Chapter 50
Chapter
Fifty
Titus
Irefused to let Sable speak. Nothing good would spew forth from her dying lips. I understand better than most the power a fae wields in their final moments. I watch her burning body, the flesh curling like paper, charring, ripping, revealing muscles, tendons, and finally bone.
Soft shields, that’s all we are in the end, yet we can cause so much damage.
Sable almost won. The minute she touched that sword, a knot formed in my gut. Hector—the last hidden pawn Everett played—prevented her from winning.
Many questions need to be answered. Now we have time to solve them. To understand the runes, keep them safe and secure.
“I’ll show the world love,” I declare.
The smile Sable painted on her dying lips doesn’t fade. It’s a candle wick that carries the fire, rather than allowing it to consume her. It remains until it hits bottom, her skin slides off, and falls into the fire below.
Tristen, Ryker, Adrian… I did it!
Tristen? Shit, he’d better be okay!
Cyrus, Nero, Ember… I’m sorry I didn’t tell you my mission, but I did it! We can celebrate as a family!
Turning, I see the Vitalis, covered in flames, but it’s immortal to my fire.
Reaching down, I grab it and the sword. The minute I lift the blade, a power surges through me.
I feel invincible, energetic, deadlier. I’m the sword, refined, forged, altered.
This is what Sable felt, how she pulled the blade free.
If Hector hadn’t betrayed her, she would have slain us all.
I’m tempted to drop the blade. Is this what I need to keep the book safe?
This mission Everett forced upon me was like falling into a cactus. At first, your wounds don’t look bad, you pull yourself up. But up close, deep within your flesh, there are a million thorns. One step at a time, I have removed them. Made the world safer for my mate.
So many lives were forced to merge so I could get this book, so the future has hope and light, not darkness.
I step through the fire, spotting my mate. “We did it, Selene,” I laugh. That sound hasn’t emerged from my chest in so long.
I want to make it again as I hold her, as I build a home with her, and start a family. I want to savor her, protect her, cherish her. I want to fight at her side. I want to be a ruler worthy of a queen like her.
The world feels warm for the first time in so long. When we exit this tunnel, will the sun refresh me as others say it does?
Again, I close my eyes and breathe out. We did it.
I know there are battles ahead, but shit, I want to jump, climb a mountain, and scream my victory at the top.
I want to lay my mate down on that mountain’s edge and make love to her, under the sky that still twinkles because we’re still alive, as is our world.
My eyes snap open. Selene sways, eyes filled with tears. Her silk clothing is torn and dirty, like my motivation was before I first laid eyes on her. Her complexion is pale, as shallow as our success was. I silence my flames, hoping it brings some life back into her beautiful face.
Oh shit! My fire. I shouldn’t have let the fire burn so hot. I just lost control. Fire… I burned her twin! I burned a fae and desecrated their body.
Selene’s eyes lower to my feet. Slowly, they rise, measuring every inch of me, as if it’s the first time she’s spotted me.
I expect outrage and disgust. But her lips twist when she looks at our mating mark.
It tugs and pulls me… but not in the way I hoped for.
It’s filled with sorrow, and something deeper I can’t decipher yet, because… she’s blocking me.
Shit! I know she hated her twin, but she just lost another member of her family, and then I burned the body. That has to affect a person.
I step closer. It’s okay. I’m here. I’m going to keep us safe. I know we still have foes to face, but for just one moment, I want to celebrate.
I raise the sword and the book. I started this journey to save myself; I ended it to save Selene.
“Selene,” I’m sorry I lost control.
She sways forward, like jello poured too early from its mold.
“Selene!” She’s falling, slipping from my eyes, the ground pulls her lower and lower.
I empty my hands, diving forward to catch her.
“Selene!” I land on my knees, cradling her to my chest. Her sad eyes look to where Sable burns.
A sick feeling tethers me to it, and then she stops blocking her emotions from me.
“I’m sorry,” she chokes. Instead of her shock over my actions, or love for me, I feel… a departure. Distance. Things she kept hidden.
“Selene! I…what’s happening?” I force her eyes to mine and look at her mate mark. I cover my palm with it. Why does it feel faint? She’s in my arms! I’m holding her!
