THE LAST MAN STANDING
Los Angeles, California — May 1983
They had barely made it through the emergency bay doors before the controlled chaos began. A full trauma team was already waiting, scrub caps, masks, gloved hands, and Jace was rolled away from them with frightening speed, the wheels of the gurney squealing on polished tile as they turned the first corner toward surgery.
Connor reached after him reflexively, but Nathan caught the back of his jacket, steadying him. Ricky had already been whisked to a separate bay for imaging and observation; his concussion had worsened over the flight. That left only the three of them now, Nathan, Connor, and Erik, standing in the corridor outside the high-security surgical lounge.
A nurse guided them gently into the waiting area. It was open to the nurses' station, no doors, no glass, just a clear view so the staff could monitor them constantly. Chairs, small couches, a low table with magazines nobody would ever read tonight. One nurse remained stationed directly across from them, eyes never drifting far.
Connor moved like someone underwater. Lights too bright. Air too cold. Every distant beeping monitor could've been Jace's. His arms still ached from holding him. His mind felt raw, skinned.
Sidney sat beside him, one steadying hand at his back.
Nathan lowered himself into the chair on Connor's other side, posture stiff with worry. For several minutes, no one spoke.
Then Erik exhaled sharply and rubbed a hand over his face. "Man... my head," he muttered. "Feels like somebody dropped a building on me."
Nathan looked over. "You should lie down, brother."
"I'm fine," Erik said. "Just..."
He pushed himself up.
He didn't make it upright.
His legs buckled, and he collapsed hard onto the polished floor.
"Erik!" Nathan lurched forward.
But the nurse at the station had already sprung into motion, hitting a code button as two others rushed from behind the counter. In seconds they were beside him, assessing, stabilizing his neck, checking his pupils.
Sidney rose, but kept Connor seated, an arm firm across the younger man's shoulders.
Connor's breath hitched. "No... no, please... not another..."
"They've got him," Sidney whispered. His own voice trembled.
The nurses lifted Erik onto a board and rushed him toward imaging, their steps echoing down the hall.
And then the waiting room was too quiet again.
Nathan sank into his chair, rubbing both hands over his face. "How many more... how many more of us have to drop tonight?"
Connor didn't answer. He stared at the floor, shaking faintly, silent, hollowed out.
Sidney crouched in front of him. "Connor. Look at me."
No response.
Sidney's voice sharpened, father-like. "Connor Braydee. Right here, lad. Eyes on me."
Connor's eyes rose, glassy, shattered, but present.
"There you are," Sidney murmured, relief soft in his voice. "Come back to us. Just a little."
Nathan leaned toward him. "You're doing good, Connor. Just breathe."
Several shaky breaths passed. The trembling eased. A hint of color returned to Connor's face.
Sidney judged him lucid enough and gently continued.
"There's something you two should know," he said quietly. "And it stays between us for now."
Connor blinked slowly. Nathan straightened.
"I wasn't only a trainer in San Diego," Sidney said. "I was placed in the rock circuit years ago. Aelinian Intelligence. I was assigned to shadow the five of you long before your amulets ever found you. Since 1979, when Battle Cry first formed."
Connor stared. "You... you were watching us?"
"Aye," Sidney said, gentle as ever. "Protecting you. Making sure outside forces never interfered. Aelin had been keeping watch over Jace since he was born. Seamus could sense him from a distance, follow him without ever needing to be in the same room. Once Jace joined the band and you five started gaining real traction in the Reno circuit, Seamus sent me in. Boots on the ground."
Nathan gave a slow nod. "That actually explains a lot."
A small, tired smile crept onto Sidney's face.
"Just to be clear, I had nothing to do with John finding you," Sidney told them, "The forward motion you lot had was all your own, and he needed no assistance in hearing about you. I saw every show. Every crowd. The way the fans screamed for you. And lads, let's be honest," he huffed a soft laugh, “You're all disgustingly good-looking. Every single one of ya! It's unfair to the rest of the bands out there, really."
Connor let out the faintest gasp of a laugh. Nathan huffed one too.
Sidney softened further. "There. If I can get even half a grin out of you two, then you aren't lost to me yet."
Connor wiped a shaky hand over his face. "You're ridiculous."
"Aye," Sidney said. "And right."
They breathed together, a brief calm.
Nathan leaned back, voice low. "So, we're the youngest Brotherhood ever?"
"By far," Sidney nodded. "Most weren't chosen until after forty. You lads are decades younger. That's why everything hits so hard."
Connor nodded faintly. "That... does make sense."
Another breath. Another heartbeat. A fragile peace...
Then Connor froze. His spine snapped rigid. His pupils narrowed to pinpoints.
Nathan jerked toward him as something invisible and agonizing ripped straight through his own chest, sharp, sudden, soul-deep. It was like a thread snapping. Jace. Nathan felt it: the same sickening void he'd felt before. He gasped and fell from his chair, dropping onto both knees, hands splayed on the floor as he fought through the shock of it.
"No...no no no!" Nathan whispered painfully.
But Connor... Connor choked out a broken gasp, then screamed. Not the hurricane wail from the SUV, but raw, wounded, agonized. His amulet exploded with green light again. The shock wave tore through the waiting room: tables overturning, magazines flaring into the air, a cart slamming into the wall, papers cascading everywhere. Two nurses were knocked backward into their chairs, startled but uninjured. Connor collapsed into convulsions, violent, uncontrolled, terrifying.
"Connor!" Nathan tried to reach him, but his own limbs shook violently from the empathic blow.
Nurses were already rushing in, calling for sedation and the neuro team, rolling Connor safely onto his side. A syringe traded hands; vitals barked; restraints clicked into place.
Connor's body finally stilled as medication began to take hold, unconscious, sweat-soaked, utterly spent. They wheeled him away at speed. Leaving Nathan and Sidney alone. The silence felt cavernous.
Nathan swallowed hard, and tears slid down his face. He didn't sob. Didn't choke. The tears simply fell.
