Chapter Fifty-Three
Dietan
I bear the Rings of Fate.
I am the Anemoi unleashed, wielding the power of wind and air, cyclone and hurricane. The Whisting roars inside of me.
Namreth raises his arms. Our magic collides, like two stags locking horns.
Someone rushes in, grabbing Aren. Marcus?
Good. She’s safe, and I can turn myself over to the Rings.
My thoughts swirl like I’m underwater again.
Distantly, I hear other voices. A familiar one.
Jared? Is that his name? My memories slip from my mind like raindrops.
The Rings demand everything from me, and I lose myself in their power.
A woman calls to me, but her voice is swept away in the gale.
Servants and soldiers scream, cowering as the tempest grows. A moment ago, Namreth’s power was hurling plates and chairs, but now it’s throwing men and women. It tosses them in the air, slams them into walls if they’re lucky, impaling them on spears if they’re not.
Namreth’s power will take down every guard and rebel alike. It will tear apart every soul in this hall if it’s allowed to continue. I know if he’s not stopped, Namreth will bring down the castle itself.
I counter Namreth’s gale with a black and swirling thunderstorm, my smile wide and wicked. This is what the Rings want of me, what they’ve been waiting for all these years.
I bring my arms together, and the beams in the ceiling bend.
The floor beneath me bows, threatening to crack open.
Columns buckle, and the arched roof sags dangerously.
The room itself is breaking apart, and fragments of the walls and ceiling are swept up in the tempest. The cyclone surrounds me, and I’m in control.
I command the tornado.
The guards retreat. Every surviving person in the hall retreats. This is no longer a battle between mortals.
It is Anemoi against Kilandrar, its dark mirror.
I direct my storm to the center of the room, to spare innocent lives, focusing only on Namreth.
The King of the Waste stands before me, unnaturally calm. The tempest doesn’t lift the smallest hair on his head. He’s the master of the Unseen Death, and I wonder again if I’ve been fooling myself. In answer, the power surges in me hot and sharp, as if answering.
I throw all of my newfound power at Namreth. I bare my teeth, commanding the Rings to my will, but Namreth is faster. Better.
His storm carves through my gale as I gasp for air.
My chest tightens of its own accord, and my hands and feet go numb where I stand.
A sudden pressure builds behind my eyes.
I’m suffocating. I’m choking, and in a moment, I will pass out.
My vision will fade to black, and that’ll be the end.
My throat closes tighter with each passing moment.
I grasp in the dark for the Rings’ power, but just as easily as it surged in me, it’s lost.
Gone.
There is no air left in me.
Namreth’s hold on me is absolute.
“Dietan!” Aren?
No. Get back. Her voice is too close.
I thought she was safe, but she’s right here. I need her to be safe.
I search one last time for the power of the Rings. I find only a fragment, enough to draw one final breath before Namreth can steal it away. I take one more step toward him…
I inhale, but the air I summoned is all gone. The walls close in on me. Still, I struggle against the darkness and the winds that threaten to tear me to pieces.
If only I could breathe. Just one more breath.
But the air is gone from my lungs. My chest is on fire, and I feel my ribs start to compress, the bones strained to the point of breaking. Something cracks in my chest. I fear my death will be just like the others, just as terrible.
Namreth takes a step forward, then another. His voice cuts through the storm. “You really think you can match me? You can’t even breathe!”
He’s right. No cut on my palm or smack in the head with a skillet will pull me out of this. The air is gone, and there is only pain left in its wake. Pain in my chest and in my head, a crushing, lancing torment that threatens to overcome me.
“You’re so afraid of this power. But I’ve spent years embracing it, learning all there is to know, all the magic that your precious grandfather forbade you. And look where you are now!”
I fall, one knee hitting the floor, then the other. Black spots bloom across my vision.
Of course it frightens me. I’m not like Namreth. I don’t want this destructive power. I never chose this.
It chose me.
“Dietan!”
My name echoes dully in my head, cleaving through the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears, through the pain in my chest. Then I realize—Aren is calling to me. She’s on the edge of the storm, thrashing against Marcus’s hold on her. How stubborn she is…
“Focus! Breathe!” Aren cries.
I can’t. I don’t have the strength left to take a step. To lift a finger. To inhale.
My chest is collapsing under the inexorable grip of the Unseen Death.
Somewhere in the distance, Aren breaks out of Marcus’s arms and runs into the storm.
I don’t know what she’s thinking, but one thing is for sure—men have always underestimated her.
She shields her face as she pushes through the storm. I see it at a distance, as if I’m watching a play on a faraway stage. The wind shreds her exposed skin as I watch, engulfed in Namreth’s vortex, unable to act. She bleeds as she calls my name, and I wish I could shield her, but I’m too weak.
She fights through the storm until she reaches me, wraps her arms around me, and holds me so I can’t fall. I’m almost gone, and her face is the only bright thing in the dark.
