49. Estelle
Chapter 49
Estelle
I knew this moment had been coming, but it was somehow worse now that it was here.
My eyes locked with my anima’s , his horror mingling with my own as I heard the voices outside our home. They were surrounding it, shouting orders to “ smoke them out” even as I started to smell the stirrings of our fiery future. My eyes flitted over Adrian’s face, desperately cataloguing each detail for what I knew in my bones was the last time, even as my heart railed against that certainty. The strength of his gaze, the heartbreak in it, told me he was doing the same.
We had planned for this. Because of course we had, when we had known who and what was coming for us, for our children. Even as something inside me was screaming now that our fate had finally found us.
I could feel the ache of sorrow mixing with the grit of resilience as Adrian took me in his arms. There would be no time for prolonged goodbyes, not when destiny had come to tear us asunder. Though perhaps the knowledge of our limited years had the bittersweet silver lining of letting us say those lengthy goodbyes every day, in each kiss and in every heartbeat spent together.
If this was indeed the end, we had used our time—each moment all the more precious in knowing our minutes were numbered.
It didn’t mean that I was ready. Only that I didn’t regret the time I had been given.
“The only thing that I’ve ever wanted was this life with you,” Adrian murmured, an echo of the words he told me long ago in another realm. “If we were allowed an eternity together, it still wouldn’t have been enough.”
Then he kissed me, his fingers twisting in my hair. It was over before it had begun, his lips replaced with the bitter taste of goodbye.
“I love you,” I whispered so my voice wouldn’t break. “More than life itself.”
Those golden-brown eyes met mine one last time. “I love you. In this life and the next. Wherever we end up, we go together.”
He is mine. And I am his.
Adrian kissed the top of Eva’s head, then Tobias’s, drawing them both into a brief hug before backing away.
“Dad?”
Tobias’s voice was high and frightened, even as he moved protectively toward his twin. They were just turning into the people they would be, and my heart ached that we wouldn’t be there to see who they would become. Just as, if my suspicions were correct, we wouldn’t be able to protect them any longer from what was coming.
“Go with your mother,” Adrian said calmly, his eyes narrowing in determination as he turned toward the front door. “I’ll hold them off.”
I grabbed Eva’s arm as she started toward him. “ Dad !”
“Come with me,” I said firmly. “Now.”
The fire was moving fast—too fast—magic moving through the flames. Abject dread flooded through me, seeping into my bones. My children had already started to cough, and I stifled my own as smoke scorched down my throat. Eva started down the smoke-filled hallway, but I pulled her back, taking Tobias’s hand as I half dragged them toward the living room.
We didn’t have time to escape another way, not with those fire wielding Elementals at our door. Nor with whom I suspected was with them.
Adrian would hold them off for as long as he could, but he was outnumbered. And Celestial or not, even he wasn’t invincible.
Something in my gut twisted. I stifled the primal urge to run to him as I felt his pain ricocheting across our bond, knowing what he would want me to do even as his stalwart acceptance nearly brought me to my knees. Because that pain was that of a canary in a mine, its death buying time so that others might live.
Flames licked up the walls of the living room. Tobias yanked on my arm, pulling his hand away. “We need to help Dad?—”
“No,” I barked. “This way.”
Eva struggled, trying to reach what she thought was the nearest exit. “There’s no way out from here, we need to?—”
“Trust me,” I gasped. “This is the only way out. You need to get to Quinn’s…”
A cough wracked my body, just as pain flared down my bond from Adrian.
“Mom, you need to tell us what’s going on,” Eva croaked. “Who are those?—”
I felt the moment my anima was torn from the world like a scream from my soul. My heart felt like it was being split in two as it attempted to leave this earth right along with him, the death that claimed him reaching for me across our bond. Blood welled in my mouth, and I realized I had bitten through my tongue while attempting to stifle my cry.
To keep the truth from our children.