"Connor was the last one left," he whispered. "And now he's gone too."
Sidney's voice was soft, steady, father-warm.
"But you're still standing."
"I feel like I want to drop."
"You need to sit down and rest for a moment." Sidney placed a hand on his shoulder. "And you need to hear what I'll tell you now, while you're still upright and able to understand it."
Nathan lifted his eyes, shaken, exhausted, but listening.
"There was a prophecy," Sidney said quietly. "Spoken by the third Visionary, Caelmor, over 300 years ago. He foresaw that one day, a Brotherhood would rise with a three-fold empathic bond to their Guardian. A bond no generation before had ever seen. And that Brotherhood...would be the ones destined to stand against Aldus the Conqueror. And destroy him."
Nathan stared at him. "You're saying... that's us. Connor and I...we're tied empathically with Jace?"
"You are," Sidney answered. "Connor feels Jace. You feel Jace. And Jace radiates through both of you whether he wants to or not. He feels you both. That is something that's never happened. Not in any age. Not in my father's Brotherhood. Not until now."
Nathan's breath shuddered. "Everything that's happening... it's because we were meant for something bigger."
"Yes," Sidney said simply. "All five of you were destined for this long before your births. You are the 7th generation of The Brotherhood of Aelin, Nathan. If my suspicions are correct, Aldus will not be ready for what the five of you will be able to unleash against him."
Nathan wiped at his eyes. "Then I have to hold it together. For all of them."
Sidney's hand steadied on his shoulder. "Aye, lad. Tonight, you're the last pillar still standing."
Nathan inhaled slowly. Then nodded. The storm hadn't passed, but for now, he remained.
Jace knew the exact heartbeat when the pain left. Not gentled or dulled. Gone. One moment he was drowning in it: crushed ribs, fire in his chest, the suffocating pressure of hands inside his body, bright surgical lights drilling into his skull... and then there was nothing. No ache. No burning. No weight. Just air. Cool, soft air, moving across his skin like fingers.
Something threaded through his hair, lifting the heavy, dark length of it off his shoulders and around his face, a breeze, steady and gentle, not from any vent he'd ever stood under. It combed along his jaw, his cheekbones, his mouth. He inhaled on reflex. The air tasted like grass.
And rain that hadn't fallen yet. Jace opened his eyes. He was standing. His bare feet sank into cool, springy ground hidden beneath thick, lush grass that reached his mid-calves. It rolled away in waves with the wind, rippling over soft, rounded hills that went on and on in every direction. The sky above them was a wide, bright bowl of blue, brushed with long, pale clouds.
He looked down at himself.
Bare legs. Bare chest. No bandages. No lines taped to his skin. No tightness stabbing his ribs when he breathed. No weight bending his sternum. He was naked. He inhaled deeper, testing.
Nothing hurt. His body felt... whole. Something warm rested against his chest. He looked down.
The Guardian Amulet lay where it always lay, its old silver setting resting against his skin. But the opal at its center was different. The stone glowed. Not like a reflected light, not like stage glare. It shone from within, steady and deep, like a star in miniature. Colors moved inside it: blue and green and gold and faint threads of red, turning and sliding in slow, impossible currents. Each pulse of light seemed to answer some beat deeper inside him than his heart. The glow spilled over his skin, over his collarbone, over the loose fall of his hair when the wind lifted it.
Jace reached up and touched the opal. It was warm. Warmer than his skin. As his fingers brushed the surface, the stone answered with a low, thrumming awareness that ran up his hand, into his arm, into his chest.
"Okay," he whispered. "That's... new."
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
The voice came from behind him, rough, familiar, worn by age and life and too many late nights.
Jace froze. He turned. Seamus Greene stood a short distance away.
He looked older, yes, lines at the corners of his eyes, thick white hair, features carved by time, but not frail. His shoulders were straight. His stance was solid. His hands were steady at his sides. He looked like a man somewhere around his late seventies, maybe, but with a vitality Jace had never seen in him in life.
There was no amulet at his throat now, only a faint, pale band of skin where a chain had once rested for decades.
For a heartbeat, neither of them spoke. Then Jace's mouth worked. "Seamus."
Seamus's smile was small, soft. "Aye," he said. "Me."
The familiarity of his voice twisted something in Jace's chest. He took a step toward him before he realized he was moving, then stopped, fingers curling at his sides.
"Am I..." His throat felt tight. "Am I dead?"
Seamus tipped his head slightly, considering the question.
"For the moment," he said. "Your heart's stopped. You're lyin' on a table at Cedars-Sinai, givin' a room full of very skilled people a proper fright." His gaze flicked to the glowing opal. "They're doin' what they can. The stone's doin' more."
Jace swallowed.
"And... this?"
Seamus lifted a hand, gesturing around them. "This is the Guardian Realm," he said. "The space the Amulet holds inside itself. Between breath and eternity. It pulls us here when we've wandered too close to the line. First after bestowal. Then in great wounds. Sometimes when you need instruction or warning, and last of all when our work is done."
The Guardian Realm. He didn't say "heaven." He didn't say "afterlife."
There was something in the way he said our work is done that told Jace Seamus was not standing here as a man torn out of whatever glory lay beyond. That whatever this was, it was... a piece. A reflection.
A part of Seamus that the stone had kept.
Jace's fingers tightened.
"So, I'm just supposed to... accept this?" he asked. "Again? 'You died, but not really, welcome to the pastoral opal channel'?"
Seamus huffed out something like a laugh. "You've still got teeth, I see."
Jace's jaw clenched.
"You sound amused."
"I sound relieved," Seamus said. "You're angry, and you should be. I'd worry more if you weren't."
The words hit a fuse.
"You knew," Jace said, the volume in his voice rising without permission. "You knew what this would do to me, and you still..."
He sliced a hand through the air, struggling to frame the scope of it.
"You put it on me behind a club," he said. "Like some cursed backstage pass. You knew I'd lose everything; you knew I'd terrify Celia; you knew I'd drag my brothers into this, and you still did it."
