Chapter 37
Chapter thirty-seven
Dyfri
The abandoned shopping mall feels like a monument to human excess and failure.
Empty storefronts stretch in both directions, their security gates pulled down like sleeping eyelids.
The fountain in the centre has been dry for years, filled now with debris and the detritus of urban decay.
Our voices echo strangely in the cavernous space, bouncing off broken tiles and shattered glass.
It’s another desolate, empty place for a meeting, but at least this one offers multiple escape routes and clear sightlines.
I’m sitting at a makeshift table constructed from shopping trolleys and plywood, surrounded by the familiar faces of our inner circle.
Cai is across from me. Beside him, Kirby traces complex magical formulae in the air while Harlen takes meticulous notes.
Their easy partnership, the way they work together like parts of a single organism, still fascinates me.
Silas paces nearby, his pale features sharp with concentration as he reviews our calculations for perhaps the hundredth time. Every few minutes he stops to peer at Kirby’s work, offering corrections in that blunt, no-nonsense way of his.
We’re working on the fine-tuning now, the delicate nuances of the spell weaving we’re going to cast to close the portals.
The broad strokes have been mapped out, but magic of this complexity requires absolute precision.
All of us working together in perfect synchronicity.
Each of us contributing a strand in the weaving of the most complex, metaphorical braid ever attempted.
A single misstep could unravel everything we’ve worked toward.
Jack sits slightly apart from our magical discussions, calm and supportive in that steady way of his.
He has no need to be here, the theoretical aspects of portal magic are far beyond his education.
But his presence somehow lends quiet strength to our efforts, like an anchor point of humanity in our increasingly intricate planning.
And he lends strength to me. He makes me feel brave. As if anything is achievable.
Every so often his eyes find mine across the space between us, offering silent encouragement. After last night’s revelations and confessions, after finally kissing him, the world feels different. More solid. More possible.
“The resonance cascade needs to trigger within point-seven seconds of initial activation,” Kirby is saying, his fingers dancing through equations that shimmer like starlight. “Any longer and the feedback loop will…”
A cracking sound echoes through the mall like thunder. Loud, violent and sharing.
My body recoils. My heart hammers.
Cai crashes to the ground, a neat hole punched through his forehead. Blood pools beneath his head, stark red against the dirty white tiles.
The sound was a gunshot. An attack by a sniper.
For a heartbeat, nobody moves. The sight is so unexpected, so impossible, that my mind refuses to process what I’m seeing. From one second to the next, everything has changed. Everything.
Then Silas explodes into motion.
“MI5 motherfuckers!” he snarls, his usual composure shattered as he sprints toward the upper level where the shot originated. The speed of his movements is pure wolf. Pure fury.
The puzzle pieces click together in my mind with horrible clarity.
MI5 have done their calculations and analysis.
They’ve concluded that Rhydian is going to win this war, that the fey will maintain their hold on Earth.
So they’ve chosen to back the winning horse, in the hopes that the future will provide a more certain opportunity for liberation.
In the meantime, they’ve decided to get into bed with their occupiers.
Taking out Cai is more than an assassination, it’s the strategic elimination of our only hope.
Harlen and Kirby drop to their knees beside Cai’s body, utterly distraught. Kirby’s hands hover over the wound as if he can somehow will it closed through pure desperation. Harlen’s face is white with shock, tears already streaming down his cheeks.
“No, no, no,” Kirby whispers, his voice breaking. “You can’t. We need you. I need you.”
Their grief hits me like a physical blow. These men who love each other so completely, who’ve built their entire world around their partnership. Watching them crumble is almost unbearable.
In the distance, I hear the thunder of dragon wings. Cai’s mount, feeling his rider’s death through their bond. The sound is mournful, haunting, a funeral dirge that echoes through the empty mall.
A strange thought flickers through my mind as I watch Harlen and Kirby weep over their husband’s body. I wonder if Jack would cry over my corpse like that. I wonder what it would be like to be loved and have someone fall apart at losing me.
And how would I feel if MI5 had decided to take Jack out?
The image of Jack shot and bleeding flashes unbidden through my consciousness, and the thought is so awful that bile rises in my throat.
My hands clench into fists as nausea rolls through me.
The idea of losing him, of watching that warm light fade from his eyes, is more terrifying than any torture the court could devise.
Angrily, I shake my head to clear it. Now is really not the time to get sentimental. I need to focus. There are actions that need to be taken. Work that needs to be done.
I look around for Silas, hoping to see him returning victorious. But there’s no sign of him in the maze of storefronts and shadows. I don’t think he’s going to make it back in time to help us. If Cai isn’t brought back right now, whatever is resurrected later won’t be him.
Everything hinges on Cai. Our entire plan, the salvation of both worlds, depends on his unique ability to channel and weave the magical energy of his husbands and all the dragons. It’s precisely why MI5 took him out, they understood the mathematics as well as we did.
Without him, we have no hope of closing the portals. Earth remains open, and the Resistance dies with him.
