Chapter Eight
I blink against the searing white.
Not light. Not darkness. Just…nothing. Endless and soundless, stretching in every direction like the world has been erased and forgotten.
I don’t hurt.
The pain that was tearing me apart has vanished so completely it leaves me disoriented. I lift my hands, expecting blood, wounds, something, but there’s nothing. I can’t even feel the constant pulse of the bond.
“Lyra.”
I turn.
Rowan stands a few paces away, whole and unbroken, his wings still torn but the gold veins have been wiped from his skin. For a moment I can only stare at him, because the last time I saw him, he was dying. We both were.
“You’re here,” I breathe.
“So are you,” he says softly.
Understanding creeps in, slow and cold.
“We’re dead,” I whisper.
Rowan’s mouth curves. “Not exactly.”
The white around us begins to hum.
The air thickens, pressing against my skin, and before I can ask what’s happening, Rowan’s body lifts from the ground. He inhales sharply as white-gold light bursts from his chest, pouring out of him in violent streams.
“Rowan!” I cry, scrambling toward him, but I can’t reach him. He’s too high.
The light intensifies, threading through his arms, his spine, his wings. His broken feathers ignite, not in flame, but in brilliance, burning away piece by piece. They dissolve into sparks that rise and vanish into the white above us until his wings disappear entirely.
The light collapses inward with a thunderous crack, and Rowan drops.
He hits nothing but lands in a heap at my feet. Falling to my knees beside him, I grab his arm and shake him, desperate to get him to wake.
“Rowan! Rowan! Please!”
Groaning, he looks up at me. “What…What happened?”
“I don’t know.” I glance at his back. “But your wings. They’re gone.”
“What?” He pushes to his feet and reaches over his shoulder to find only bare skin. “How?”
“And the gold…” Standing, too, I point to his chest.
He nods toward mine. “Yours, too.”
He’s right. When I look down, my skin—all of it—is unblemished. No gashes or blood. As if the fight with the Order never happened at all.
Rowan holds his hands in front of him and turns them, like he doesn’t recognize the body he’s been left with. I know what I saw. I know what I felt. But besides that, nothing makes sense.
“I don’t understand,” he says. “I’m…”
A voice answers from behind him.
“Just a man.”
Rowan stiffens.
I look up to see a woman suddenly there, the endless white folding in on itself to give her shape.
She’s beautiful in the way storms are beautiful.
Powerful but untouchable. Something you admire from afar and can destroy everything in its path.
Wine-red lips. Golden hair pulled back from a face carved from marble.
She’s naked, her body the perfect womanly shape, breasts full and high, with skin glistening as if touched by the sun.
Her wings unfurl slowly behind her, radiant white feathers that shimmer gold with the slight movement. It’s breathtaking to behold.
“Ceri.” Rowan bows slightly.
He knows her? Is she another Cupid? She must be.
“Don’t punish her,” Rowan says, moving in front of me. “Strike me down. I’m the one who broke our rules. Again.”
What, no! I don’t even want to imagine what the gods will do to him this time, now that he’s disobeyed them a second time.
But Ceri ignores him and steps closer. “You love her.”
It’s a statement. Not a question. But he doesn’t deny it. “I do.”
“There are rules,” she says. “The curse has taught you nothing.”
My heart lurches.
She turns her attention to me. “And you, human, you have fallen in love with him?”
I hesitate. Will my confession damn him? Should I lie?
“It’s okay, Lyra,” Rowan whispers with a small smile. “You cannot keep the truth from the god of passion and love. She can see what your heart most desires.”
A god?
Fear races through me. So not just an angel, like him. She’s the god of Cupids.
I nod, and take a deep breath to try and calm myself. “I have.”
“I see,” Ceri says. Her gaze flicks between us. “It is a soul bond. You have found the one your soul was created for.”
Rowan and I glance at each other, and his hand reaches out to weave his fingers through mine.
Ceri’s sharp blue eyes latch onto that connection. “Love that deep, that ultimate, breaks even the gods’ work.”
“What does that mean?” I ask. Hope flutters. “The curse is broken?”
She lifts her hand, and the air hums. “But it does not erase punishment.”
Rowan’s jaw tightens.
“Again, you defied divine law, Rowan,” she says calmly. “You claimed the heart of a mortal, you laid in sin with her, and you bled holy blood into the soil.”
“I gave myself freely!” I say. “As you said, our souls were destined to be together.”
“And that is the only reason why you live,” she snaps, her annoyance palpable. I shrink back.
“You’re letting us go?” Rowan asks.
Her gaze hardens on him. “You will live—”
He exhales, shaky.
“—on earth, as a mortal,” Ceri continues. “No wings. No immortality. No power beyond what a human man may claim. You will age. You will suffer. And you will die.”
Silence stretches.
“Rowan…” I start, tone low. “I couldn’t ask you to give all that up…for me.”
But Rowan only pulls his shoulders back and nods. “As long as I can live the rest of my existence with her, I accept.”
Ceri turns to me, her massive wings folding in. Her expression softens, just a fraction. “Very well. And so it shall be.”
When she lifts her hand again, Rowan’s feather lifts from my belt, hovering in the air before drifting into her palm as if drawn by invisible currents. I watch, stupefied, unable to move.
As Ceri’s fingers close around the frayed, fragile feather, the air around us pulsates, and light gathers again, not violent this time, but vast. With a single, deliberate squeeze, the feather’s spine snaps, along with the white void around us.
The forest clears around us, the familiar sounds of buzzing insects and wind filling the air. I gasp, blinking rapidly as my eyes adjust to the darkness from the blinding white. And when I can focus, I find Rowan immediately.
He’s standing across the clearing. No wings, no glow, just a man. One that owns my entire heart. The bond between us is quiet now, muted, but I can feel it lingering beneath the surface, a chain that will never break.
I run to him without thinking, and he steps forward, arms opening instinctively. I throw myself against him, burying my face in his chest, and he wraps me in his strong embrace. All the terror, the pain, and the chaos of what we just survived melts away in the warmth and honeyed scent of him.
“It’s over,” he whispers. There’s a thread of relief in his tone I don’t miss. “It’s over, Lyra.”
I lift my head and look up at him. “But you lost your wings. You’ve been trying to restore them for so long, and now…”
“I don’t need my wings anymore.” His hands trace my face, cupping my chin. “Now we can have a real life now. Together.”
And I believe him.
He leans down, brushing his lips against mine in a feather-soft kiss. It tastes like hope, like fire finally tamed. I press closer, standing on my toes to wrap my arms around his neck.
“Lyra, my love,” Rowan mutters. “Our life is waiting. Ours, Lyra. All of it.”
“You don’t mind mortality?” I ask. “Of one day it all ending? Of dying?”
He laughs. “If it’s five minutes or five hundred years, I’ll cherish every second I’ve been given with you.”
I smile, my heart swelling with so much love, it may just burst. “And then in the next lifetime.”
“Yes,” he breathes, and presses his forehead against mine. “I’ll find you. Always.”
The End