“I don’t understand.” I declare in sheer panic.
I hold her tighter, but it’s like grasping clothing on a hanger. I want to slip those pieces on and claim them as mine!
“It’s… okay,” her voice is a soothing whisper. Salt that burns but tries to disinfect.
She’s not alright!
“What’s happening?” Sofia’s panic rings in the background.
“I don’t know.” Hector’s worry plagues me more.
I don’t know either! Everett never mentioned…
suddenly it’s not my mate in my arms. It’s Everett, dying as he speaks his final words.
“I give my magic of time-weaving to you, Titus, to use until you find the Vitalis; then, I release my magic back into the lands. But my magic of foresight, I release back into the world. If you were to see what you must endure, you would grab the sword from my heart and thrust it into yours.”
I would have plunged that blade through my heart if I had seen this.
“No!” I glare at Selene. I see my future in those green eyes. My destiny!
Our love is what poets preach; it will replace tavern songs. Two enemies forced to love, forced to fight side by side to save the world.
I grab her hand, spreading her fingers wide. Fingers that tried to kill me, shatter my heart with an arrow. Hands that loved my body, mended my fractured mind.
These hands are what carry me now. Why do they feel cold?
“Bend your fingers around mine and hold me! Hold onto me!” I roar.
Nothing. No lover’s touch comes from her hand.
Did she know?!
Did she know?
No…
No!
Is that why she fought the bond at first?
I sink my fangs into my wrist and then push my blood into her mouth. She chokes on it, swallowing some. “Drink! It will heal you.”
She tries to swallow.“Titus…” All the blood she drinks is coughed up. “This is different. This can’t be healed. It has to be set free.”
“I don’t understand.”
Her fingers fall limp over mine. “You do.” Blood drips from Selene’s nose. Reaching up, I push it back inside. Stop bleeding! Stop! More slides out. Fuck no! I wipe it away with my sleeve. “Titus…”
I glide my thumb over her cheek. Blush for me! “Come on! Stop looking so pale, Selene,” I seethe.
Her lips turn ashen, dry, and cracked. Bending down, I kiss them, breathing life back into my mate.
Come on, kiss me back with more passion!
I add more pressure as I twist my tongue over hers.
Come on!
She tries to kiss me back… tries so hard.
My tears stain her face. “Whatever is happening needs to stop. Do you understand!” I shake her. “You’re my gods-damn heart, my life, Selene. Selene! Stop this… it hurts… please stop. What happened? Tell me so I can fix it!” I look over her body for damage, but I see no deadly wound.
But her skin is all wrong; it’s too sallow, her eyes are yellowing, her pink lips are blue, her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth as she tries to reply.
“What happened?” I beg her. I didn’t allow Sable to speak! I stopped her. My fire burned her tongue before she could curse Selene.
“It’s not your fault,” Selene sighs, her voice barely audible.
The shine of her hair turns matte. “Fae magic dwells inside of us; it hears our inner thoughts. You did all you could. Your fire burned Sable’s words from the air, but she thought them before she spoke.
Sable set her magic free. What’s done is done, my love. ”
Sable’s magic.
Death. Rot.
Selene barely manages a nod.
“No!” I shake my head, urging my ears not to listen. “Sable didn’t win. She did not force her magic to kill you! We can reverse it, just as we did Torin’s cage.”
“Titus,” she tries to swallow but fails. “It’s done.”
“Fight for me!” I roar. “Fight!” A cavity rips open my chest, revealing my heart. Just as Everett’s magic bonded with me, Sable’s does with her. I can see death over Selene, grabbing her, claiming her as its mate and not me.
Just as I had no choice, neither does Selene.
“I am fighting. These last few moments are my peace.”
“No!” I scream. “I burned Sable!”
“I saw it in her eyes as the flames consumed her. She ordered her death magic to kill me.” Instead of slackening, her body starts to stiffen just as bodies on the battlefield do. I know what comes next, after the heart stops.
She’ll bloat, then her body will start to disintegrate and decay.
“It’s okay, my love,” she rasps.
“It’s not okay!” My flames erupt from my body, covering us for a moment. I control their heat, keeping her safe. Warming her cold skin. “Sable did not win! You’re not dying!”
