Chapter 66
Chapter Sixty-Six
T he world didn’t stop.
The sun didn’t dim.
The air didn’t tear itself apart.
It should have.
It should have.
The late afternoon sunlight caught her hair, making it glow—chestnut and gold—like she wasn’t even dead.
Like she was just sleeping.
But her skin was already paling. Her lips, once so warm and alive, already cooling. Her beautiful green eyes—my eyes—would never open again.
Gentle hands—Maalikai’s hands—tried to pull me back, but I tore away.
“Mom.” I shook her shoulder, gentle at first.
“Mom. Mom—Mommy.” The last word broke inside me, splintering like frozen stalactites.
I knew.
Gods, I knew she wouldn't answer.
But I needed her to.
I needed her.
Fissures spiderwebbed through my soul, hairline cracks widening until there was nothing left to hold me together.
Tentatively, I ran a hand across her cheek.
Still soft.
Still warm.
I pressed my lips to her forehead—desperately clinging to the fading heat.
If we had gotten here sooner?—
If I had been faster?—
If —
The willow branches stirred above us, peaceful.
Mocking.
A world that didn’t know how to mourn her.
I bowed my head over her body, my forehead resting against her cooling skin.
“May you rest with the Goddess Elessandria," I whispered through broken sobs. "Every morning the sun rises, I will know you’re still looking down on me.” A shattered breath stilled me. “Tell Dad I love him. Tell him— Tell him I’m sorry."
I pressed my hands flat against her chest, as if I could push my soul into hers and drag her back.
"I love you," I choked out. "I love you."
Fresh sobs tore free, unstoppable now.
There would be no burial.
No rites.
No sending her soul properly to the Goddess.
Her body would be left to the elements—beautiful even in death, and utterly, irretrievably gone.
Something inside me broke.
Not cracked.
Shattered.
A scream ripped itself from my throat, ragged and guttural, louder than anything I had ever made before.
The earth answered.
The ground trembled under my knees. The trees shuddered. The air itself seemed to groan, the world protesting with me, the very bones of the land aching for her loss.
But it wasn’t enough.
Nothing would ever be enough.
“Princess?”
Maalikai’s voice sounded far away. A crackle against the roaring void swallowing me whole.
I didn’t turn.
I didn’t breathe.
My head snapped up—thirty men, maybe more, armor gleaming like beacons calling my wrath.
My scream shattered the stillness, dragging them toward us. I rested my palm against Akaela’s rough skin—siphoning as much power as she would give me.
One second, the world was frozen.
The next—I was the storm.
Power crackled through me, roaring, shrieking, drowning every broken part of me.
Hyperventilating, I tried—failed—to pull in air.
Starbursts exploded behind my eyes.
The ground cracked wide, the roar of it louder than my heartbeat.
A giant chasm tore the battlefield open, the earth splitting with a howl of rage—swallowing soldiers whole.
“Look at me!”
Hands.
Hands on my shoulders, desperate.
Maalikai. Shaking me.
“Shit—your eyes—they're completely white.” His voice was nothing against the pulsing in my veins.
Against the fire already licking my skin.
Heat burned across my face. Through my entire body. Claiming me. The earth erupted with fire, spewing from chasms like it had a mind of its own.
“EMYLIA. LOOK AT ME!”
Maalikai’s voice was insistent, commanding me to obey him.
But I couldn't.
I couldn't.
There was no "me" anymore.
Only the storm.
Only the scream that wouldn’t come out.
Thunder rolled, splitting the sky open. Grey clouds choked the sun, dragging the world into darkness.
Lightning struck.
Once.
Twice.
Almost simultaneously, consecutive lightning strikes danced intricately, surrounding us in a wall of chaos. Striking the ground, finding my prey one by one, rendering them motionless, setting the world on fire.
Fire danced down my arms, wrapping around my fingers.
Hungry.
Greedy.
I threw it without thinking, without aiming?—
just rage?—
just fire?—
just death.
Heat flooded me, burning my veins into nothing. Flames burst from my chest, licking my skin, devouring my bones—it should’ve hurt. It should’ve ended me.
But it didn’t.
It fed me.
Made me stronger.
Wilder.
The stench of burning cloth clawed down my throat, tearing tears from my eyes. My clothes were gone, scorched away. My humanity was gone too.