Fury gathered behind his eyes, hot and unblinking.
"And now you're just... standing here, like this is a review meeting?"
Seamus took it. All of it. He didn't flinch.
"Aye," he said quietly. "I knew it would hurt you. I knew the shape of the burden. I knew you'd likely hate me for it, at least for a time." He nodded at the Amulet. "And I did it anyway. Because it was never mine to keep, Jason. I was just holdin' your place."
"That's bullshit," Jace snapped. "You could've kept it. You could've let it kill you with it still on your chest. You could've..."
"Died with no Guardian to take my place?" Seamus cut in, not harshly but firmly. "No, lad. That's not how this works."
Jace took a half-step closer, anger shaking loose from the inside now.
"I'm twenty-four," he said, voice cracking. "I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask to be king of anything. I didn't ask for your war. I wanted to play music, fall in love, screw up at normal things, not..." His hands spread helplessly. "Not this."
Something fierce and hot pressed behind his eyes. He blinked it back hard.
"You knew all of that," he said, quieter and sharper at once. "And you did it anyway."
Seamus's face changed, some of the humor leeched away, replaced with deep, ancient grief.
"Aye," he said again. "I did."
There was no excuse in it. No justification. Just acknowledgment.
"I had the stone on my neck for sixty-two years," he said. "The day you were born, it chose you. I felt it. I was only keepin' it warm. When I found you in that alley, I was an old man standin' at the last page of his story. The world doesn't slow down to give us tidy coronations. I had enough breath left to put it where it belonged. That's all."
Jace shook his head, teeth gritted.
"You could've told me," he said. "You could've explained. You could've..."
"Would you have listened?" Seamus asked mildly.
Jace opened his mouth and stopped.
He remembered that night: adrenaline high from the show, blood pounding, Celia, the band, the alley, the stranger, the stone, the burn. The slice of pure, searing terror.
He would've run. Harder and faster.
Seamus saw the answer in his face and nodded a little.
"I knew what I was settin' on your shoulders," he said. "I won't pretend I didn't. I carry that. I knew you'd be angry. I knew you might hate me. I knew you might try to end it yourself. Most of us do, in one way or another, the first time the weight settles proper. The stone won't let you. That's its mercy, not its cruelty."
Jace's hand clenched over the opal.
"Mercy?" he echoed, incredulous. "You call this mercy?"
"You're still here," Seamus said simply. "That's mercy."
Jace laughed once, sharp and humorless. "I've died five times."
"Aye," Seamus said. "And every time, you came back. No Guardians before you have walked that far into the dark and turned around so many times in so short a span. You think that makes you weak?"
"It makes me tired," Jace snapped. "It makes me wish it had worked the night I jumped off the bike."
Neither of them spoke.
Seamus's eyes softened, but his voice stayed steady.
"Let's set the record straight, then," he said. "So you know exactly what you've survived."
He held up a hand, ticking the deaths off on his fingers.
"First death was in the hotel suite," he said, matter-of-fact. "Minutes after I put the stone on you. The shock stopped your heart. The Amulet killed you to make you its own, then dragged you back."
Jace shivered. Memories of blinding pain, the world turning inside out, then waking on the carpet with everyone screaming, flickered and snapped away.
"Second," Seamus went on, "was your own hand. When you jumped off that damned motorcycle, thinkin' you could outrun or outfall the stone. You hit the ground hard enough that any other lad would've been splatter. That killed you. The Amulet brought you up again."
Jace's jaw tightened. Hearing it said that plainly, his own hand, his own choice, laid out like a fact in a report, made his stomach clench.
"Third was in Pincher Creek," Seamus said, voice flattening into something like a distant report. "Those bastards behind the Spotted Fawn murdered you in cold blood. Not figuratively, Jason. They killed you. Broken bones, burst vessels, tore things inside you no surgeon could've fixed in time. The stone lit up and dragged you back for the third time."
Images flickered: hands, boots, fists, gravel, cold air, the taste of blood.
Jace's stomach turned.
"Fourth," Seamus continued, "was in the SUV. In Connor Braydee's arms. Your body couldn't carry what they'd done to you. You died with him holding you and begging you to stay with them, lad. Your heart stopped 'cause it was done, but again, The amulet brought you back."
Jace's eyes burned; Connor's voice echoed in his head: his name, over and over, like a prayer and a command.
"And that blast?" Seamus said, more gently. "That was the Visionary stone strikin' out after you were already gone. Connor's grief broke him open. The emerald answered. It threw the rest of them around that car like toys. But it didn't kill you. You were past that. Your Visionary and Conjurer felt each death, except the first. And they will continue to each time you die."
He lifted his thumb for the last count.
"And fifth," he said quietly, "was just now. On that table at Cedars-Sinai. Your heart stopped. The stone pulled you here while it and the doctors decide whether they're done with you yet."
Jace stared at him.
"You say it like... like it's a ledger," he said, voice faint and rough. "A tally."
"It is," Seamus said. "It's the record of what you've already faced and stood back up from. You think any of us don't know what that does to a man? To die once is enough to break most folk. Twice will shatter them. Five times?" His gaze sharpened. "You're still standing here shoutin’ at me. That ought to tell you somethin' about what you're made of."
"That I'm too stubborn to stay down?" Jace muttered.
"Aye," Seamus said. "That. And that the stone didn't pick wrong."
Anger surged again, crashing over the temporary lull.
"You keep saying that like it's supposed to make me feel better," Jace snapped. "You know what I've lost? Celia's gone. She looks at me like I'm a monster. Nathan's head is full of fire. Connor's tearing apart inside. Ricky is taking hits for me. Erik keeps getting dragged into fights. And for what? Because your rock decided I was its favorite toy?"
His voice spiked, not a scream, but high with hurt.
"I didn't just wreck my life," he said. "I wrecked theirs. And you handed me the match."
The wind picked up, whipping his hair around his face. The hills seemed to tilt.
