Marcus Revealed
Marcus's POV
"She's lying to you!" I shouted at Maya, watching her float helplessly in the portal's grip. "Don't listen to anything she says!"
The fake grandmother—or whatever monster she really was—turned to me with amusement dancing in her eyes. "Oh, Marcus. Sweet, naive Marcus. Did you really think you were Elena's son?"
My world stopped.
"What?" I whispered.
"You're not a Ravenwood at all," she said cheerfully. "You're a Blackthorne. Elena found you as a baby thirty years ago, abandoned on her doorstep with a note that said 'Keep him safe.' She raised you as her own, but your real mother was Maya's grandmother—which makes you and Maya cousins."
I looked at Elena, hoping she'd say it was another lie. But her face had gone pale, and she wouldn't meet my eyes.
"You knew?" I asked, my voice cracking. "All these years, you knew I wasn't really your son?"
"I loved you like you were mine," Elena said desperately. "That's all that mattered to me."
The creature clapped her hands together. "How touching! But here's the really fun part—Marcus, do you know why you were abandoned as a baby?"
I didn't want to know. Every instinct screamed at me to cover my ears and run. But I couldn't move. I had to hear this.
"Because you were supposed to die," she continued. "The Blackthorne family has a curse. Every third generation, one child is born with magic so powerful it burns them up from the inside. You should have been dead before your first birthday."
"But I'm not dead," I said weakly.
"Because Elena saved you," the creature said. "She cast a binding spell that locked away ninety percent of your magic, keeping just enough active to sustain your life but not enough to kill you. You've been living as basically a normal human for thirty years, Marcus, while enough power to level cities sleeps inside you."
I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I need you to make a choice," she said simply. "I can unlock that power right now. I can make you the strongest wizard who's ever lived—strong enough to save Maya, defeat the sorcerer from the past, and close the portal. Or I can leave you as you are, weak and useless while everyone you love dies around you."
It was a trap. Obviously a trap. But I looked at Maya, suspended in the portal's energy, her face twisted in pain. I looked at Elena, the woman who'd raised me, loved me, lied to me. I looked at the other Maya and Damien, both trying desperately to break free of their magical bonds.
"What do you want in return?" I asked.
The creature smiled. "Smart boy. I want you to kill Elena."
"WHAT?" Elena and I shouted at the same time.
"Elena is the Guardian of the Portland Time Junction," the creature explained. "As long as she's alive, she can potentially close any portal that opens here. But if she dies, and you become the new Guardian by inheriting her position—well, then I'll control you, which means I'll control the junction."
"I won't do it," I said immediately.
"Not even to save Maya?" the creature asked. "Because she's suffering right now, Marcus. Every second she spends as a portal anchor, her soul is being torn apart. In about five minutes, there won't be enough left of her mind to save. She'll just be an empty shell, holding the doorway open forever."
I looked at Maya again. She was screaming now, though no sound came out. Her body was starting to flicker, like a light bulb about to burn out.
"There has to be another way," I said desperately.
"There isn't," the creature said. "I've made sure of that. I've spent sixty years arranging every piece of this puzzle. Every person, every spell, every moment has been designed to lead to this exact choice. Kill Elena and save Maya, or refuse and watch Maya's soul dissolve."
"Marcus, don't," Elena said firmly. "My life isn't worth—"
"Your life is worth everything!" I shouted at her. "You're my mother! The only one I've ever known! I can't just—"
"Then Maya dies," the creature said with a shrug. "And then Damien dies trying to save her. And then the sorcerer's army pours through the portal and kills everyone in Portland. And then I move on to the next city and start over. It's really very simple, Marcus. One death, or millions."
My chest felt like it was being crushed. How was I supposed to choose between the woman who raised me and my newly discovered cousin? Between one person I loved and millions I'd never met?
"There's a third option," a voice said from the portal.
Everyone turned. Maya was looking at me now, her eyes glowing with an eerie light. When she spoke, her voice sounded weird—like two people talking at once.
"Marcus, unlock your power," she said. "But don't kill Elena. Kill me."
"WHAT?" multiple people shouted.
"If I'm the portal anchor, and I die, the portal closes," Maya explained, her voice growing stronger. "The creature needs me alive to keep it open. But if you kill me with Blackthorne magic—magic that shares my bloodline—it'll destroy the portal from the inside out."
"No!" Damien roared, finally breaking free of his magical bonds. "Maya, there has to be another way!"
"There isn't," Maya said, and she almost sounded peaceful. "This is what I was meant for. Why I have these powers. Why I met Damien. Why everything happened exactly like it did. I'm the key that locks the door, Damien. And keys have to be turned."
The creature's smile had disappeared. "Don't listen to her, Marcus. She doesn't know what she's talking about. If you unlock your power and attack the portal, you'll just—"
"I'll just what?" I interrupted. "Ruin your perfect plan? Yeah, I think that's exactly what I'll do."
I turned to Elena. "Do it. Unlock my magic."
"Marcus, if I do this, you might not survive," Elena warned. "The power could burn you alive."
"Then I'll burn," I said. "But at least I'll burn doing something that matters."
Elena closed her eyes, tears running down her face. Then she raised her hand and spoke a word in a language so old it made my bones ache.
The world exploded into fire.
Power erupted from somewhere deep inside me, roaring through my veins like lava. I felt my body starting to tear itself apart, unable to contain the magic flooding through it. But I didn't care. I reached out toward Maya, gathering every bit of power I'd just been given.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
And then I threw everything I had at her.
The magic hit the portal like a bomb. There was a sound like reality screaming, and then—
Everything went white.
When my vision cleared, I was lying on the ground, smoke rising from my clothes. The portal was flickering, unstable. Maya was falling, no longer suspended in its energy.
Damien caught her before she hit the ground. "Maya! Maya, wake up!"
But she wasn't moving.
And then I realized what I'd done.
I'd killed her.
I'd actually killed my own cousin to close the portal.
"No," I whispered, trying to crawl toward them. "No, no, no. Maya, please. I didn't mean—"
"You fool," the creature hissed. "You absolute fool. Did you really think killing her would close the portal?"
The doorway was still there, still glowing, still open. But now instead of Maya holding it open, there was something else. Something dark and terrible, crawling through from the other side.
"You didn't close the portal, Marcus," the creature said with a terrible smile. "You just removed the one thing keeping the real horror locked away. Meet the Timekeeper—the creature that eats entire timelines for breakfast."
A massive shadow emerged from the portal, with too many arms and eyes that looked in every direction at once. When it spoke, its voice made my brain hurt.
"FINALLY," it said. "I'VE BEEN WAITING FIVE THOUSAND YEARS FOR SOMEONE TO OPEN THIS DOOR."