Chapter 60
Alora
Karag D?r welcomed Alora with a soft hum as she entered her old chambers.
It was dark, the heavy curtains drawn against the morning sun. Cold air lingered from weeks of disuse. When she entered, the hearth blazed to life, and a weary smile touched her lips.
“Thank you, old friend.”
The moss carpet was still lush and green. The bed was neatly made, untouched, the pillows fluffed, as if the mountain itself had merely been waiting for her return. And at the center of it lay the old corn-husk doll.
It belonged to a girl she no longer was.
Alora’s gaze dropped to her body. Seven spare her, she was still nude, wrapped only in torn sheets.
Faint bruises bloomed along her thighs where Rune’s claws had held her tightly.
A blush rushed to her cheeks despite the chill.
A dull ache lingered low in her belly, that delicious soreness still relishing the night before.
Memory rose unbidden.
His mouth. His hands. The way his voice shook when confessing that he loved her.
She crossed to the vanity and looked into the mirror.
Her hair fell in golden tangles, lips swollen, bite marks dark against her neck. He had unleashed himself upon her last night. Gods. Was this how she had appeared in front of Sunneva?
Seven above.
Alora reached for the brush and dragged it through her hair with more force than necessary.
Foolish. Foolish to feel so betrayed. Rune had believed her dead. He had been empty and alone. Of course there had been others to fill that void. She had no right to fault him for it.
And yet.
The thought of him touching another woman made her chest ache.
Last night had been special. It was the moment all walls fell, and she had finally seen something as precious as his truth. She could not stomach the thought of him sharing that with anyone else.
With a slow breath, Alora set the brush down and glanced at the ceiling. “Karag D?r, could you start the bath for me, please—”
The room changed.
At first it was only pressure, as though the air had thickened. Then it dropped all at once, a crushing weight that pinned her in place.
Alora body froze mid-motion, hand numb around the brush. Her breath caught and her lungs refused to draw another.
Cold slid down her spine.
The hum of the mountain fell silent. Everything dulled, as though the atmosphere itself had split and left her stranded outside of it. Darkness gathered in the corners of the chamber, folding inward, deepening until they blotted out the light.
“At last.”
The voice washed through the room like ice water.
Alora stared at her reflection, eyes wide, mouth parted in a silent scream as a presence took shape behind her. Vast. Wrong. Writhing smoke lifting from a faceless form.
But she knew that single red eye.
“We meet again,” Vorak murmured. “Alora.”
No.
Her heart thundered in her ears.
The faceless shadow crept closer.
“Although,” he continued mildly, “I did not expect you to slip away. Very clever, daughter.”
Tears burned in her vision, chest heaving for air.
“I truly despised the interruption of my plans,” Vorak said as he came to a stop behind her. His presence was so cold it made her entire body burn. “But you have all but assured my coming.”
Her vision swam. Horror drowned her.
Rune!
She screamed for him through the bond, desperately reaching with every scrap of will she had but their connection was vaulted shut.
“That pretender cannot hear you while I am here.” The writhing smoke reached for Alora like a clawed hand. The scar in her fingertip throbbed as if held to flame. “I allowed you to escape me once. It will not happen again.”
Something inside Alora snapped.
Fire surged past fear, past pain, past the echo of his voice. Power flared off her skin like a rising sun, and the pressure ruptured with her enraged scream.
The presence vanished like a candle blown out.
Alora sagged against the vanity, breath coming in ragged gasps, cold sweat slicking her skin.
“No,” she choked. “Not again.”
Understanding settled over her like ice.
He had not followed her across death by chance. Their connection had never broken. It had only gone dormant, waiting for her magic to fully unfurl and call to its source.
Alora pressed a trembling hand to her mouth, smothering the sob that threatened to break free.
“He cannot hurt you.”
Alora spun around with a sharp gasp.
The Goddess of Death sat upon the edge of the bed, hands folded neatly in her lap. “Not yet.”
Alora’s gaze moved over Sunneva despite herself, measuring what she saw with traitorous precision.
The fall of her white hair, bright as frost in moonlight.
Skin pale and unblemished. The composed elegance of her posture.
Features carved in flawless symmetry. The kind of beauty that had never known the absence of it.
A queen of winter.
Understanding curled low and heavy in Alora’s chest. Of course, Rune had sought solace in something so cold and immaculate when the world had burned him hollow.