His anger went beyond Seamus. He was angry at himself, at the stone, at fate, at Aldus, at every shove that had led him here. It all funneled through Seamus because Seamus was the only one in front of him.
Seamus didn't step back from it.
"I know," he said quietly.
The simplicity of it made Jace falter.
"I know what you've lost," Seamus went on. "I know what you think you've ruined. You think I don't recognize that look in your eyes? Jason, I put that stone on my own neck once. I watched it take people I loved out of my reach. I watched my Brotherhood bleed because of decisions I made. I passed you somethin' that had already chewed me up and spat me out. I knew exactly what I was askin' of you."
Then, very simply:
"And I knew you were the only one who could bear it."
Jace's throat closed.
Before he could answer, another voice broke in, dry and edged with wryness.
"He's also not the first to think if he jumps, the problem jumps with him."
Jace turned.
A man walked up through the grass toward them. He looked to be somewhere in his forties, dark hair tied back and streaked with silver, face weathered by wind and years; eyes a pale, cool green. His posture was easy but carried a weight of command.
A faint line at his throat marked where a chain had once lay.
"Eiran," Seamus said.
"Seamus," the newcomer acknowledged, then turned to Jace. "I am Eiran of Harmonytis. Fifth Guardian. Or, what's left of him, anyway."
Jace stared. "There's... more of you?"
"Echoes," Eiran said with a half-shrug. "You're seein' the parts of us the stone kept. The rest of us moved on. You'll get there in your time. For now, you're stuck with our echoes."
He looked Jace over, taking in the tension, the clenched fists, the wildness under his eyes.
"You think you're unique in your anger?" Eiran asked gently. "After my first Brotherhood loss, I took a spear through the chest on purpose. Figured it'd be easier to bleed out than face them, knowing my choices put them in that canyon."
Eiran opened his shirt, revealing an ugly, wide scar in the middle of his chest.
"I tried," Eiran said simply. "The Amulet objected. You and I have more in common than you'd like."
Before Jace could reply, the air behind Eiran seemed to thicken.
Something big was moving through the grass.
He turned toward it as a broad man crested the nearest rise.
If Eiran was sea-worn, this man was cut from stone. He stood Jace's height but twice his breadth, shoulders like a fortress wall under a simple shirt, arms roped with muscle. Red hair, streaked with gray, hung around a square, scar-split face. He walked like the ground belonged to him.
A pale band at his neck marked where an amulet had once rested.
He grinned when he saw Jace, sharp, bright, not unkind.
"There he is," he boomed, his voice rich with a thick Scottish burr. "The lad who thinks he's the first Guardian to nearly tear his own head off tryin' to get rid of the stone."
Jace stared. "You must be fourth."
"Aye," the man said. "Brannach MacCrae of Neart. Fourth Guardian of Aelin. Fourth to wear the stone, fourth to swear at it, fourth to wish I could toss it into the sea, and fourth to learn it doesn't work like that."
He came to stand a little in front of Jace, looking him over with no attempt to hide it.
"I hear you jumped off a moving contraption," Brannach said. "Two wheels, engine, goin' too damned fast. That right?"
Jace bristled. "It was a motorcycle."
"Aye?" Brannach said. "Looked more like a daft idea with chrome to me. You thought what, exactly? That if you hit the ground hard enough, Guardian's duty would shatter on impact?"
Jace set his teeth. "I thought if I died, the stone might let me stay that way."
Brannach snorted. "Are ye daft, boy? Ya though it was so easy to shed the mantle. But you're no worse than the rest of us were." He jerked a thumb at Seamus and Eiran. "We've all taken a run at the exit. The stone drags us back. That's the job."
"It's not a job I asked for," Jace muttered.
"None of us did," Brannach said, blunt but not unkind. "I was a farmer's son with a knack for punchin' things. Eiran here wanted to die an old man fishin' off a dock. Seamus would've been content drinkin' himself to an early grave in Dublin. We were handed crowns we didn't want and brothers we'd die for. Sound familiar?"
Jace's throat tightened.
"And you," Brannach went on, eyes narrowing just slightly, "look at what's happened to your lads and decide you alone wrecked them. You think every broken bone in that car is yours. That what you're tellin' yourself?"
"Yes," Jace snapped. "Because I put them there. I ran away. I went to Pincher Creek. I walked into that bar. I pulled us into all of this. Every bruise on them, every stitch, that's on me."
Brannach took a step closer, close enough now that the sheer size of him was a presence.
"Listen to me, boy," he said, voice dropping. "You are The Guardian of Aelin now. Your choices matter. They always will. You will make orders that hurt the people you love. You will make the wrong decision sometimes. You will carry that. But you are not the only soul in this tale with a will. Those men chose to stand beside you. They took those stones of their own choice. They found you bein' murdered behind that pub. They refused to let you die again. You don't get to rewrite them as passengers on your ship just because you're feelin' guilty."
Something sharp lodged in his chest. "That doesn't make the blood on me any lighter."
"No," Brannach said. "It doesn't. But it keeps you from drownin' in the idea that you're a plague and they're victims. They're not. They're your Brotherhood."
He turned his head slightly, as if sensing someone.
"Speakin' of which," he said, "we're missin' a few."
Two more figures approached over the grass, not together exactly, but converging.
The first was solid, compact, shoulders broad in a way that spoke of work more than training. His hands were scarred, one finger missing its top joint. His hair was pulled back, shot through with white, his features strong and lined. He had the look of a craftsman who'd been dragged into rulership and had never entirely forgiven the world for it.
The second was slighter, wrapped in simple robes. His hair hung loose around his shoulders, threaded with silver. His eyes were deep, dark, and very calm, the kind of calm that came after surviving more storms than a body should.
Both bore the pale chain-mark at their throats.
"The boy thinks he invented our mistakes," the robed one said quietly.
“So, it seems, Gaelen.” the first one concurred.
Jace hissed a breath through his teeth. "I never said that."