The price of my power?
My soul.
The magik tore through me, feeding on me, gorging on everything that was still human.
And I—I let it.
A blade of ice snapped into my palm. I hurled it—felt it skewer bodies like they were made of air, made of nothing—I watched them fall.
The power was vindictive and unapologetic.
The last seven enemies didn't even scream.
The water rose up and swallowed them whole.
Still—it wasn’t enough.
It would never be enough.
I needed blood.
I needed screams.
I needed the world to burn.
A fissure tore open inside me—deeper than bone—deeper than soul.
“Emylia, they're dead!” Maalikai’s voice slammed into me.
I didn’t care.
“If you don't stop, you'll die!”
Let the power claim me. I didn’t care anymore.
“Let it!” I growled—or maybe I screamed it—the words weren't mine anymore.
Nothing was.
"I refuse to lose you!" He sounded broken.
Fractured.
Something sacred shattering.
But it wasn’t enough.
The sea roared to one side. The trees screamed on the other. I threw my head back, laughing—sobbing—some horrible mixture of both.
"I AM THE STORM!"
I roared it so loudly the ground cracked again under my feet.
Power flooded me, a second skin made of fire and rage and magik too old to name.
“NO!” Maalikai’s voice ripped across the space between us—and then?—
Heat.
Lips.
Salt.
Tears.
Pine.
Mint.
Maalik.
He crashed into me, kissing me so fiercely it burned more than the flames.
The bond between me and the Gods—the leash they had wrapped around my soul—shattered.
Because Maalikai’s kiss—Maalik's love—was stronger.
I was his.
He was mine.
I was not ready to be claimed by anyone else yet.
Not even the Gods.
He kissed me with a passion that claimed every inch of me, claimed my soul. The saltiness of my tears made it a hot, broken mess. He pulled away, forehead resting against mine, his breath ragged, broken.
“Where did you go?” he whispered.
I didn’t know how to answer. I didn’t know how to tell him that parts of me were already ashes. That some parts of me were never coming back.
Hollowness settled into my chest. An abyss filled with a promise I knew I could never tell him about pulsed with every beat of my heart.
"I'm right here," I lied.
He looked at me like he could see the cracks, the bleeding edges of my soul. His storm-infused eyes shattered the remaining pieces of my already crumbled heart.
“I thought I was going to lose you.”
“Never,” I whispered—and we both knew it was a lie. A promise I could never keep.
“Don't ever do that to me again. Okay?” The look in his eyes stole my will to breathe.
Before I could answer—before the truth could poison the moment—he laced his fingers through mine. And without another word, he pulled me away.
From the battlefield.
From the blood.
From everything I'd lost and everything I could never get back.
From the ashes of the girl I'd once been.
From the ruin of the girl I'd just become.
From the girl I had just eradicated in a single moment.
"What about Mom? I have to bury her." The words cracked out of me, so raw it felt like my ribs would splinter.
I looked back at her lifeless body—my mother—gone.
Cold.
Empty.
Her life ripped away with the ease of a breath—like it cost them nothing.
"Emylia, we can't," Maalikai said, his voice barely breathing. "If we don’t leave now, they'll find us. They'll kill us."
I squeezed my eyes shut. If we didn’t leave this second—we would die too.
If I wanted retribution—for her, for all of them—I needed to survive.
Survive today.
So I could kill them all tomorrow.
But I couldn’t—I couldn’t leave her like this.
I stumbled toward Akaela. Pressed my hand against her bark. Siphoned until the tree groaned with the force of it.
Not carefully.
Not gently.
I ripped the power from her—like grief tearing from my chest—and commanded the earth to move.
The ground split open. A shallow grave, trembling beneath her. Waiting for her.
I didn't stop.
Couldn't stop.
I pulled the metal from the soil, my hands shaking, molding it with blind desperation. An intricate casket, shaped to fit the woman who had been my world.
And still it wasn't enough.
I called the water—summoned it like a scream—and froze it over the metal until it gleamed like diamond. Until it shone like something precious enough to hold her.
As long as Akaela lived—so would she.
Her magik.
Her memory.
Her love.
It was the only thing I could give her. The only thing I had left.
It wasn't enough.
But it was something.
More than I'd given anyone else I loved today.