Chapter 47
TWO HOLLOWED STARS
Seryn
Trembling, I clenched the bloodied dagger so hard, the swirling carvings in the hilt bit into my palm. Gavrel’s body stilled, the light fading from his eyes—and from the rune tattoo on his hand.
My heart lurched, the thread around my ribs limp and lifeless.
No! I screamed in my mind, chest heaving.
Dark ichor pooled, thick as grymseed oil. Blood and curse fused together.
And within that mutilated hollow, the talisman glinted. Cracks riddled its surface. My blade had cleaved it straight through the center of what might once have been a lightning bolt etched down the middle of a decagon.
My breath hitched as the fractured pieces rose, tugged from his flesh by something unseen.
No.
By me.
The rune’s power called to my ember, which now thrashed around me. My gift seized, instinctive and desperate, clinging to the energy bleeding out of him, coiling around the shards and pulling them free.
My hand shook as the rune stone remnants hovered between us. Our bond twitched, and it felt like hundreds of glass slivers needling into my own heart.
The talisman’s essence and the curse tangled together in a shimmering web that held to his lesion. The sticky, glittering strands fought to snap toward him like spider legs writhing, ready to scurry back into the darkness.
“No,” I hissed, summoning my ember from its deepest core; the place now bound to Kosmos, to my demi-Ancient lineage. It boiled through me, eager to oblige.
I let it feast.
The rune shuddered as I drained its power. Light burst from within it, imploding first, then exploded into dust.
For a heartbeat, I thought I’d won.
Then the poisoned strands reared back and burrowed into his chest.
I screamed, the sound raw and jagged, shattering against the trees.
“No. No, no, no—”
I dragged him against me, my hands shaking so violently they could barely hold his weight. His skin was already cooling. The wound over his heart had gone dull. It was empty. Hollow. Stained with Phobetor’s lingering poison.
Suddenly, Kaden was beside me, nudging me aside. “Let me try.”
He pushed his clover-colored ember into the injury, sweat dripping down his face.
And nothing.
Kaden cursed, slamming his fists against Gavrel’s chest. “Come on, you fucking wanker!”
I shoved him away, draping my body over my love, his blood and darkness coating my already stained dress.
“He’s gone,” Caelora whispered, her voice a fragile thread somewhere at my side.
I reached within, heard the dim hum of my bond, felt it sting as I plucked it. Fading fast, barely there among the aether.
“He’s not,” I snarled, my power surging. “He’s not gone!”
“Stay calm,” Caelora murmured, a lavender glow drifting toward me.
My halo flared, eyes bursting in icy illumination. “Don’t you dare fucking touch us!” Caelora’s gift reared back, and she dipped her chin.
Breena rubbed my back, and I flinched. “Ryn—” she started softly.
“I’m not leaving him!” I screamed, and she straightened, eyes soft and fists clenched.
In an instant, Jace was beside me, his tattoos blazing across every inch of exposed skin. “The Kollao Ceremony. It might—”
Kaden grabbed his shoulder, nodding once. “Do it.”
They knelt on either side of us, Jace etching circles and sigils in the air.
“May Kosmos bless this union,” he began, grabbing Kaden’s hands and forming a makeshift bowl above Gavrel’s pectorals.
Jace’s blade sliced into my palm. I didn’t feel the pain, my mind turning inward as I stared blankly at Gavrel’s lifeless eyes.
He made an incision on Gavrel’s palm; the blood there was untainted. I took my fated’s icy hand, letting the sticky, wet warmth coat my skin. Kaden held his cupped hands beneath, crimson filling them.
Jace’s words scattered through the air, words of devotion and bonds and Ancients.
“Seryn,” Yaya’s shout broke through the fog, but only for a moment.
What was the point? I needed to follow Gavrel into the aether before our cord unraveled completely. I bent forward, our blood staining the golden tattoos lining my arms and collarbone.
“Calm her,” Jace bit out at Caelora. I’d never heard the Magister use that tone before.
This time, before I could stop her, her spoken energy flowed over me like a cool breeze. And then, peace. Serenity and hope fluttered in the back of my mind.
Color crept into the world once more. My vision cleared.
I sat up, sucking in the smoky air. Let it fill my lungs.