"You didn't have to," the robed Guardian replied. "We all know the shape of the guilt you're carryin'. I carried it myself once. So did he." He nodded toward the stockier man. "So did they." He gestured at Eiran, Seamus, Brannach. "So will every Guardian after you, if the world lasts that long. I am Maethren of Draiocht, Third Guardian of Aelin."
The broad man folded his arms loosely.
"I am Gaelen of Léirstinach... the Second," he said. "First to succeed Daeron. I failed to kill Aldus. My Visionary saw him slipping away into the dark, and I woke every night hearing the screams from the villages I hadn't saved."
He looked Jace in the eye.
Gaelen stepped a little closer, his gaze searching but gentle.
"My Visionary saw you long before you were born," he said. "Five men in black. Lights and sound like nothin' we could name. Steel birds overhead. A world too loud and too fast. He saw your face and woke weeping, sayin' he'd seen the Guardian who would carry all of us."
Jace's breath caught.
"We did not know your name," he said. "We only knew you would come."
Jace scrubbed a hand over his face, his anger fraying under the edges of the exhaustion and the terrible, aching understanding.
"So, what," he said hoarsely. "I'm just supposed to choke that down and keep going? Pretend I'm not furious? Pretend I don't wish you'd left that thing around your own neck?" He jabbed a finger in Seamus's direction.
Seamus's mouth tugged in a sad half-smile.
"I was goin' to leave it there," he said. "Right up until the day I felt the stone turn its attention away from me and point at you. Felt that when you took your first breath, lad. Guardian Amulet chose you before you could cry. I had a job after that: keep your place until you turned up. I did it as long as these old bones would let me."
"And when you passed it on," Jace said, voice low, "you just... died."
"Aye," Seamus said. "Only two hours after I gave the Guardian Amulet to you. Laid down, closed my eyes, and was gone. No sickness. No long lingerin'. Just the last page turnin' over. The rest of me went where every Guardian goes when his work is finished." He lifted one hand, palm up, at the hills, at himself, at the others. "This is what the stone kept for you. A fragment. A memory with teeth."
Jace let out a shaky breath.
"Doesn't feel like enough," he muttered.
"It's not meant to be enough," another voice said, low, steady, threaded with authority that sat deep in the bones.
The air changed.
The light seemed to bend, just slightly, toward the figure walking up the hill now.
He was not taller than Brannach or broader than Gaelen, but there was something about him that drew the world into focus. He wore a long, dark coat over simple clothes; his posture was relaxed and somehow utterly unyielding. His hair was dark, tied at the nape. His face carried lines of battle and laughter and grief in equal measure. His eyes were a deep green that Jace recognized without knowing why.
The faint mark of an old chain circled his throat.
Jace knew who he was before anyone spoke his name.
"Daeron," he whispered.
Quiet recognition moved through the first Guardian's expression, old and unhurried.
"Ya know me, then?" he said. "I hadn't expected that."
"I just... knew," Jace told him.
"Aye, you feel the familial bond."
"Familial bond?" Jace questioned.
Daeron stopped in front of Jace and studied him in silence, taking in the way he held himself, the tension in his shoulders, the anger in his eyes and the fear under it.
"You look like her," Daeron said at last.
Jace blinked. "Who?"
"Your mother," Daeron replied. "Katherine. My blood runs in her line." His gaze flicked over Jace's features. "It runs in you, too. But you also have the powerful build and stamina of your father. Not Aelinian... but the Paiute Nation. The combination of the two suit you quite well, Jason."
Jace's heart stumbled. "So, I'm...?"
"Of my house?" Daeron finished. "Aye. By birth, you would have been a prince in my day. But the stone made you King the moment it settled on your chest. Whether you want it or not."
Jace exhaled, and it hurt on the way out. "I never wanted to be a king."
"Neither did I," Daeron said mildly. "I gained mine by appointment. Wanting a crown's usually a good sign you shouldn't wear one."
He nodded toward the opal.
"I did not forge these," he said. "It was Agamore, my alchemist and friend. The first Conjurer. Brilliant, foolish, but faithful man after the missionaries came and taught the island of the new God. He bound more into these stones than either of us understood at the time. Power. Memory. Echoes. Faith. Brotherhood. He thought he was armoring our age. The missionaries told him otherwise, but they didn’t understand Agamore’s ways. There was more to those creations than anyone really knew. The true purpose of the amulets lay ahead, in an age we couldn’t understand. In your age, Jason."
He looked Jace dead in the eye.
"You keep tryin' to measure yourself against us," he said. "You think because you're angry, because you tried to die, because you blame yourself for your brothers' wounds, that you're somehow failing. Listen to me carefully, Jason Beánnú Elias."
His voice deepened, not in volume but in resonance.
"No Guardians before you have died five times in such a short span," Daeron said. "No Guardians before you have ever been bound to his Conjurer and Visionary in the way you are, so that your deaths tear through them, too. No Guardians before you have borne the weight of a six-generation unfinished war in a world as loud and vicious as yours. You are not weaker than we were. You are carrying more and are significantly more powerful."
The weight of it pressed down on him, vast and undeniable.
Daeron took a step closer. Up close, Jace could see faint scars on his knuckles, at his brow, along his jaw, a man who had not ruled from a distant throne but from the front lines.
"You are angry at Seamus," Daeron said. "Good. Be angry. You have the right. You are angry at the stone. Good. It can take it. You are angry at yourself." His expression softened. "That's the one you need to watch. That anger will eat you alive if you let it."
Jace's voice cracked. "What else am I supposed to feel?" he demanded. "Look at what's happened to them. Nathan's burned out. Connor... God, I don't even know where he is in his head right now. Ricky keeps gettin' smashed around because he's literally standin' between me and the rest of the world. Erik's..." His voice broke. "Erik's tryin' to be strong and he shouldn't have to. And I'm just the one in the middle with the shiny rock that got them all into this."
Daeron didn't look away.
"You feel grief," he said. "You feel anger. You feel guilt. You let yourself feel them. Then you remember this: they are not glass. They are Guardians of their own amulets. They chose to stand with you, even before you received the amulets. Your fight is also their fight, Jason, and your Brotherhood is with you wherever you lead them."
