Chapter 22 The Sacrifice

Chapter 22 The Sacrifice
Dante's POV

I had forty-eight hours to decide whether to die.

The Council left after healing Lily, taking Elena with them in golden chains. She'd face judgment for her crimes, but that didn't matter right now. What mattered was the choice in front of me.

Save Rosewood Falls by absorbing the corrupted wish magic and dying.

Or let three thousand people fall under demon control.

"You're not doing it," Maya said firmly. We were back at her house, Lily asleep upstairs, exhausted from using her wish magic. "I won't let you sacrifice yourself."

"It's not your choice." I sat on her couch, feeling the weight of mortality in a way I never had before. "Maya, I've lived for three thousand years. I've seen empires rise and fall. I've watched humanity grow and change. But these last few weeks with you and Lily? They've been more real than any century I spent as a Cupid."

"Then don't throw them away!" Tears streamed down her face. "We just found each other. We're supposed to have time. We're supposed to—"

She couldn't finish. The wish-bond let me feel her grief, and it was crushing.

"I don't want to die," I said quietly. "I want to stay. I want to watch Lily grow up. I want to marry you and have a normal, boring, beautiful human life. But if I don't do this, everyone in this town gets the fate you had with Marcus. Fifteen years of abuse, multiplied by thousands of people."

"Then we find another way." Maya grabbed my hands. "We have two days. We can figure something out. Call more Council members. Find a spell. Something."

My phone rang. The Council leader.

I answered on speaker. "Yes?"

"I'm calling with clarification," she said. "The sacrifice must happen at exactly midnight on Valentine's Day, at the location where the wish magic originated—the Sweetheart Bridge. The person absorbing the corruption must be willing. No coercion, no tricks. Free choice."

"Understood," I said.

"One more thing. The absorption process takes one hour. You'll feel every corrupted wish, every dark desire, every twisted fantasy. It will be the worst pain any being can experience. Even Cupids have been known to go mad from it." She paused. "Are you certain you can withstand that?"

I looked at Maya. At her face, beautiful and tear-stained. At the house where Lily slept safely upstairs. At the life I'd barely begun to live.

"Yes," I lied. "I'm certain."

The Council leader hung up.

Maya stared at me. "You're not certain at all. I felt it through the bond. You're terrified."

"Of course I'm terrified. I'm about to experience three thousand people's worst nightmares simultaneously while my body tears itself apart." I pulled her close. "But I'm more terrified of what happens to you and Lily if I don't."

"There has to be another way."

"There isn't. The Council would have told us." I kissed her forehead, breathing in her scent—paint and strawberries and home. "Maya, I need you to promise me something."

"What?"

"If I die doing this, I need you to keep painting. Keep creating beautiful things. Teach Lily that love is worth fighting for, even when it hurts." My voice cracked. "Don't let what happened with Marcus, with Vanessa, with me—don't let any of it make you stop believing in good things."

"You're not going to die." Maya's jaw set stubbornly. "I won't let you."

"You can't stop it."

"Watch me." She pulled away, grabbed her phone, started texting rapidly. "If the Council won't help, I'll find someone who will. There are other magical beings in this world, right? Other Cupids? Something?"

"Maya—"

"No. You don't get to give up. You spent three thousand years bringing people together. You don't get to quit now." She looked at me with fire in her eyes. "We're fighting this. Together. Like everything else."

I wanted to argue. Wanted to tell her it was hopeless.

But looking at her determination, her absolute refusal to accept my death, I felt something shift inside me.

Maybe there was another way. Maybe if we worked together, used the wish-bond, combined our—

My phone buzzed. Unknown number. A video file.

I pressed play.

The screen showed a basement—the same one where Marcus had held Maya. Except now, someone else was tied to the chair.

My grandmother's ghost. Except she looked solid now, corporeal, trapped in a body she shouldn't have.

Marcus stepped into frame, his demon form fully visible. The eleven other demons stood behind him.

"Hello, Dante," Marcus said. "Remember me? We had a lovely chat before your girlfriend destroyed my original body. Took me a while to regenerate, but I'm back. And I brought friends."

He walked over to Maya's grandmother, trailing one clawed hand along her face. She flinched but couldn't move—bound by dark magic.

"I learned something interesting while I was dead," Marcus continued. "Ghosts brought back through wish magic? They can be made solid. Permanent. If you have enough power." He smiled. "And in forty-eight hours, on Valentine's Day, when all that corrupted wish magic peaks? I'll have more than enough."

