She was free. Just as Wellsie was.
Fucking hell! Tohr was going to lose another female -
"No!" Lassiter screamed. "Noooooo!"
As he broke out of the lineup and lunged forward, trying to stop the connection between the two of them from being made, people started shouting, and someone grabbed onto him, as if to keep him from getting in the way. But it didn't matter.
It was too late.
Because the pair of them didn't have to touch. The love was there, and so was the forgiveness of deeds past and present, as well as the commitment in their hearts.
Lassiter was still lunging forward, in midair, when the final beam of light claimed him, catching him in flight, plucking him out of the present and pulling him upward, even as he still screamed at the cruelty of fate.
His entire purpose had culminated in condemning Tohr to another round of tragedy.
Chapter Seventy-Three
For truth, Autumn had not been sure she would come unto the mansion. . . until she did. And she had not been sure how she would feel about Tohrment. . . until she saw him searching the crowd and knew he was looking for her. And she did not completely open her heart to him. . . until he reached out for her, his control breaking the moment he locked eyes with her.
She had loved him before now - or had thought she did.
But she had not been all the way there. The critical part that had been missing was a sense of herself not as somebody who was unworthy and had to be punished, but as an individual with value and a life to live beyond the tragedy that had defined her for so long.
As she stepped forward, it was not as a servant or a maid, but as a female of worth. . . one who was going to go to her male, and embrace him, and be joined with him for as long the Scribe Virgin deemed.
Except she didn't make it.
She was not even halfway across the foyer when her body was struck by some kind of force.
She could not comprehend what o'ertook her: One moment she was striding toward Tohr, answering his silent plea that she come to him, crossing over the floor, zeroing in on the one she loved. . . .
And the next, a great light fell upon her from some unknown source, halting her in her tracks.
Her will commanded her body to continue to Tohr, but a greater force laid claim to her, and take her it did: With a pull that was as undeniable as gravity, she was drawn up from the earth, into the light. And as she was lifted upward, she heard Lassiter screaming, and saw him surge forward as if he wanted to stop her departure -
That was what energized her to flail against the current. Struggling fiercely, she fought with all she had, but there was no freeing herself from what had captured her: No matter how she battled, she could not alter her ascension.
Down below, chaos reigned, people racing forward as Tohr dragged himself up off the floor. As he regarded her, his face was a mask of confusion and disbelief - and then he began to leap up as if he were trying to catch her, as if she were a balloon, the string of which he sought to palm. Someone grabbed him as he lost his balance - John. And the Primale rushed to his side. And his Brothers. . .
Her last image was not of any of them, not even of Tohrment, but of Lassiter.
The angel was beside her, rising as well, the light consuming them both until he disappeared and so did she, until she was nothing at all, not even conscious. . . .
When Autumn came to once again, she was in a vast white landscape, one so wide and so long that it had no horizons.
Before her was a door. A white door with a white knob and a glow around its jambs as if there was a bright light awaiting her on the other side.
This had not been what had greeted her when she'd first died.
Back years and years ago, when her consciousness had returned to her after she had inflicted that dagger upon her own stomach, she had found herself in a different white landscape, one that had trees and temples and rolling lawns, one that was populated by the Scribe Virgin's Chosen females, one that she had gone on to live in without question, accepting her fate as not one of her choosing, but the inevitable result of her choices down below.
This, however, was not the Sanctuary. This was the entrance unto the Fade.
What had happened?
Why had she -
The explanation came to her in a rush as she realized that she had finally let the past go and opened her heart to embrace all that life had to offer. . . thus freeing herself from her own In Between - even as she had been unaware she had been within it.