Hastily, Jace continued, dipping his blade into the now-golden liquid in Kaden’s palms, “This binding is sacred, and not even the Fates can deny it. Two souls will fuse—their lifeblood, ember, and soul entwined. The mark shall be carved where breath and pulse and life meet. Do you accept this joining?”
“Yes!” I cried out, realizing what was happening. “Kosmos, help us.”
Energy zipped over my back, and my gilded tattoos warmed, chasing away the chill. My fingers tingled with renewed feeling, sticky with mine and Gavrel’s blood and poison.
I tore the rest of Gavrel’s tunic down the center, fully exposing his torso. I ripped my dress just enough to expose the space above my heart.
“Do it!” I demanded, teeth gritting.
Jace worked swiftly, carving through my skin and muscle, etching the mirrored crescents and flame into my rib. My molars clenched so tight I thought they would crack as a sharp, searing heat separated my tissues. The high-pitched scratching against my bone zinged through my back teeth.
But I didn’t cry out, I held the scream in my soul, even when it bent my spine backward. And yet the pain didn’t matter. The agony of losing Gavrel was far worse than the blade slicing through my body.
It didn’t fucking matter.
Because this had to work.
Had to bring him back to me.
That was all that mattered.
He was all that mattered.
Radiance erupted from the incision, gold replacing the scarlet. The symbol sank deep into my bone, and then my muscles and flesh knit themselves whole. The sigil shimmered over my heart as I watched Jace repeat the act with Gavrel.
When he finished, the ritual’s power sealed his flesh, and Gavrel’s golden mark lifted over the star-shaped scar. But the inky stains remained, his veins branching outward in a dark starburst around our Kollao emblem.
Yaya gasped, her words flitting over us, but I barely heard them. “Lest rise Dark Reaping from the scars. Make haste with hollowing of the stars.”
The others drew in a collective breath.
“Come back to me,” I whispered, pressing my palms against his healed mark, ringed with poison. “Please.”
A tingle thrummed under the scar on my nape. Incessant, and I closed my eyes, listening. A universe of fractured rainbows and swimming stars and hope and pain filled my mind.
Somnis called to me. I beseeched it, my fated khorda’s name a repeated echo through my mind.
Helos fell away.
Hallowed End. Gone.
The others. Gone.
It was just Gavrel and me. Us.
Then Kosmos answered.
A blinding light shot through me, snaking over my entire body. My bough markings ignited—the gold lingering along my collarbone, shoulders, and biceps, while splintered prisms rippled down my forearms and hands.
My aura burned bright. It sought the poisoned curse still lingering within him, coiling around us like a vine.
It burned—Ancients, it burned—draining through me, sucking the poison out of him and into my own veins.
For three long breaths, I felt his death inside me.
The sickly chill.
The emptiness.
The collapse of everything I loved.
I slumped, my ember finally having had enough. Too expended.
And then the rune tattoo on his hand flared along with his new khorda mark.
A pulse, and then two beats beneath my palm.
I gasped and pushed harder, letting my aura pour into him. All of it, until I thought I would come apart.
Without a barrier, our golden thread, thick and gleaming, shone between us.
His chest heaved—and he breathed.
A sob tore from my chest, and my opalescent halo collapsed around us. Helos and the others reappeared as if a veil had been lifted.
Gavrel coughed, air and starlight spilling from his lips as his eyes flew open.
His hand shot up, catching mine, gripping it like a lifeline. “Asteria—” His voice broke. “You called me back.”
I collapsed against him, laughter and sobs tangling in my throat. “To the fucking beyond, Gav. Don’t you ever make me do that again,” I whispered raggedly.
His dimple peeked out as he brushed a tear from my cheek.
His hand tattoo still glowed. Its energy and our bond sank into me. My joints. My heart. Like a wellspring replenishing and strengthening me.
Around us, the others exhaled in disbelief, exhaustion, and celebration. The air was thick with the echo of what we’d done—what we’d survived.
And above, the moon had traveled closer to the horizon, but its beams still slanted over the splintered, sacred place, pure and rose-tinged silver.
It seemed like Selene was blessing us, the new demi-Ancient Elder and the man who died for her …
Who returned from the beyond for her.