He leaned close to the camera. "Here's the deal. You show up at midnight on Valentine's Day. You let me drain every drop of your ex-Cupid essence. And I'll let grandma here return to being a peaceful ghost. Refuse, and I'll use her soul to fuel the demon portal permanently. She'll be trapped in torment forever."

"Don't do it!" Maya's grandmother shouted. "Dante, don't you dare—"

Marcus muted her with a gesture. "You have two days to decide. Save the town by sacrificing yourself to the Council's plan, or save grandma by giving yourself to me. Either way, you die. But at least this way, you get to choose who gets your power."

The video ended.

Maya was staring at the phone, face white. "He has my grandmother. He's going to—"

"I know." My mind raced. "The Council wants me to absorb the corruption and die. Marcus wants me to give him my power and die. Both plans end with me dead and only one problem solved."

"Then we don't do either plan." Maya grabbed my shoulders. "We make a third option."

"What third option?"

"I don't know yet. But we have two days to figure it out." She touched my face gently. "Promise me you won't make this choice alone. Promise me we decide together."

Through the wish-bond, I felt her desperation. Her love. Her absolute refusal to lose me.

"I promise," I said.

We spent the next hour researching, calling every contact Elena had left in her museum records, searching for any mention of corrupted wish magic being absorbed safely.

Nothing. Every historical case ended the same way—sacrifice and death.

At midnight, exhausted and hopeless, I walked Maya to her bedroom. Lily was asleep in her own room, peaceful and innocent.

"Stay," Maya whispered. "Please. I don't want to be alone tonight."

I shouldn't. It was dangerous, with the wish-bond so strong between us. But I couldn't say no.

I lay beside her on top of the covers, fully clothed, trying to keep appropriate distance.

Maya curled against me anyway. "Tell me about your favorite memory. From three thousand years. Anything."

I thought about it. Centuries of matches, millennia of love stories. So many moments that should have mattered.

"You," I said finally. "Meeting you. Watching you paint. Seeing you with Lily. These last few weeks are my favorite memory from three thousand years of existence."

Maya lifted her head, looked at me with those dark eyes. "That's really sad, actually. Three thousand years and the best part is a few weeks?"

"Or really beautiful. Because it means I found something worth all that waiting."

She kissed me.

Not gentle, not tentative—desperate and fierce and full of everything we couldn't say. I kissed her back, pulling her close, the wish-bond blazing between us like fire.

When we finally pulled apart, both breathing hard, Maya whispered, "Don't you dare die on me. We have so much more to do."

"Like what?"

"Like this." She kissed me again. "And teaching Lily to ride a bike. And painting a mural together. And arguing about what to watch on TV. And growing old. All the boring, normal things I thought I'd never get to do again."

"Maya—"

"Promise me," she demanded. "Promise me you'll fight. That you won't just accept death."

I wanted to promise. Wanted to give her that certainty.

But before I could answer, my phone rang.

Vanessa. Calling from somewhere with screaming in the background.

"Dante?" Her voice was panicked, wrong. "Something's happening. The corruption is spreading faster than we thought. People are acting out their dark wishes now, not waiting for Valentine's Day. There's violence in the streets. The demons are feeding on it, getting stronger by the minute."

Through the window, I heard sirens. Shouting. Glass breaking.

"What do we do?" Vanessa asked.

I looked at Maya. At the fear in her eyes. At Lily sleeping in the next room, innocent and unaware.

"We move up the timeline," I said. "I'm not waiting two days. I'm ending this tomorrow night."

"Dante, no—" Maya started.

"It's the only way to stop more people from getting hurt. I'll absorb the corruption tomorrow at midnight. One day early, before the demons expect it."

"But you're not ready," Vanessa said. "The Council said—"

"I don't care what the Council said. People are suffering now." I stood up, decision made. "Tell everyone to stay inside tomorrow night. Lock their doors. Whatever happens, don't come to the Sweetheart Bridge."

I hung up.

Maya stared at me. "You just cut our time in half."

"I know."

"We haven't found another way yet."

"I know."

"You're going to die in twenty-four hours." Her voice broke completely.

"I know." I pulled her into my arms. "But at least I'll die knowing I saved you. And Lily. And everyone else in this town. That's worth something."

"It's worth everything," Maya sobbed into my chest. "And I hate you for it."

"I love you too," I whispered.

We held each other as the sounds of chaos grew louder outside, as Rosewood Falls tore itself apart under corrupted wishes, as my final day of existence began.

And somewhere in the darkness, I heard Marcus laughing.