Chapter 43 — Rhiannon
Holden stands at the center of his crumbling ritual, power pouring into him in torrents that make his skin glow from within. His eyes have gone completely white, his pupils swallowed by stolen magic. He’s beyond reach now. Nothing but a vessel trying to contain an ocean.
My head whips toward Ethan the instant he falls.
Every instinct screams at me to abandon the plan and get to him. My wolf throws herself against my ribcage, clawing to reach our mate, to protect what’s ours.
But I’m the Commander first.
I reach through the bond instead, pushing past the static and chaos flooding the connection. For one terrible moment, I feel nothing. Hear nothing.
But then. . .there.
Faint. Battered. But present.
His heartbeat pulses against my awareness, weak but steady. His breath comes shallow and ragged, but it comes.
Alive. The word echoes through me like a prayer.
I lock my panic behind walls built with years of discipline and turn back to the objective.
Ethan did his part. Now, it’s my turn.
The prism’s surface is a web of fractures, iridescent light bleeding through each crack. The ward Ethan shattered can’t re-form — not fast enough.
Now or never.
I launch myself forward, my blade singing through the air. My wolf and I move as one, every muscle powering us forward in perfect sync. My strike lands on the prism’s apex, exactly where Ethan directed. Steel meets crystal.
Cracks spiderweb outward from the point of impact, racing across the surface faster than I can track them. Light pours through each fissure, bright and wild, no longer contained by Holden’s careful structure. For one suspended second, the prism holds together through sheer compression.
Then, it bursts.
Shards explode outward in a shower of razor-edged light. I throw up my arm to shield my face, but it’s not the crystal that hits me. It’s the power. The cornerstone’s collapse sends a shockwave rolling through the temple, and the force of it throws me back three steps.
The candles flare bright enough to blind before guttering out in perfect unison. The salt lines carved into the floor crack and splinter. The entire temple vibrates like a struck bell, a deep resonant hum that courses through my bones before it even reaches my ears.
And Holden. . .Holden is still channeling.
The magic he absorbed has nowhere to go now. There’s no prism to focus it, no ritual object to shape it. But Holden’s already given himself as a conduit, and the power doesn’t care that its container is insufficient.
It tries to flood into him anyway.
His back arches. His mouth gapes in a scream that produces no sound. Light pours from his eyes, his nose, his parted lips. Green-white brilliance forces its way out of every opening it can find. His desperate move isn’t working. The excess power has to find another vessel.
Yet, Holden manages to ground himself. I can see him fighting for control, his hands clawing at the air as if he can physically reclaim the current. The light sputters, then catches, like it’s become snagged on an invisible hook. A shiver runs up my spine. He’s reeling it back in.
A flash of white pulls my attention straight toward Ethan.
He’s still unconscious on the floor, his face pale as death, a rivulet of blood tracing a path from his nose across his cheek.
But his arm is outstretched toward where the prism stood, and the chain of Haron’s necklace is still looped around his wrist. His fingers still clutch the crystal charm in a white-knuckled grip.
The charm flares.
A sharp counter-pulse ripples outward from it, and the overflow of magic escaping through Holden becomes suspended. The charm’s interference holds it like a dam, preventing anyone from rerouting it.
Holden finally finds his voice. “No— NO! It’s MINE—”
But the magic doesn’t belong to him. It never did.
With the tether broken and Holden unable to control it, the stolen power snaps back to its true course. Another bright stream of light erupts from Holden’s body and races away from the temple, threading through stone and sky, returning to its rightful owner: Stasio.
The magic has taken its toll on Holden.
The backlash burns him from the inside out. His skin begins to glow, then to crack, lines of white-hot light splitting across his face like fault lines during an earthquake. His robes disintegrate in a blaze without flames. His silver hair turns to vapor before my eyes.
One moment, he’s standing there, at the pinnacle of every treacherous scheme he ever hatched, every innocent person he hurt in pursuit of power he didn’t deserve.
The next, he’s simply gone.
His body collapses in on itself, flesh and bone and misguided ambition reduced to nothing but gray powder that settles in a small mound on the scorched floor.
The only thing that survives is a small crystal charm — his own protective talisman, identical to the one Haron gave Ethan — sitting atop the pile like a grave marker.
The temple falls silent.
I stand there for one heartbeat. Two. My blade suddenly feels heavy hanging loose in my grip, dead weight in my fingers. The ringing in my ears fades, replaced by the soft whisper of settling ash.