"They didn't choose me," Jace said, sharper than he meant to. "Not really. They chose a band. A dream. Music. I dragged Aelin and Aldus and all of this into it."
Eiran spoke up again, voice gentler. "You think the Brotherhood is a band you roped into trouble?" he asked. "Jason... from our side of the Veil, we watched them long before the stones were ever clasped around their necks. We watched your Visionary wake with nightmares he could not understand. We watched your Conjurer burn when he was angry. We watched your Warrior break his toys instead of his own knuckles. We watched your Sentinel stand in front of every blow he could see coming." His mouth tipped. "We watched you pull them all into your orbit and make something that changed every room you stepped into."
Brannach grunted. "You didn't drag them into anything," he said. "You found each other. This mess you're in? You're built for it. All five of you. Doesn't make it pretty. Does make it yours."
Maethren added, "My Visionary saw five sparks, not one. The prophecy your Visionary will someday read does not say, 'The Guardian alone shall end Aldus.' It says, 'A Brotherhood five, tied empathic three, to destroy The Conqueror will be destiny.'"
Daeron inclined his head slightly.
"You are the one they were made for, Jason," he said. "The amulets. The Brotherhood. The prophecy. The whole, tangled web of it. Not because you are invulnerable. Because you are not. Because you feel everything too deeply and still get back up."
Jace's eyes overflowed. The tears didn't fall far, only tracked down to his jaw and hung there, cool in the wind.
"I don't know if I can keep doin' this," he admitted, voice wrecked now, stripped of everything but honesty. "Every time I think I've hit the limit, somethin' worse happens. Every time I think I can't break any further, I do. And every time I start to make peace with somethin', it changes. I don't know how many more times I can get back up, and I'm scared that if I can't, they'll..." He swallowed. "They'll fail, too."
Daeron's hand came up, not to grip his shoulder but to rest over the glowing stone.
The warmth surged again, stronger, but not in a way that overwhelmed. It filled Jace's chest, spread through his ribs, down his arms, into his legs. It felt like the hills under his feet, like wind, like the distant sound of the sea.
"We are not askin' you to never fail," Daeron said quietly. "You will. Again and again. We are not askin' you to be unbreakable. You aren't. No one is. What we are askin', what God allowed, what the Conjurer forged, what the stone itself demands, is that when you do break, you come here, you listen, you learn, and then you stand back up. Not alone. Never alone. With them."
He nodded, as if toward something only he could see.
"Your Conjurer and Visionary are tied to you in a way ours never were," he said. "That threefold bond? It is prophecy made flesh. Your deaths hit them. Your risings pull them. That is horrible. It is also your greatest weapon. If you try to carry all of this by yourself, you will destroy that bond. If you let them stand with you, you will change the world."
Jace's breath hitched.
Seamus stepped up beside Daeron, close enough now that Jace could see every line on his face, every softening at the corners of his eyes.
"You're not the first Guardian to want to quit," Seamus said. "You're not the first to shout at the man who handed him the stone. We all did that...well, except for Daeron, of course."
Seamus smirked at Daeron and who chuckled and added, "You can't really yell when the whole country appoints you king and your alchemist makes special amulets that make you more powerful."
"You see, Jason," Maethren said, "You're not the first to wish you'd died before any of this started. But you are the first to weather five deaths like this and still have room in your heart to grieve for others. That matters a great deal, dear boy."
Brannach snorted. "You jumped off a screamin' machine, spit at fate, got murdered, died in your Visionary's arms, and now yer on a table with a healer tryin' ta fix your guts. You're still whingin' about whether you're strong enough?" he said. "You're strong enough, lad. You just don't like the shape your strength takes."
Eiran's voice softened again. "Let yourself be angry," he said. "Let yourself be scared. Then go back and let them see it. You don't have to be a statue for your lads. Statues crack. Men bend."
Gaelen nodded once. "We did not endure all of this so you could sit in judgment over yourself," he said. "Use what we learned. Don't turn it into another club to beat yourself with."
Daeron's hand pressed, just slightly, against the Amulet.
The light flared, not outward but inward, like something in the opal answering his touch.
Jace closed his eyes as the warmth spread throughout his body, and he emitted a small gasp.
"Your work isn't finished yet," Daeron said. "That's why you're here, and not wherever the rest of us ended up. The Amulet still has plans for you. God still has plans for you. Your Brotherhood still needs you. You're allowed to be tired. You're allowed to be angry. You're not allowed to decide you're done while there's still breath left in you."
Jace nodded once, a tiny, jerky motion. He couldn't speak around the knot in his throat. When he opened his eyes, something in them had settled rather than healed.
The light around them began to thicken, the edges of the hills smearing like wet paint. The wind grew louder without moving more.
Seamus stepped in close, close enough that Jace could feel the warmth coming off him.
"Jason," he said.
Jace blinked, meeting his eyes.
"When you wake," Seamus said, like he had no doubt he would, "Sidney will be there. He'll pretend he's fine. He'll be holdin' in more than you can see. You tell him somethin' for me."
Jace's voice came out as a whisper. "What?"
Seamus's mouth trembled at the corners, just a little.
"Tell him I said hello," he murmured. "And tell him I am free."
The word sank straight to the bottom of Jace's chest.
Free.
Not trapped in the stone or lingering in pain. Gone on. Finished his work. Home.
Jace's eyes filled again. "Okay," he said, barely audible. "I will."
Seamus's smile warmed, brightened, and for a heartbeat Jace could see the young man he must have once been under the lines and white hair.
"Good lad," he said softly.
The light surged: white and gold and the deep, starry glow of the opal all at once.
The hills vanished.
Pain came back in pieces this time.
Dull. Wrapped in cotton and distance and drugs.
A heavy ache in his chest. A tightness along his ribs. The tug of tape and lines. The itch of something in his arm.
Sound filtered in after it.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The soft hiss of a machine.
