My attention returned to Aurelia. "Whatever happens after this is no longer my story to tell. But I hope you will."
"No!" Brutus lunged for me, intending to grab my legs and pull me down from the altar. But just as had happened with the Mistress, the moment he touched me, I called in the next bolt of lightning. My final bolt.
This one did hit me.
It entered my hand, starting with the bulla and running down my arm through the Malice. It raced through my shoulder and exploded inside my chest, then spread from there into every limb, and into my head, where I felt as if my brain had ignited with a power such as I never had understood before.
Brutus had vanished. He'd gotten one hand on me, which normally would've taken every bit of magic I had to continue with this storm. But the lightning took him first. Jupiter himself carried the Praetor back to the heavens. Brutus was gone.
Yet the lightning had not finished with me yet. Perhaps in the skies, a bolt lasted for only part of a second, yet it lingered in my body, weaving itself between every fiber of my existence. Raw, perfect energy poured into the rock held in my palm, filling it with a light that could only compare with the brightness and heat of the sun.
This was a Jupiter Stone, the power of the gods. Jupiter's powers, superior to all other gods. For that moment, standing within the bolt of lightning, I had that same power too. I felt everything, knew everything, and finally understood everything. I saw in my mind the past and future interwoven as one long thread, and myself in the center of time, holding both halves together.
Rome would fall, eventually, and much of civilization would collapse with it. But not yet, and, more important, not because of me. Other civilizations would gradually rise in its place all over the globe, achieving glories I never could have imagined on my own.
In my hand, the Jupiter Stone had drawn from the sheets that had fallen around me to become a sphere of bronze. Angular cracks split through the bronze like the antlers of a stag, while beams as bright as lightning shone through. It looked as if the lightning wanted to escape, but I knew what this really was. Jupiter, the ruler of the skies, was showing his power as greater than Diana's. It was the greatest magic both in the heavens and on the earth, the magic of the gods. At least for this small moment, I was one of them.
And all I asked of the stone was one command: Destroy the amulets.
The bulla responded first. It widened from the center, the gold stretching ever thinner and distorting the carved image of the griffin until it was unrecognizable. Finally, the seams burst, and when they did, the entire bulla exploded with it. The leather cord that had kept it around my neck fell harmlessly to the floor, the only proof that would ever remain of the bulla's existence.
The Malice went next. The silver melted down my arm in a long line that dripped in heavy beads onto the altar. Every falling drop landed like the clang of a hammer and then melted into the stone.
Finally, the Jupiter Stone enlarged until the room was bathed in its light. The beam it sent up through the oculus would be visible throughout all of Rome, perhaps throughout the empire. Perhaps as far away as wherever my family was now.
The Jupiter Stone had become bright enough to blind me, but nowhere I turned could shield me from its light.
Where was Aurelia? Was she still here? Was she safe?
"Destroy yourself," I whispered to the stone, fully aware of the consequences of my order.
Somewhere in the room, I thought I heard Aurelia crying out my name. She seemed so far away.
Lightning came down again, a bolt that filled the room. I took hold of it, drawing all of its powers into myself. When the stone exploded, the lightning entered my heart. I felt its final beat. I felt the moment it stopped.
And before I had fallen onto the altar below, my world had ended.
If you hold a wolf by the ears, eventually you'll get bit.
Isn't that what I tried to tell Nic, over and over? Why hadn't he listened?
My name is Aurelia. I suppose this is my story ... now. It's one I never wanted to tell, but I will.
If I had to describe what I saw, I would first speak of the noise, echoing throughout the Pantheon with such violence that it should have shattered the walls. But for me, it all happened in silence.
The lightning disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. And for a spare moment, I thought Nic would survive it. He looked at me, though I wasn't sure he saw me. Then there was a great flash of light, brighter than the lightning itself.
When the light vanished, he fell.
I screamed when it happened and lost my own grip on the wall. But before I landed, Caela appeared from out of nowhere to catch me. When we were a little lower to the ground, I jumped off her back, splashed into a full inch of water on the floor, and ran to where I could better see Nic.
His collapse onto the altar broke it into three pieces. The three pieces of his heart, I imagined. One for his family, who meant so much to him that he had repeatedly sacrificed his freedom for their protection. One for Atroxia, a young vestalis who was connected to him in ways I still didn't understand. But I did think she reminded him of himself, of his hope for forgiveness and mercy. The third piece was for me. He loved me. He had told me so, and I had felt it in his kiss.
Long before that, I had known how he felt. Even when he denied them, his feelings were never much of a mystery. Nic probably didn't even realize how often he stared at me when his mind was drifting off into other places. He stared, as if my face was the way he could rest from his troubles. I didn't mind that. I liked the expression in his eyes when he watched me. Besides, he always needed more rest.
He was resting now, just in a very different way. I hated this. His heart was torn apart on that altar. My heart felt torn apart too.
I screamed out again, my cries echoing throughout the Pantheon as a reflection of my pain. Smoke rose in quiet tendrils from Nic's body, and although some light rain had fallen for the first few seconds after he fell, it had stopped now. Everything had stopped now.