I stare down at Cai’s still form, at the blood spreading beneath his head like spilled wine. Harlen is sobbing now, raw sounds of anguish that tear at something deep in my chest. Kirby has gone silent, his face blank with the kind of shock that comes before complete breakdown.
This is it, then. The end of everything we’ve worked toward.
Unless...
I exhale slowly, feeling the weight of decision settle over me like a familiar coat. It is the last of my secrets, the final truth I’ve kept hidden even from myself sometimes. Maybe letting it go will feel freeing.
The power that flows through my veins isn’t just fey magic amplified beyond normal limits. It’s something darker, more primal. Something that touches the boundary between life and death and delves into the depths of forbidden knowledge.
I am not just powerful. I am a necromancer.
Moving with calm deliberation, I kneel beside Cai’s body. Harlen looks up at me with desperate hope, as if he senses that I might have answers they don’t.
“What are you doing?” Kirby whispers, his voice hoarse from crying.
I don’t answer. Instead, I place my hands on Cai’s chest, feeling for the echo of what he used to be. Death is not always final, sometimes it’s merely a doorway that can be reopened if you know the right way to knock.
I reach out with senses that most people don’t possess, searching for the trail of his departed soul.
And as I suspected, I find it hasn’t gone very far.
Death came too quickly, too suddenly. He’s hovering nearby, confused and unmoored but not yet fully departed. Love is anchoring him to this realm.
The necromancy flows through me like dark honey, sweet and terrible and absolutely forbidden. I grasp Cai’s soul with metaphysical hands and pull it back toward its abandoned vessel.
“Come back,” I whisper, pouring power into the command. “You’re needed here. They need you.”
For a moment, nothing happens. Then Cai’s chest hitches with a sudden, gasping breath. His eyes fly open, wide and startled and beautifully, wonderfully alive.
Kirby gasps, but he doesn’t falter. He knows what needs to be done. Magic flows from him as he heals his husband’s awful wound.
Cai sits up abruptly, one hand flying to his forehead where the bullet hole is already sealing over with new flesh. The blood remains, but the wound itself knits closed as if it never existed.
“What…” he starts, then stops as Harlen and Kirby throw themselves at him in a tangle of desperate embraces.
“You were dead,” Kirby sobs into his neck. “You were dead and I thought…”
“I’m here,” Cai soothes, his arms coming around both his husbands. “I’m here. It’s alright.”
I stand up slowly, my legs unsteady from the magical exertion. Resurrection takes more out of me than most spells, touching as it does the fundamental forces that govern existence.
Jack is looking at me with an expression I can’t quite read. It doesn’t look like the horror I deserve. It looks like something closer to awe, mixed with a pride that makes my chest tight.
Quick footsteps announce Silas’s return. He emerges from the maze of storefronts covered in blood, pushing gore-matted hair out of his eyes with the back of one crimson-stained hand. The blood clearly isn’t his, he is moving with his usual fluid grace, unmarked by injury.
He takes in the scene before him. Cai alive and embracing his husbands, me standing nearby with residual magic still crackling around my hands and telling the story of what happened.
“Nice work,” he grins, seeming not at all surprised that I am also a necromancer. Perhaps he recognised the signs, or perhaps he simply expected no less from a half-unseelie prince.
The dragon riders look up from their reunion, faces streaked with tears but glowing with gratitude.
“Thank you,” Harlen says, his voice thick with emotion. “Thank you for bringing him back to us.”
Kirby nods emphatically. “Thank you.”
These people know how dangerous it is to thank a fey. They understand that I can twist their words into powerful weavings. Yet still they thank me. Freely and without reserve.
Jack steps closer, tears still drying on his face, but smiling. That warm, proud smile that makes me feel like I can conquer worlds. He takes my hand and squeezes it, his touch steady and accepting and completely without fear.
“Well done, Love,” he murmurs, and the simple words nearly undo me completely.
I am astonished. I must be hallucinating. I cannot believe I have revealed my necromancy powers and they don’t all hate me. Don’t fear me. They aren’t looking at me like I’m something unnatural and wrong.
My lungs stutter as I try to process this impossible acceptance. It is too much. Too overwhelming. Far more shocking than the sudden destruction of a sniper’s bullet.
Dimly, I’m aware my body is trembling like an autumn leaf. My muscles suddenly weaker than a newborn fawn’s. Is it magic exertion or emotions that are causing this malady? I have no idea.
Jack pulls me into his embrace. He wraps his strong arms around me and holds me. He keeps me upright. He lends me his body heat and his strength.
I sink into his hug. I feel better already. He always has this effect on me. Whatever the problem, Jack is the cure. And that is something I could very much get used to.
I wrap my arms around Jack, and just like that, I can breathe. Far easier than I ever have before. For the first time in my life, I’m daring to believe that everything just might turn out okay.
There is a future for me, and it might actually be good.
“Right then,” Silas says, wiping blood from his hands with a cloth that materialises from nowhere. “Shall we get back to saving the world? I believe we have portals to close.”
“Let’s move to a better location first!” Harlen says sternly.
Cai laughs, the sound bright and alive. “Yes. Let’s finish this.”
And for the first time since this whole mad endeavour began, I truly believe we can.