What are you doing? I think.
I can’t speak. I can’t breathe. Get out of here. But of course, she can’t hear me and wouldn’t listen if she could.
“You’re strong, you’re amazing, and most importantly…” Aren whispers, holding my head in her hands. “Remember what you said? When we’re together, you don’t need to breathe.”
She takes my face in her hands and covers my mouth with hers, breathing into me.
Breathing for me.
Her sweet life force surges within me, mingling with the Whisting trapped under my skin, bursting through the vice grip on my lungs—and releasing me from Namreth’s hold.
I kiss her back, and the storm raging inside of me settles. It goes completely quiet. My world shrinks to the feel of her soft lips on mine, her warm hands on my cold face, her breath on my cheek. Her breath curls gently across my skin, flowing into me, through me.
The darkness recedes. Her face, an inch from mine, is the only thing I see. Gods, she truly is the most beautiful woman in the world. Nothing else matters, nothing else but her.
The Rings call, surging just under the surface of my skin, and I command them to remain calm.
The Rings may have chosen me, but they don’t control me. Not anymore.
At last, I understand how to manage their power. There are two of them and two of us, a matched pair. Together, and only together, we control them.
Lips still on Aren’s, I call a narrow but powerful cone of wind.
It crashes down on Namreth with a force that could level a mountain.
With the intensity that once turned the peaks of old Albion into valleys, I strike at the mad king.
I don’t have to open my eyes to see it. The Rings within me see it, as if I’m watching from atop one of the golden chandeliers.
Namreth wields a piece of this great power, but I can block him with the full force of the Whisting.
He fights against it, drawing even more of his dark power, summoning the ancient and forbidden magics he has studied all these years.
But every gale and storm he conjures falters beneath the strength of the Rings I wield.
Namreth is pricked a thousand times by sharp glass and steel and wood; the whirlwind around him turns red with droplets of his own blood. The winds howl louder than his screams.
He has nothing and no one to help him.
He’s alone…and because he is alone, he is weak.
From the rafters, the Whisting looks down on myself and Aren as we cling to each other, still kissing.
It’s like watching a dream, as the Rings rise from my back through my tattered, bloody shirt.
It’s been decades since I’ve seen them, and they look different to my adult eyes.
They glow and hum, made of magic itself, rising above our heads, gold and silver, thrumming with power.
The two linked rings grow larger and larger, hovering at the center of the storm, power rolling from them like thunder.
They twist to lie one atop the other, hovering above Namreth, then fall, dropping over his head and past his shoulders, encircling him.
The Rings glow bright, tightening around Namreth’s arms and torso. He thrashes against them, teeth gritted. Then his eyes dart to Aren’s mouth on mine, the breath we share, and I can see in his face that he knows. He knows that together, Aren and I can control my power. We’ve won.
He tenses, body rigid with pain, trembling and jerking. And just like that, it’s over.
His body falls limp and motionless to the floor.
The Rings have taken his power from him.
Aren’s lips are still on mine, but I’m no longer just watching from above. I see through the Rings, and beyond them. I’m the storm and the wind and the sea and the earth. And I feel everything. The wind ebbing, the rain stopping, and Aren in my arms.
With a tearing pain, the scar on my back burns like I’ve been branded.
The familiar sensation of the Whisting humming just under the surface returns.
But then the Rings fall into my palm, warm and solid and familiar.
One gold and one silver. And like water poured into a bucket, I come back to myself.
I’m once again just a man. A man who is alive and holding his love.
Aren pulls away and regards me with tears in her eyes, and all I can do is stare. She survived. I survived—because of her.
Namreth moans. He’s alive, but the Rings have stripped his power.
Instead of an intimidating, youthful king, he’s a frail old man, with thinning gray hair, his face deeply etched with a lifetime of bitterness.
His head lolls at a painful angle as he stares at us from the floor, his mouth open in shock.
With one last rasping breath, the wretched bastard finally dies.
The battle is over.
The king is dead.
Everything is quiet and still, as if the world itself has forgotten how to breathe.
From the rubble lining the chamber, faces appear, people covered in dust. They almost look as if they’re part of the wreckage—bleeding, their clothes shredded.
The enormous golden hall is ruined. Namreth’s throne is nothing but dust. There isn’t a table standing or a column that isn’t cracked and halfway collapsed. Light shines down through gaps in the ceiling. There are people who need help, and there will be time to help them.
For now, I care only for Aren. Pulling her close again, I revel in her warmth and close my eyes. She wraps her arms around me and whispers, “Brave idiot.”
A cheer rings out in the distance, then another.
Aren grins up at me as the hall breaks out in hollers and whoops of relief and gratitude and joy.
“Well, that was one hell of a kiss,” I say.
Then she kisses me again. Because yes, it was.