Chapter 31
Chapter
Thirty-One
The World Tree sang through my mind, its staggering power colliding with my blood stream. I sank to my knees, trying to push the magic into the ground, but it was too intense, too much. Magic poured from every orifice in my body, bubbling up through my skin.
It took me a moment to realize what was happening.
Titania exploded into ash, releasing Thorvin from her strange hold. His eyes went wide with horror, and he reached for me, trying to remove the crown. Mom grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away. Once he was safe, Mom hurried over and sank to her knees before me.
She placed her hands on either side of my face. “You have to conquer the magic.”
“Can’t,” I said through clenched teeth. “Too much.”
Caelan, Soren, Rowan, and Ben had come back and gathered around, as close as they could while the magic roared through me.
This crown and the tree were inexorably linked, but we couldn’t rule side by side.
This was not the path my father had chosen for me.
This was something else. Something corrupt.
The World Tree planned to absorb me, the magic it had left me with no gift at all.
It’d been a path back to claim me. Cernunnos might have expelled the seed, but he’d failed to wipe all the traces from my body, but he’d failed to wipe all the traces from my body and maybe couldn’t have even if he’d wanted to.
The tree wanted all of me, every bit of its power back and every bit of my magic.
I might have made the snap decision to swallow it to keep it from those who wanted to misuse it, but looking back maybe that’s not what my mother had been trying to do at all.
Maybe, in her own way, she’d been trying to save me from myself.
But once the seed had spent time inside me, it liked what I had to offer.
With me, it could expand its power, could claim all the realms and control who entered them at will.
The fae had never truly had control over this astonishing power, but they’d leashed it to their will. Until I made the choice to expose it to my very essence.
Hindsight, as the humans would say, was always twenty-twenty.
“Help her,” Caelan begged.
“Tess,” I whimpered, even as fae magic tore me apart.
“She’s fine,” Mom said, cool fingers pressed against my brow. “Banshees do not die. They…” She pressed her lips together. “She will be back, I swear to you.”
Tears slipped down my face. I held my hands against my abdomen, the weak spot there caused by the initial rupture flaring with pain. Taking the crown off, even if I could remove it, was futile. The spell had already triggered and buried its way through my psyche.
“Who?”
Mom knew what I wanted to know immediately. “I do not know, but I plan to find out.”
Caelan crouched beside me, his warm hand splayed on my back. “Why didn’t you do anything?” he asked Cliona.
Mom’s skin pulled tight against her bones. “We cannot harm one of our own. It is one of our oldest laws.”
“Even if she’s killing your daughter?” Caelan snarled.
Mom closed her eyes for a brief moment. “It is our oldest law,” she whispered, but I saw the grief swimming in her eyes.
A flash of emerald and gold magic revealed my father, bare chested and savage.
As I watched him walk toward me, the wounds on his body, given to him by those warriors in the hall sealed.
He crouched next to Cliona and touched my brow, closing his eyes.
A tendril of his magic soared through my mind and swept through my body.
When he opened his eyes and I saw an endless well of grief, I knew it was too late for me.
“What will happen?” I croaked.
“Your body and essence will be absorbed into the tree,” Cernunnos said, his eyes a swirling vortex of power.
Mom shook her head. “No.”
Cernunnos lay a hand on her arm, but she jerked away. “No. Cernunnos. We did not work this hard for this to happen.”
I could feel my body slipping away cell by cell, but this moment…I’d waited my entire life for answers, and Mom had finally given me one.
“You worked together?” I whispered.
Mom bowed her head. “I would have done anything to keep you safe, even if it made you hate me.”
Her eyes, a carbon copy of mine, shimmered with tears. “I have failed you.”
Caelan’s grip tightened. “No. Evie. You must fight this. You have to fight this. Rowan finally talked some sense into me, and I planned—” He cut himself off.
I looked up at him and saw all the possibilities between us slipping away as my life force flowed through the ground and into the roots of the World Tree miles away. Lifting a trembling hand to his face, I cupped his jaw. “I wish we had more time.”
Caelan’s face went white. “Evie.” He bowed his head and let out a choked curse.
Rowan put a hand on his shoulder and crouched beside him. “If anyone can fight this, you can.” He shook his head. “After all of this, I refuse to believe this is what fate has in store for you.”
Mom looked at my father. “There’s nothing you can do?”
“The magic predates me. It does not recognize nor respond to my power.”
My attention focused on those words. “Moira,” I whispered. “Call Moira.”
“A vampire cannot help you,” Mom said. “But she can say goodbye.”
I shook my head. “She helped me heal. Last time.”
Ben had stayed silent the entire time, but at that, he jerked. “How?” he demanded. “Maybe I can do the same while we wait.”
“I have no idea,” I said on a half sob. “She made me a tea that counteracted the magic.”
Cernunnos stared. “A tea?” he said disbelievingly.
Soren, thank the gods, already had his phone out.
He spoke into the phone a second later. “I know you don’t want to speak to me but get to Evie’s property as soon as possible. She needs you.”
Moira would not dismiss a summons like that. I only hoped she was close. Her being able to help was a serious long shot, but one I was willing to take.
And if she couldn’t, at least she’d be here while I faded.
“Want me to call Ash?” Caelan asked.
I nodded.
It took twenty minutes, and I was hanging onto life by my fingernails.
The tree demanded everything from me and had taken some of the most important parts, my legs sank half into the ground, roots climbing up the sides of my thighs and dug into my hips.
But this was no communion of a Floromancer with Mother Earth.
This was a brutal claiming by a power I couldn’t hope to beat.