“ Go ,” I gasped, my ears ringing. The crowns around Eva’s pupils gleamed ruthlessly at me, as if reminding me exactly why this had all come to pass.
Placing my hand on her chest, I pushed as hard as I could.
She threw her arm out reflexively, catching the edge of the mirror—stubborn to a fault and too well-trained for me to catch her off guard, even in her state of shock. Her scream as the hot metal burned into her palm wrenched through me, adding to the cacophony of pain that was now my serrated heart.
“You need to go, now ,” I choked out, my voice breaking as I lied, “Your dad and I will hold him off.” I grabbed them both, wishing I had the time to tell them everything but knowing I didn’t. “Eyes up, stout hearts. Remember, the only way out is through.”
It was the only goodbye I could manage. The last piece of safety I could give her, repeated so often it had become habitual. As much as I wanted to tell her, tell both of them everything, I would have to trust they would figure it out on their own when it came down to it. That the pieces I had put into place would reveal themselves in due course; that the same destiny that would take me from them would yield to its true and future queen.
“Come with us, Mom,” Tobias pleaded, his eyes flicking over to the rippling mirror in alarm. “Don’t…you don’t have to leave us.”
I took one last look at them both. “I love you.”
The door on the other side of the room crashed open. A hooded figure stalked forward, barely visible through the smoke. I knew exactly who he was, and who he wanted. With a yell, I ran at him, my magic flaring at my fingertips.
My light tore out of me, a manifestation of the silent scream I hadn’t allowed myself, seeking vengeance. But he was faster. His own Celestial light burned around me, and I cried out as it seared into my skin.
Tobias and Eva had frozen in place behind me.
I wouldn’t let him hurt them too.
My light speared toward Eva. She stumbled back; her burned hand reaching toward me, the shape of a partially unfurled rose that lined the gate now forever marking her flesh. But this time, her attempt to stay with me was in vain. Her mouth parted as if she were about to speak?—
Then she was nothing but another ripple.
The False King let out a bellow. My light surged forward, forming a wall of pure power in between us.
Tobias’s face went slack as he took in the space where his twin had disappeared. “How did…Mom?—”
My light reached for him, but it sputtered before I used it against him as I had to his twin, my magic draining far too rapidly. Dimly, I wondered if it was the force of the False King’s magic, or the repercussions of losing my anima . Either way, far too much of my power was being spent at once, at a rate I knew I couldn’t sustain.
“I can’t hold him back much longer,” I rasped. “You need to go.”
“I won’t leave you here,” Tobias insisted, taking a step toward me. “I can help.”
I shook my head again. “You need to live to fight another day. He’s too powerful, it’s why we ran in the first place?—”
As if in response, the wall of light wavered, so close to bleeding out entirely even as I kept pouring more and more of myself into it. Like trying to fill a bath without a plug, it flowed endlessly out of me in a painful torrent.
Except I knew there would be an end to it, and to me.
I didn’t have time to argue. So I tried another tactic, a pale substitute of the explanation I owed them both, even as my voice shook with the strain.
“He’s after both of you,” I said urgently. “But he’s mostly after her . You have to keep her safe. You need to get her far away from here. Your magic…” Tobias’s eyes widened almost comically. “It’s contained in the amulet you wear. Make sure you keep it on, or he’ll be able to track you. One day soon, when it’s safe, when it’s time, the Solearans will find you. And help you defeat him.”
Tobias’s mouth had dropped open. From the horror in his gaze, I knew he had heard me. Perhaps he had even realized the fact that I hadn’t included myself in the future I was hastily trying to prepare him for, nor his father. “Mom…”
The ceiling shuddered, smoke curling dangerously around the beams above us. Tobias looked up just as a band of my light wrapped around his chest, redirected from the wavering wall. His expression changed to one of betrayal as it dragged him backward.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I love you.”
