55
Valen
Aphelian lunges at Tania.
I start running.
Aphelian roars. “If you refuse your destiny, if you will not see the truth for what it is, then you leave me no choice.” At her feet, several clumps of earth shift to reveal thick piles of vines. Giving up on my Fae legs, I slip into my wolf, increasing my speed.
It’s still not fast enough.
One of the piles grows huge, the vines thickening and snaking out, coming to a vicious point. Time comes to a screeching halt. Tania turns away from Aphelian, away from the life-and-death battle, and looks at me. Our gazes meet.
“I’m sorry. For all of this. The past, the present… The future. I’m going to do my best to stop her, but I promise you, you will survive this.”
What are you—
Time snaps back into place. Tania dives to the side as the razor-tipped vine approaches, but she’s too slow. The tip spears her gut. She screams as the vine carries her backward, the momentum hurtling her against the trunk of a massive tree. The front of her leathers is stained with blood. A moment later, she goes still.
I let go of my wolf and skid to a stop in the snow on two feet, holding my breath, waiting for the wound to affect me. I brace for the inevitable sting, the breathlessness and anxiety—the pain—but nothing happens. I clutch my side. Not even the smallest ghost of a feeling.
What did you do…
I’m met with silence. Cold, dark, deathly still.
“WHAT DID YOU DO?” In an instant, I’m breathless. The sudden loss of her warmth, the absence of her energy, is too much to bear. I fall to my knees in the snow. She’s either found a way to completely freeze out our link or…
No. She can’t—
“Go!” Someone hefts me to my feet and gives me a brutal shove. Gensted.
All around us, the ground shakes. The earth rumbles, and more creatures rise, these made of stone and dirt, covered in moss and bracken.
Gensted holds out his hand. A fireball forms, twitching and spinning like it’s desperate for something to feed on. He looks me in the eye. There it is. That glimmer of determination, of steely resolve. There’s no question that he and Tania are of the same blood. “We’ll deal with them. Go get her!”
Delkin and Benj come up on my right, while Suveo and Wren bring up the left. I glance back. Kopic stands at the head of the small group of guards he brought. Their weapons are drawn. He lifts his sword. “For the Winter Lands!”
The guards charge.
Aphelian turns to meet them, laughing. “Let it begin!”
As they all engage with the newly formed beasts, I race to Tania. It takes forever to cross the field, and when I reach her, she’s as still as death and as cold as I am.
“Tania?” I grab her face and lift her head. Her eyes are closed, and her breathing is shallow. Barely there, really. “Can you hear me?”
The only answer I get is silence.
I grip the vine protruding from her midsection. It freezes, and I shatter it, catching Tania as she slips from the trunk. I set her down gently, covering the wound with my hands.
Her eyes don’t open, but she stirs slightly. “Valen…?”
“Shh. I’m going to fix this.” I wasn’t lying before about not wanting to use the druid magic, but this is an emergency. I just hope I can reach it with the wall she’s put up.
Around us, the battle rages, and I do my best to focus. Closing my eyes, I concentrate on Tania. On her voice, her face, the way she makes me feel… This single person has touched me in a way no one else ever has. A way no one else ever can. We’re connected. Not just by the link but by our hearts. Our souls. We’re connected by this bond that everyone in our lives fought so hard against.
Before I knew the truth about my aunt Liani, I loved her. Still, if we’d been separated, I would have found a way to move on. There was nothing—no one—in my life that I couldn’t live without. Not until Tania.
That’s what I focus on. The unbreakable hold she has on me. The love, the pain, and everything in between. The clearing fades away, taking the battle with it…
I’m floating, rushing past random shapes and colors, scents so strong that they make me dizzy. I’m tumbling through time and space, and when it all stops whirling, I hit the ground hard at someone’s feet.
“Valen?”
I drag myself upright and blink to clear away the haze. Tania is standing on the edge of a cliff, looking out over a vast ocean. Above us, the sky is an assortment of colors, random clouds of white and gray bobbing.
“Where—where are we?” I ask.
