Two Sides Of The Coin Oblivion Novels & Stories

Without Onyx, their toys were just heavy, useless pieces of metal. "It's too late, Marcus," Iris said. She didn't move her hand. She stood her ground next to the slumped, quiet body of Silas. "The world is watching now. I just opened the curtains, and the light is going to burn you." As she spoke, the most famous feature of the Vane estate began to change. The "Obsidian" glass walls, which had been pitch-black and private for decades, suddenly lost their tint. One by one, the massive panels turned perfectly clear. The darkness that had hidden the corruption, the deals, and the deaths for so long was stripped away in an instant.

High in the Spire of Applied Sciences, Malakor stood before a reinforced observation window. Inside the blast chamber sat the stolen Ember-Coin. Stripped from the Rogue Exchange, the stone had immediately sensed the severing of the "Bond." Its warm, steady orange glow had flickered and died, leaving behind nothing but a cold, smooth piece of river rock.

Across the crowded room, his eyes find mine. And everything stops. The noise fades. The pub disappears. There's just him and me and the impossible distance between us. Recognition flashes across his face. Then something darker. Something that makes my stomach flip. He doesn't smile. Doesn't wave. Just holds my gaze for one suspended heartbeat. Then he looks away. Returns to his conversation like nothing happened. But I saw it. That flicker. That crack in the composure. Beside me, Ines touches my arm. "You've gone pale."

They had seen this coin before and Savannah got it right. Baby Robbie chuckled and opened his hand. It was revealed that the coin had a cobra on the darker-colored side and poppies on the lighter-colored side. Baby Robbie said, “See, you’ve gotten it wrong. Hence, we’re not destined for each other after all. There’s no need for you to be so bothered by this fact. Everything is unpredictable.” Savannah appeared utterly defeated. Baby Robbie pulled his sisters and left while chuckling. “How’d you change the images on your coin, Robbie?” Baby Zetty asked curiously when they got out of the restaurant.

Leesa waited for it to reappear, but it never did. Dominic took out a second coin. This one he tossed down toward their feet, just outside the edge of the invisible ledge on which they stood. The coin kept going in that direction until it, too, disappeared. “There’s no way to tell which coin was actually falling and which was being drawn upward by the power we sense when our eyes are closed. Up might be down and down might be up. We can’t be sure.” Leesa was growing more discouraged by the moment. They were only going to get one shot at escaping, Dominic had said. How on earth were they supposed to choose which way to go?

I looked down at the coin in my hand. My mother’s voice echoing: “You can’t fail. You just haven’t remembered how to win yet.” If I gave it up… Would I still remember her face? Would I still be me? Kye was at my side. “You don’t have to do this.” “Yes,” I said. “I do.” Because the version of me that stayed behind? She hadn’t. That was the difference. I held out the coin. The wind howled. The coin dissolved. And the rift slammed shut. The clearing went still.

We were standing in a silver void, a blank canvas where the world used to be. "I don't need the world to remember me," I said, stepping forward. My wings were gone. My "Obsidian-Violet" skin was gone. I was just a girl in a tattered dress, standing in the middle of nothing. "I only need the 'Debt' to be paid." I reached into my chest, past the "Grit" and past the "Sovereign" frequency. I grabbed the "Void-Hybrid" spark—the unborn heir that had been feeding on the "Extinction." I didn't hold it like a child. I held it like a grenade.

He then dropped them. Bruce lowered his head in surrender while Mark turned aside in remorse. The coins I was holding vanished in thin air. Grip tugged me and place my hands above their heads. Bruce was on the left while Mark was on the other. “In evil there is light. In light there is evil,” I chanted.

"I choose the pain. I choose the truth." The sunny field vanished. They were back in the grey storm. The Oblivion seemed to ripple with frustration. Foolish. You cling to your anchors of grief. It turned its attention to the Remnant. And you. The little piece of the lock that forgot its purpose. You should have faded when the prison broke. Why do you persist? The Remnant stood, a spot of solid grey in the swirling chaos. "I am a consequence. And I have chosen a side." A side? The Oblivion's thought was a sneer. There are no sides. There is only the story, and the silence that comes after. I am the silence.