The barrier holding the False King collapsed, my light fizzling into sparks. His magic danced from his fingertips as if in mockery of the light I had been unable to maintain. I gaped at him as he stepped through, the last of my light disappearing before a jolt of pure energy slammed into me. I screamed, even as I fought to keep my hold on my son, to get him out?—
“No . Mom— ” Tobias’s last shout seemed to reverberate through me as I forced him through the mirror.
Then he, too, was gone.
I raised both hands in a fighting stance, hoping I didn’t look as on the edge of collapse as I felt. But this bastard had taken my anima from me, and was hunting our children. He might very well kill me too.
But not before I tried to take him with me, fate be damned.
The False King’s lip curved as he pulled down the hood obscuring his face. “You can’t keep me from her forever.”
“Watch me.”
Light arched from his hand; its hue startlingly familiar. I dodged on instinct, even as my mind whirred. If Eva and Tobias hadn’t gotten far enough, if they hadn’t ended up at the Sagray’s and been thrown into the Faewilds…
I needed to give them every second I could.
Flinging myself behind my rapidly charring couch, I threw the chest behind it open, drawing my sword. But the second my hand touched the hilt; all I could see was Adrian.
Adrian, bowing as he asked for my name with a smile that had never stopped making my heart race. The look on his face that first time I had raised my sword against him to fight him for it. The taste of his lips when I kissed him for the first time. The moonlight in his hair that first night we had come together. The scent of him—like home, like belonging. The way he had held our children, one cradled in each strong arm, his lilting voice always the cure for our babies’ cries.
The lack of our bond felt like a void spearing toward my heart, intent on taking me with it. Because my world had stopped turning the second his heart stopped beating.
My every breath hurt, but my grip tightened as I regathered my resolve as though my home, my life, wasn’t literally crumbling around my ears. Footsteps slowly stalked toward me, barely audible over the crackle of the fire around me. But I would wait for the right moment.
Hold, I could almost hear Adrian whisper in my ear, his arms tightening around me. Tears sprang to my eyes unbidden, and I blinked them away.
A fiery beam fell from the ceiling as I sprang from behind the couch where we had spent so many family nights together. My blade hit home, and the False King hissed out a grunt of pain as I slashed it across his stomach.
He drew his sword, light flaring above him as the house groaned. If I could just keep him here long enough, perhaps the fire would do my job for me.
I darted forward, but he was ready for me. His sword clashed against mine, sparks flying around us. He reached for me, but I was faster. A bloody line opened down his sword arm as I spun away, and I smiled grimly.
Our blades met, the clang of metal against metal lost in the roar of the flame.
“It’s almost a shame I have to kill you,” the False King drawled.
I kicked out as I spun away. My foot found its mark—the deep gash I had carved into his stomach spraying blood—and he let out a hiss of pain. “Can’t say the same.”
He was backing me toward the flame with each parry, his size and strength formidable, especially as my own power waned. And he was Celestial, a light wielder too. But as to who was stronger…
As if my thoughts had conjured it, light flared up his sword. I poured mine into my own to match it. He smirked, like he knew something I didn’t. Our swords collided, but this time, as his light flew down his blade, something about it made me pause.
My distraction cost me. Or perhaps my time had finally run out.
His light wrapped around my wrists like searing shackles. I jerked back, but his hand flattened against my heart?—
I screamed.
Light tore from me, my magic flowing from my chest, my hands, my mouth. All I could hear was his laugh as he took and took and took, the pain overwhelming.
I knew what he was. And, far too late, it became clear exactly why he needed my family. Why he had targeted my daughter specifically.
My body slackened in the False King’s hold, even as I coughed helplessly against the smoke, gasping for air. The world around me became a burning blur of light and flame, as the last of my magic was ripped from me, my life force draining right with it.
I closed my eyes.
Estelle.
That familiar, lilting accent filled my ears. Citrus and anise—a scent I thought I would never smell again—wrapped around me like an embrace before his arms followed.
Then there was nothing at all.