She grabs my shoulders, squeezing like she needs to confirm I’m real. “How— You can’t be here!”
“Where is here?”
“This is the Dream. It’s the place between worlds. Druids are the only ones who have access to it. This is where she wanted me to—”
I cover her mouth. “Doesn’t matter. You need to focus. Help me tap into the druid magic so I can heal you.”
She doesn’t answer. Instead, she looks out over the ocean again, turning away from me.
“Tania!”
“I—I don’t think I can, Valen.” Sighing, she faces me. “Think about it. The wound I suffered out there…you’ve no sign of it. I can block you from feeling my emotions, some of the sensations, but I can’t block physical injury .”
“Then how—”
“The magic has reached the point of no return. It’s wild. Unpredictable. Maybe…maybe it’s trying to separate us.” She laughs. “Even the magic doesn’t want us together… I think the Dream is severing our link.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“It’s fine,” she says, taking my hand. “If the link is severed—or severely compromised—then that makes this easier for you. I think I can trap her in the Dream—like she wanted me to do to you, and—and I think I can destroy it.”
“With her inside?”
“Yes.”
“There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”
“I think I have to stay here in order to do it…”
“Permanently? No.”
“Valen, I don’t think there’s another way.”
“Why not?”
“The magic inside me has reached an apex, and I won’t be able to purge it and still have enough left to do what needs to be done. The druid magic is eating away at the Fae magic, and the Fae is eating the druid. Ice and fire…they’re at war. I’m not meant to be this way. No one is. Inside of me is just…chaos.”
The anger nearly brings me to my knees. How could she consider doing this? How could she think that I would— “No. There’s another way. There has to be.”
She takes my hand and presses it against her chest, over her heart. “Concentrate. You’ll see that I’m right.”
I want more than anything to tell her that she’s wrong, but she isn’t.
She pulls her hand from mine.
“Fine,” I say. “Then do it.”
“You have to leave, Valen.”
I fold my arms and stand my ground. “Nope. Use the druid power to pull her in if you think that’s what you have to do, but we’re going to trap her here—together—then get out and destroy the Dream.”
“I’m not sure I can destroy the Dream from out there. And even if I could, that won’t change the fact that I still have two court magics—”
“One problem at a time. Please .”
She hesitates.
“Please, Tania. Trust me.”
“I’ve held on to the druid magic too long. It’s starting to degrade me.”
One being was never meant to hold this much power. So, to me, the answer is simple. “Share the burden with me.”
“What?”
“Let me take half the power.” I grab her hands and force her to look at me. “Let me be your balance.”
“I’m not sure you could withstand it. You’re a full-blooded Winter Fae. If I can reopen the link and let you in—really let you in—I won’t be able to control what magic you can touch. I’m part Autumn Fae…”
Court magics cannot mix.
“You’re still standing. You have Winter and Autumn magic.”
“That’s true…” She sighs and pulls her hands away again. “But I think I’m different . Maybe being Fae and druid affords me some amount of immunity. Aphelian said something to me, back at the tree. She wanted me to claim the Autumn throne. She wouldn’t have said that if she believed it would kill me. She said I needed to purge the druid magic but not the Fae.”
“I’m willing to take the risk,” I say.
“But I’m not. Besides, you’re forgetting about my wound. It’s not progressing here in the Dream, but as soon as I leave—”
“So you get to sacrifice yourself, but I can’t?”
“Something like that.” She forces a smile. “And let’s be honest. You want the glory.”
“Damn right I do. When they write songs about this day, I refuse to be left out.” I hold my hand out to her.
She hesitates, then takes it.
“I’m with you, Tania. No matter what. Forever.”
She nods. Just once. “Ready?”
“Do it.”
Tania whispers something I can’t quite hear. A spell? There’s a flash of lightning and a tug from deep inside my chest. The serene cold I normally feel bleeds away, replaced by searing warmth. There’s something else, too. A kind of energy that makes me feel heady and light.
“I love—”
There’s a crack of thunder and another flash of lightning. This bolt strikes the ground in front of us, and when the dust clears, Aphelian is standing there.