“I’m not scared; I’m angry, but I always knew this was my path.”
I am flesh no more. Solid stone forced to remain unmoving as Selene speaks the truth she kept hidden.
“Titus…” Selene struggles to raise her voice over the fire. I lower my flames. Watch as the green in her eyes turns as leaves do in the fall. “You never wanted a long goodbye, so I will tell you this.”
“No! I refuse to let you die. Heal yourself! You have life magic. Healing magic!” My wild eyes find Sofia and Hector. “Heal her! Do something!”
“I have never been able to bring someone back from death, Titus. Sable’s magic will live and fight until I am gone.” Selene’s voice is so faint, it’s only the mate bond that alerts me to it. “Do not let this all be for nothing. Do not let my death be in vain.”
“You’re not dying!” I start to stand with her in my arms. Instead of molding to me as clothing does, she’s stiff as a board.
That’s when I sense it. A scent I’m used to smelling on the battlefield.
Decay.
Sinking to my knees, I gently place her on the floor. I look at her mate mark; it starts to sink into her grey flesh, withering away. I glance at my mark on my living, healthy skin. It’s there, but it's starting to fade.
“I am dying. I knew this was my ending. Everett warned me.”
Her admission is a knife in my back. A shock that forces me to cry more. I claw at my throat, trying to thin the thickness choking me. Deep breaths are impossible.
Panic. I’m having a panic attack.
There’s an ache in my chest that is killing me. I don’t fight it. I allow it to spread because if she dies, then I need to as well.
“You… knew,” I gasp between grief-filled breaths. “Yet… you let me… love you.” I almost shove away, but I grab her hand, her hard, cold hand.
No! That’s impossible. She’d never be this cruel. Never trick me into loving her to fulfill Everett’s mission.
“Loving you was my only tranquility. I spent my final days happy.”
“And what about me?” My fingers press into her skin, beating it as one would an unmoving heart, demanding it come back and be held accountable for its crimes. “What about my days? What about my future without you?”
“The man I love has… undying hope. Do not let… my death extinguish that. It’s what… the world needs to survive. Survival does not mean we all get to live, it means those who survive can retell our stories. Sing our sorrows so they can heal.”
“I wish I had never loved you!” It leaps from my lips in a desperate attempt to save what is left of my shattered heart.
It sickens me, kills every emotion, every dream of a future and family, and every connection I ever made is tainted, poisoned.
“It’s okay,” she nods, eyes humble as if she can see a future where I survived.
She grinds her teeth, fighting to utter her next words.
“Sometimes, it’s okay to sink, because once you’re at the bottom…
” Her words are short, quickening, fearing she can’t finish them.
“You get to watch all your loved ones swim away. Swim, my love, swim for us, find new shores, make the world a better place.”
She blinks rapidly. Scared.
She can’t see anymore.
I press my lips to hers. A barely-there smile touches her lips.
“I’m here. I won’t accept this.”
“Don’t let… the tide of my death… overtake you. I love you… I want you to love again, for me… for us. Find… happiness. Survive.”
“No, no… no, Selene, please. Please!”
She widens her eyes, turning her head to where I dropped the Vitalis, as if she can sense it without her sight. “I order my life magic…”
No, no, no! Gods no! No!
I try to clear my vision so that I can see her. Then, I close my eyes. This is a nightmare. Everett would never force this outcome onto my shoulders. No man who has found his mate could bear this.
This is wrong.
We didn’t win.
Selene continues, “To heal the pages of the Vitalis, to restore what has been scarred.” She turns, and I open my eyes, sensing her blind eyes gazing upon my dark shadow.
I promised to be her shield, to cover her from outside attacks. The true beast was her; she was her end. Her untold truths, her sweet kisses, and the lying promises of a future. I needed to protect her from herself, from her willingness to accept this fate.
She never wanted a mate; she fought us, ignored us. I should have listened.
Instead, I stood by her side as she played wife to another, sister to a man who cursed me, baited me.
It was all a lie.
Love is a lie.
A lie I would swallow again if I could have just one more day with her. One day… that’s all I had with her. Our bodies joined only once. One time… does that make this easier or more unjust?
“Restore all the scars. Mend his heart when it’s time.”