The pressure dissipates. The thickness in the air lifts, losing that viscous quality that made every breath feel like swallowing tar. My lungs expand fully for the first time since we entered.
Then, I’m moving.
I drop to my knees beside Ethan, my sword clattering, forgotten, against the stone. My hands find his face, his throat. I’m pressing my fingers against the pulse point beneath his jaw. His skin is cold and clammy, but his heartbeat pushes back against my touch.
“You did it, Ethan.” I brush dried blood from his cheek. “You reckless, impossible human.”
Xander approaches the small mound of ash and kneels beside what remains of Holden. His expression is unreadable as he reaches down and plucks the crystal charm from the pile, turning it over in his palm.
“Is it over?” Branson’s voice is rough, exhausted.
Xander rises slowly, tucking the charm into his pocket.
“Holden is dead. The ritual is broken.” He pauses, his silver-blue eyes sweeping the ruined temple.
“But this victory cuts both ways. Stasio will wake to find his son reduced to dust. Haron has lost her brother.” A muscle in his cheek jumps.
“And while we may have done our best to prevent war today, our alliance with the Shaman...” He shakes his head.
I gather Ethan into my arms, careful to support his head. Haron’s charm dangles from his wrist, still faintly warm where it brushes against my forearm. His weight settles against my chest, and my wolf finally calms.
Xander arrives at my side. “Is he—”
“He’s going to be okay,” I say. “I can feel it.”
Behind us, Akila crouches over Conan, her hands pressing against the wound in his side. “Conan, we’re going to get you help, okay?” Blood seeps between her fingers and she presses harder. “Stay with me, you idiot. You better stay with me.”
Conan’s eyes flutter open, and they’re glazed over with pain. A weak laugh rattles in his chest. “Hey... Did anyone else...hear the human in their head?” His lips twitch into something resembling a grin. “Or have I finally lost it?”
“Save your breath for breathing,” Branson growls, already moving to lift him up.
I tighten my grip on Ethan.
“We need to get them both to Olcan. Now.”
The infirmary doors crash open under my palms.
“Olcan!”
Branson shoulders through the doors behind me, Conan’s limp form draped across his arms. Akila stays pressed to Conan’s side, her hands crimson and slick where they apply pressure to his wound.
Her effort isn’t stopping the flow. Blood wells between her fingers with every step, leaving a trail of dark droplets across the stone floor.
Xander follows last, and my wolf’s hackles rise before I can stop them.
Ethan hangs half-conscious in his grip, his arm looped slack around Xander’s neck, his head lolling against the Alpha’s shoulder.
The scent of Conan and Ethan’s blood slams into me the second they cross the threshold: copper and iron mixed together and thick enough to taste.
It cuts through the sharper bite of antiseptic herbs and the stale metallic tang already clinging to the infirmary’s stone walls.
Too many bodies crowd the space, radiating heat that makes the blood-smell worse.
But underneath it all, weaving through the air like it knows my lungs are desperate for it, is Ethan’s cinnamon musk. It’s all wrong, though — corrupted by the scent of wounds that shouldn’t belong anywhere near him.
My wolf locks onto Xander like a guided missile and protests. My human is in his arms.
I suppress her with a snarl that nearly escapes my throat.
He is our Alpha, I remind her. Back at the temple, when my hands wouldn’t stop shaking and Ethan wouldn’t wake up, Xander had taken him from me. Not cruelly. Not possessively. Just efficiently.
“I’ve got him,” he’d said, his Alpha voice disallowing argument. “Now lead your team, Commander.”
I didn’t like it. Still don’t. My wolf had almost snapped at him, her teeth bared with something primal and possessive that had nothing to do with rank. But, I obeyed. Because I’m trained to. Because duty can’t bend for the desperate howling in my chest.
Olcan appears from the back room, already moving and assessing. His eyes sweep the scene in a single practiced glance — Conan first, then Ethan.
He reaches Branson and presses two fingers to Conan’s throat and checks his pallor, peeling back Akila’s hands just long enough to see the wound saturation beneath.
“Surgical room. Now.” He turns toward Akila. “Keep maintaining pressure until I say otherwise.”
He turns to Ethan next and checks his responsiveness. Ethan stirs, looking around weakly. Olcan notes the dried blood beneath his nose, the faint shimmer of magic residue clinging to his skin.