjoy it for the short time it lasts.
Just don’t forget how hard she can love you, because if you let her, she’ll die in your place all over again, and all the wasted time you could have had with her after being freed will have been for absolutely nothing.
I don’t have to tell you that you’d simply rather die. Make sure she’s not left with that same void by being a man she can’t love so hard.
There will be two versions of truth unfolding all around you, but you’ll be the only one to know what really has to happen. You’ll be the only one who knows the true hopelessness of it all.
If there were another way, you’d have learned it by now. Don’t waste time looking for other options. There aren’t any. You’ve exhausted that avenue of research thoroughly.
She unknowingly spent centuries saving you. You only have to save her for a little while.
The story you’ve manufactured about your bond with your brother—that you’ll die in his place so that he’s forced to live to keep your death from being in vain…the story you created that was never really about him. The story he thinks is true and will likely share…
It’s a story for her to understand later.
Like everything else, it was always about her. She’ll live so that your death isn’t pointless. She’ll live because of you. That’s all that’s ever mattered to you.
Your death will have purpose. The only purpose worth dying for.
You’ll be death itself, designed to eliminate any threat to her while you breathe free air.
You’ll be the monstrous creature they never should have forged, because they underestimated just how far you’d go for her.
You’re no longer the man you’ve known. You’re no longer the man she’s loved in a thousand future lives that have never truly happened. You’re no longer the man it would crush her to lose.
You’re Slade.
Slade’s the monster.
She’s the princess.
Reading this when you feel weak makes you start to remember why you needed to forget.
You wisely removed these memories to remove the variable of hope.
Hope is dangerous for a man like you, because you always end up watching her die when you start to hope. This is you breaking the cycle, and changing a future that has never ended any other way.
This is you finally saving her the one time it matters.
Now remember your plan. Stick to the plan. Only the plan.
Because this is all for her.
The rest of the pages are filled with formulas and random names, battle times, things we’ve already done that seem to have been added more recently. I’m not sure how I know it’s been recently added, but it’s as though I can sense it.
Kimber is silent at my side, as tear after hot, scalding tear rolls down my cheeks. I lower the book, putting it face down on the bed with it still open, and just stare out the window.
“Was there a formula in there for the way he shows people the memories in his head? Like he did with Kya and Gavin?” I ask, my voice quiet.
“I think so,” she says, sounding a little confused. “But even if you managed to channel his memories, you’d only see what he’s allowed himself to see for no telling how long. Ella, this is something he started long before Calypso even existed, if some of those little numbers in the corners are dates. It’s a huge—”
“I don’t want to see the memories he’s carrying around,” I tell her, clearing my throat, lightly tapping the journal’s hard cover. “I want to see the memories you said were infused with these pages.”
“I’m not even sure if you can do that unless you manage to tap into your own dormant visionary powers, assuming they even exist, and—”
“Not me. You’re going to show them to me, because you’re the smartest person I know, and I need to see this,” I tell her, my eyes meeting hers. “I can’t understand unless I’ve seen what he’s seen.”