Distant voices. Footsteps. A cart rattling by in a hallway.
The smell of antiseptic.
The weight of a blanket.
His eyelids felt like they'd been taped down and only just released. He fought them up, one slow blink at a time, until the blur sharpened into an ICU room: dimmed lights, beige walls, monitors with small green numbers, an I.V. pole, a half-drawn curtain.
Someone sat in a chair at his right. Elbows on knees. Hands clasped loosely in front of him. Head bowed. Sidney Greene.
His hair was a mess, like he'd raked his fingers through it a hundred times. His shirt was wrinkled. There was stubble on his jaw he never usually let show. Deep lines bracketed his mouth and eyes. He was staring at nothing.
Jace swallowed. It felt like dragging stones down his throat.
"Sid..." It came out more air than sound, but it was something.
Sidney's head snapped up. For a second he just stared. Then his face changed: relief, shock, something like awe breaking over it. His eyes went bright.
"Jason," he breathed.
He stood, moving to the bedside, one hand gripping the rail like it was the only thing keeping him upright. The other hovered over Jace's arm, careful of the I.V.
"Easy now," he said, voice rough around the edges. "Don't try to talk too much. You've done enough dramatics for one night."
Jace's mouth tugged at one corner, almost a smile.
His chest hurt. His head buzzed. Every limb felt heavy. But under all of that, he could still feel the memory of wind in his hair, the press of Daeron's hand on the opal, Seamus's eyes.
He drew a shallow breath.
"Your..." He swallowed. "Your... father..."
Sidney leaned in a little, every line in his face suddenly intent. "Aye?"
Jace met his eyes.
"He says..." His voice was a scraping whisper, but he forced it out. "...hello."
Sidney went very still.
"And..." Jace managed, one more thin breath, "he's... free."
Sidney didn't move. His fingers clenched on the rail; his jaw worked. His eyes filled faster than he could blink the wetness away.
A breath tore out of him then, half-sob, half-laugh, like something had just been cut loose inside his chest.
"Oh, Seamus," he said under his breath. "You stubborn old man."
He broke eye contact just long enough to scrub a hand across his face, then looked back at Jace with a tenderness that hadn't been there before.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "For tellin' me."
Jace let his eyes drift closed again. The monitors kept beeping. Somewhere a nurse laughed at a joke. The world went on.
Sidney rested his hand, very gently, on Jace's uninjured forearm.
"Rest now, Guardian," he said, voice still thick but steady. "We'll sort the rest when you're not half-stitched together."
Jace didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
He let the blanket's weight hold him down. Let the hum of the machines blur into the remembered sound of the wind. Let the ache in his chest exist alongside the knowledge that six generations stood behind him, two brothers were tied to him, and one old Guardian had gone home, free.
No matter how many times he died, however many times he broke, he understood one thing more clearly than he ever had before:
He was not alone.
The world slid in and out in soft, gray bands of awareness.
Jace drifted.
Sometimes there were sounds: beeping, footsteps, a nurse's quiet voice, the soft clink of glass. Sometimes there was just the heavy, drugged dark tugging him downward again.
Once, he surfaced to the feel of a warm hand around his wrist and the low murmur of Sidney's voice saying something about "holding steady" and "stubborn Guardian." He tried to answer, but the words wouldn't line up, so he let go again.
When he finally came up for real, it was to dim light and a steady ache that felt... contained.
Not the wild, tearing agony from before.
More like a deep bruise over every inch of him.
Somewhere to his left, a monitor clicked and beeped in a lazy rhythm.
There was a slow drip from an I.V. line.
The air smelled sharply clean, threaded with antiseptic.
He tasted plastic and cotton in the back of his throat.
Something tugged lightly at his nostrils.
He realized he was breathing through a small tube under his nose.
He blinked.
The ceiling above him was off-white, faintly textured. A fluorescent fixture buzzed softly overhead, the light muted by a half-closed curtain.
He turned his head, and pain sparked along the muscles in his neck, not sharp, just insistent, a reminder that everything had been taken apart and put together again.
The movement jostled a line in his arm. Tape pulled at the skin on his chest.
"Easy there."
Sidney's voice, close.
Jace turned his head the other way.
Sidney sat in the same chair, still in the same shirt, though it looked more wrinkled now, the sleeves rolled haphazardly up his forearms.
His hair stuck up in strange directions from fingers dragged through it too often.
There were shadows under his eyes that hadn't been there before.
His hand rested on the bedrail, knuckles tight.
"How long...?" Jace rasped.
It came out hoarse, like someone had taken sandpaper to his throat. The nasal cannula hissed faintly when he pulled in air.
Sidney huffed a breath that was almost a laugh.
"Few hours," he said. "Enough to give me another set of gray hairs, if I had any left to spare."
Jace's mouth twitched. The motion tugged the cut in his lip.
He swallowed. It hurt.
But something pressed insistently at the back of his mind, wanting out.
He frowned faintly, trying to pull the memory forward.
"Sid..." he whispered. "Seamus... he said... hi. And he said... he's free."
Sidney blinked, not surprised, only softening.
"Aye," he said gently. "You told me that earlier, lad. Right after you woke the first time. They'd given you something strong, and you drifted off again."
Jace tried to process that. "I... did?"
"You did," Sidney said, a weary, warm note in his voice. "But you could tell me five more times and I wouldn't mind hearin' it again."
Jace let his eyes close for a few seconds, exhaustion pulling at him.
"Just... wanted to be sure," he murmured.
"I know," Sidney said quietly. "And so does he."
The curtain rings scraped softly on the rail.
"Mr. Elias is awake?"
Nancy Oksana's voice carried that mix of brisk and warm Sidney remembered from years ago, the tone that said I will absolutely cut you open and absolutely care about your pain while I do it.
Sidney straightened a little, stepping back from the bed to give her room.
Jace turned his head carefully toward the sound.