Jealousy slid through her like poison and she was ashamed to feel such a thing.
Sunneva’s eyes softened. “I am sorry you had to endure that.”
Alora drew in a careful breath, forcing the ache back behind her ribs. “Do you refer to Vorak’s visit,” she asked coolly, “or yours?”
Without waiting for an answer, she stormed past her and into the bathing chamber, where the bath had already been drawn. The sheets slipped from her shoulders and pooled at her feet as she stepped in.
The water lapped against her skin, steam curling thickly over her face until her vision blurred. She told herself it was only the steam making her eyes sting, not the tears lodged like a thorn in her throat.
Pathetic, she scolded herself. Why wallow now?
Sunneva sat on the edge of the bath, ice feathering along the hem of her gown. “I’m sorry. That was cruel of me. Rune and I had a score to settle.”
Alora frowned. Did she even want to know? No, she rather not.
“I don’t care about your past together, but there is a reason you are lingering around him now,” Alora said, failing to disguise the possessiveness in her tone.
Sunneva’s sigh cooled the air. “His sins are many. And he will not escape them unscathed.”
The warning made Alora tense.
She wrapped her arms around her folded knees and glowered at the goddess. “Is this what you meant when you said I shouldn’t trust you?”
Sunneva stilled, her gaze holding Alora’s.
“I have regained my memories, Goddess of Death,” Alora continued. “Your face was the first one I saw when I woke.”
She looked away to the water as the memory rose unbidden. Sunneva had stood beside her, white hair blowing in the wind, as they watched the Dark Way from the Shadow Keep. The siphoning of Sunneva’s son. Demons falling to Seraph fire and sunlight. Time slowing when the skies rumbled with thunder.
Then Rune standing before the Heavens as lightning flashed.
“If you want to save him, you must rewrite your fate,” the goddess had said. “But it won’t be easy. You will forget. You will once again live your story. And your futures will rely on Rune making the right choice.”
Alora’s voice had trembled. “And if he fails?”
“Then fate continues as it was meant to. He dies forgotten and the world burns.”
Alora stared at her startled reflection in the water as the smell of smoke and Rune’s scream echoed in her mind.
“You told me I had to stop him…”
The Goddess of Death tilted her head, studying her as though she were a piece mislaid on a vast board. “You were the only one who could. The Heavens gave you a second chance, but not without reason. And not without cost. Do you recall what else I said?”
Alora’s stomach dropped. The words returned like thorns of ice.
“That you were there to collect souls,” she whispered. “And I would see you again when the time came to collect another.”
Silence stretched between them.
Alora forced the question through clenched teeth. “Are you telling me one of us will die?”
Sunneva rose, frost blooming beneath her bare feet. “Vorak is a Titan. A devourer of worlds. What hope does a fallen seraph have against him alone?”
“He has me.”
The goddess’s mouth curved. “Well, we can only hope.”
“Have you visited him before?” Alora asked, the question escaping before she could stop it. The look on Sunneva’s face told her they had met more than once. “Why?”
It was a pitiful thing to ask, baring too much, but she no longer cared.
“Rune has made quite a mess of himself,” Sunneva mused. “I was guiding him within the limits I am permitted. But do not worry. I will no longer visit your husband unbidden. His mistakes are his to fix now.”
She turned to leave.
But her words had collided with Vorak’s voice still echoing in her bones. You have all but assured my coming.
“The rift,” Alora blurted. “Can it be fixed?”
Sunneva glanced back, her eyes eerily glowing ice blue. “What is unmade by death may only be remade by life.”
Then she dissolved into shards of ice, leaving Alora alone with the cooling water and the tangle of her thoughts. Her gaze drifted to the faint glow beneath her skin, to the power that had finally awakened and, in doing so, called every horror back to her doorstep.
Neither of them could face this alone.
When Alora finally emerged, she found a gown laid out on the bed. Platters of food and her favorite desserts waited on the table beside a bowl of pomegranates and a bouquet of briar roses.
Tucked beneath the vase was a single note.
Forgive me.
Within the tower of the highest peak of the mountain, wind blew through Alora’s hair, her heart heavy with all that was to come.
She sat on the ledge of the open window and watched the sky change colors with the evening.
All day she had sensed her mate’s restlessness, pacing through his chambers, anxious to see her but forcing himself to respect her space.
Yet she knew when he was at his limit, and she wasn’t inclined to be away from him either.