Moira dropped her bag and slammed to her knees before me, Ash not far behind her. Her dark eyes swept over my face and body until a choked cry came from her throat. She reached out to touch the roots and jerked back her hand in horror when she felt what had claimed me.
Ash was more circumspect in his reaction. He sat beside Moira, his eyes roving over every inch of my body, lips pressed tight when he realized what had happened.
“You can’t break free?” he asked quietly.
I shook my head.
Moira dug through her bag, holding and discarding several items before letting out a frustrated cry. “I can’t—I can’t help,” she choked, eyes wide with horror. “I can’t help you.”
Soren came to his knees beside her and brought her into the circle of his arms. Claws slid from her fingers as she gripped the front of his shirt and buried her face in his chest, her mouth twisted into a rictus of grief, bloody tears sliding down her face.
“I’m so sorry, Moira.”
She reached out a hand and put it on my knee as she tried to collect herself. But when she did, she turned to my father and launched herself at him, lethal claws sliding out to gouge his face.
“Moira. No!” I tried to lunge for her, but I was trapped tight.
Cernunnos made no move to attack her. He let her claws slide against his cheek, flaying open his skin.
He let her fists pummel his chest and her screams rend the air, and when she’d exhausted herself, my father gathered her into his powerful arms and held her, allowing her to grieve against him even as he knew Moira blamed him for everything.
Ash bowed his head. Magic spooled into his palms, and he touched my heart, his hand splayed over my breastbone.
Tiny leaves spouted from his skin as he worked inside me, his power encasing my heart in a cage not even the seed could touch.
“Just in case,” he said, his breath coming in gasps when he finished.
“Fight, Evie. Like you’ve never fought before.
” He lifted his head, eyes sparkling with an emerald glow.
“Use everything you have. It’s going to take you, regardless, you might as well go down fighting if you can. ”
“I can’t do anything,” I confessed. “Every bit of my power is being funneled away.” Tears spilled down my face. “How can I fight something the Fae King cannot? Something the most powerful fae bow to?”
A sad smile and endless grief etched lines in his face. “You have something none of those people do, Evie.” He leaned forward and murmured in my ear, the words so low only he and I could hear.
“Use everything. Everything.”
I didn’t know what he meant, but I knew I didn’t want them to see me…end. Not like this. Not this horrific, slow purge of my very being. “Take her,” I whispered. “I want you to remember me how I was. Not like this.”
When he pulled back, he withdrew his magic and touched my cheek. A moment later he rose and gathered Moira from my father’s arms.
The vampire screamed my name and fought against him. Ash whispered something in her ear. Moira’s eyes widened, and she turned her attention to Ash. He held a finger to his lips and carried her away.
A drop of pure silvery magic appeared in Mom’s palm. She pressed her hand to my collarbone. “A piece of me,” she whispered and leaned to kiss my brow. “Fight, Evangeline.”
She rose and took her place beside my father who held his hand out. A piece of gold and emerald magic sank into my forehead. Seconds later they were gone.
Soren touched my hair and walked away. Rowan cupped my jaw and gently pressed a kiss to my lips that made me laugh.
Rowan grinned even as I watched his heart break. “This is the one and only time I could get away with that, so why the hell not.”
Caelan’s grief-stricken eyes didn’t waver from me. Soren touched my shoulder and walked away with Rowan. Ben was the last to go.
“For what it’s worth,” he said in a soft voice. “I’m sorry.”
By now my hands were trapped inside the earth, forcing my body into an awkward angle. “Me too,” I whispered.
He bent and brushed his fingers over my cheek, then turned and walked away.
Caelan and I were the only ones left. He sat before me, gold ringing his stormy eyes.
“What can I do?” he whispered.
“Stay with me.” I gave him a wobbly smile. “It won’t be much longer.”
Caelan’s jaw tightened.
“I wish I would have said yes,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I fought you for so long. I’m sorry…for all of it.”
He shook his head. “No. You have nothing to be sorry about. I’m the one who’s sorry. For being brash and impatient and insisting you do things my way.” He blew out a breath. “I’m an idiot and I promise you if we can get you out, I will never take you for granted. Never again.”
“We still have a lot of things to work out.”
He sighed. “I know, and I don’t care. We’ll work through them. All I want is you by my side. In whatever way I can have you.”
I only had a few minutes before I stopped breathing, the roots inside me moving slowly toward my lungs. Everything below my belly button was blissfully numb.
“I love you,” I whispered. “I don’t know when it happened. I was too busy alternating between craving you and wanting to kill you, but one day I opened my eyes, and I knew that I loved you more than breathing.”
A soft smile. “Who knew you were capable of such pretty words?”
I snorted. “Dying will do that to a girl.”
One sharp shake of his head. “No. I refuse to believe you’re dying. We’ll figure a way out of this. We always do.”
My breath was coming in short gasps, the roots pulling me all the way to the ground. “If we do, I reserve the right to kick Ethan’s ass.”
“Garrett has him.” A savage grin crossed his lips. “We plan on holding him for a while.”
“Your Lords are falling like flies.”
“Good,” Caelan snarled. “Let them fall. Who has need of a Council if they play games like this?”
“Where’s Thorvin?” He’d disappeared just as Titania was dying.
“No idea, but I don’t care right now.”
“It wasn’t his fault. Titania had him under some form of mind control. He couldn’t help himself.” Thorvin appeared as horrified as I was.
“I’ll deal with Thorvin later.”
I turned my cheek as my face touched the ground, barely able to get a tiny bit of air. “I love you,” I whispered one more time.
“Stay with me,” Caelan begged. “Evie, please.”
But I could fight no longer. The ground opened under my body, sucking me under and straight into the burning, beating heart of the World Tree.