Nancy stepped into view, closing the curtain more fully behind her. She'd traded surgical greens for a light blue scrub top and white coat, the pockets stuffed with folded papers and an uncapped pen peeking out. Her dark hair was pulled back, neat but hurried. There were faint smudges under her eyes that said she'd been operating longer than any sane person should.
She still moved like she had reserves to burn.
"Well," she said, coming to the bedside with a small exhale that sounded like thank God. "Our Guardian decided to join us again."
"Was... out," Jace croaked.
"I noticed," she said dryly. "You have a real talent for creating surprises, Guardian."
She checked the monitors, the I.V. drip, the chart.
"How's the pain?" she asked. "One to ten?"
"Six," he said. "Seven if I breathe too deep."
"We'll edge your meds up a little."
Her fingers moved carefully over his ribs.
He emitted a slight, pained groan.
"Sorry," she said. "Those were broken. We fixed them. You'll feel like a mule kicked you for a good while."
"I... died," he whispered.
"Yes," Nancy said simply. "On the table. Heart stopped. We were preparing defibrillation. And then..." She nodded toward the Amulet resting against his chest, hidden under the thin hospital gown. "The stone lit up and restarted you on its own."
Her tone shifted, more serious.
"That was death number five."
He shut his eyes briefly.
A low tremor passed through him.
"The guys..." Jace said in a whisper.
Nancy's shoulders rose and fell with a tired sigh.
"All right," she said. "I will give it to you one at a time. And you will listen, Jason, and not decide every injury is your fault."
His shoulders drew in tight, but he nodded.
"Nathan first," she said. "He took the least damage physically. But whatever he was doing to keep your insides from becoming your outsides... it drained him. I ordered him home. If he'd stayed, he'd have collapsed."
Jace swallowed. "He shouldn't have had to..."
"No," Nancy said firmly. "We're not doing that, Guardian. You're alive because he did exactly what he was meant to."
Jace quieted.
"Connor," he whispered.
Nancy softened.
"Connor's stable, but out," she said. "The blast was grief, not intent. I put him in a medical coma so his mind could stop tearing itself apart. He's monitored. He'll wake."
Jace's fingers tightened weakly against the sheet.
"No pain?" Jace asked softly.
"No pain," she replied, brushing some of his hair from his temple.
He let out a quiet breath.
"Erik," he rasped. "You said a head injury..."
"He took quite a hit in the vehicle," Nancy said. "Concussion, scalp laceration, bruised ribs, hairline fracture in the collarbone. No spinal injury. He's furious he's in a neck brace and wants to hit something. Preferably the men from Pincher Creek. I told him no."
Despite everything, a faint warmth moved through his chest.
"Ricky?"
"A mild concussion," Nancy said. "Ribs cracked. Lung contusion, found here at Cedars-Sinai with proper imaging. A delightful palette of bruises down one side. He's on oxygen. He keeps insisting he's fine and asking if he can check on you. I threatened restraints."
Jace's eyes stung.
"And Sidney?" he whispered.
"I'm right here," Sidney said.
Jace looked at him, saw the stiff posture, the bruising where shirt met collar.
"What'd it do to you?"
Sidney shrugged, then winced. "Caught the edge of it. One cracked rib, bit of a bruise. More annoyed than hurt."
"He got off light," Nancy said. "If he'd been closer to Connor, we'd have another bed involved."
Jace swallowed hard.
Images of all of them, hurt, bleeding, unconscious, flashed behind his eyes.
His voice cracked.
"I did this."
"No," Nancy said immediately, taking his hand with care. "You were beaten to death by thugs, Jason. They did this. You dying is what caused the emerald to strike. Not your choices. Not your leadership. Not destiny."
"They came to find me," he whispered, tears gathering.
"And they would have followed you wherever you had gone, Jace," she said, resolute. "You are their Guardian. Their anchor. That isn't a curse, Jason. That's the point."
He shut his eyes as tears slid silently toward his hairline.
"I'm so tired," he breathed.
"I know," she said.
"When does it stop?" His voice broke. "When do they stop payin' for my calling?"
Nancy hesitated only a moment.
"When Aldus the Conqueror is dead," she said softly, "or when your work is finished. But you were never promised an easy road. Only that you wouldn't walk it alone."
Jace trembled.
"You're sure they're... alive?" he whispered.
"Every one of them," she said. "And none of them are dying tonight."
A shaky sound left him, half laugh, half sob. Nancy reached for the I.V. regulator.
"I'm increasing your meds," she said. "Not enough to knock you flat, but enough that your ribs stop screaming."
Jace nodded faintly.
She updated his chart, pen scratching briskly against paper.
"You two have a few more minutes," she said. "Then he sleeps."
Sidney touched two fingers to Jace's forearm, light, warm, grounding.
"We're going to be talking to the management team today," he said quietly. "John and the team are very worried about all of you, and we have to reveal the truth to them. It won't be fun, but it's necessary."
Jace closed his eyes briefly, then looked at Sidney. "Are they coming to see us?"
"I expect so," Sidney told him. "You know Linda will be devastated. You know how much she cares about you all."
Jace nodded.
Sidney paused at the curtain. "You drift off to talk to another dead king, you send word, aye?"
Jace managed a weak smile. "I'll... send a postcard."
Sidney huffed and slipped out past the curtain. Nancy paused at the foot of the bed.
"Last question before I rest," Jace asked softly, opening his eyes slightly. "Are we... gonna win?"
Nancy's eyes softened.
"I don't promise outcomes," she said. "But you've survived five deaths in the space of three days. Your brothers are alive. Connor and Nathan are bound to you in ways no Brotherhood has ever seen. And you have six generations of stubborn old ghosts shouting advice from the other side."
A tiny smile touched her lips.
"That's a stacked deck, Guardian. I like your odds."
He let out a soft breath.
"Okay," he whispered.
"Sleep," she said gently.
The medication curled warm through his veins, the edges of the room blurring. He sank down, slow and steady, into the dark, for once unafraid.
The Guardian slept. His Brotherhood healed. And somewhere unseen, six ancient echoes kept silent watch.