Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
brENTON
The world ripped out from beneath me.
One beat, I was sitting around the campfire with Finley’s nails digging into my palm. Next, I was drowning in silence. It was too heavy to breathe, too endless to think.
The astral realm. Not again.
My pulse thundered at my throat, and every muscle braced for dying a second time. The memory pressed in. The cold that hollowed me from the inside. The vast emptiness that spanned into eternity. My chest seized, and for a terrifying beat, I couldn’t manage a breath.
But then . . . Finley. Her hand was still in mine.
My fear sharpened, something fiercer growing inside me, but this time that panic was for her. She shouldn’t be here. She couldn’t be here. The astral realm wasn’t for the living, and Finley still had so much life to live.
“Finley,” I rasped out. I drew her closer, caging her against me as if I could shield her from the void.
But there he was. Eiran. The death god stood as if he’d been waiting. Tall, pale, and still as carved stone. His veins glowed silver beneath his skin. His cloak was surrounded by shadows. They reminded me of Alastor’s, but colder. Hungrier.
He didn’t speak, simply watching, patient, as he waited for me to compose myself.
My grip on Finley tightened.
I’d fought alongside Alastor’s shadows and stood in them without flinching. I’d sent the tendrils of my magic to play with Finley’s without fear. But this . . . this was different. Eiran’s magic carried a finality to it, an echo of every soul who’d crossed this realm.
And I had crossed here once.
Even if Teddy had fought for my survival, not all of me had returned. A sliver of myself still lingered in that silence, tethered to his shadows. I felt it, that part of me that had stayed behind. Like his magic recognized me, and his shadows wanted what they’d been deprived of.
I forced my spine straight. Finley was here. And if Death thought he could take her too, he’d have to carve me into the stars and chain me there. Even then, I’d rip my soul apart before I yielded.
Eiran arched a brow, the gesture meant possibly to put us at ease, but it landed sharp as a blade. My muscles locked. That wasn’t a friendly look, but that of a predator acknowledging its prey.
“You aren’t here to surrender anything or anyone,” he said, voice too smooth, too knowing.
“You are safe here. This is only a corner of this realm, the place where souls first arrive when their bodies die. I call it the crossing, a small threshold of the astral realm. Souls wait here for judgment before they’re sent to the peace they earned or the penance they made for themselves.
” His eyes settled on Finley, only on Finley, as if I weren’t standing at her side.
“I shaped this space to be peaceful. The newly dead fear enough without feeling the weight of eternity too soon. So I gave them this, the heart of my realm. The place souls first enter, the only place one may enter if summoned, and the only place I can send someone back.” He said each word with care, as if it were important to him that she understand.
“Why did you call us here?” I asked.
“I summoned you here to offer my assistance in what I know of the wielder of the Orb of Sacrifice.”
Finley’s hand twitched against mine. My grip only tightened. Silence stretched, but he remained unhurried and imperturbable.
Eiran’s gaze, the same shade of silver as the blood thrumming through his veins, swept over us.
“The wielder is no stranger to me. She is born of my line, the daughter of a mage I once favored. It was Zaicha who forged the Orb of Sacrifice that Alastor spoke of. It was her hand that drew power where none should have been drawn. Her desire to please the mages tipped the balance, not only in this realm but in yours, when the mages’ power rose above the fae and dragons. ”
Finley stiffened beside me, her pulse slamming beneath my fingers. I tightened my hold, anchoring her against me, no longer caring that we stood before Death himself.
“You were right,” she whispered, voice frayed at the edges, but her attention locked on me. “I trusted—I wanted to trust her. I wanted to give her my magic.” Her hand curled into fists, the air crackling with the red threads of her magic sparking between her fingers. Sharp with regret and anger.
My chest clenched at the way she kept her magic tethered to her. I’d seen her unleash her fury in lethal blows. But this . . . this was a quiet rage that she caged within herself, unwilling to share its burden with anyone.
“Finley.” I brushed my knuckles over her cheek, needing her to feel my touch, wanting her to know she didn’t have to bear this alone. Her hand wrapped around my wrist, and the threads of red snapped against my skin, but I didn’t flinch away. Not from her.
“Your magic is not hers to claim.” Eiran’s voice slid through, deep yet somehow tender, as if he spoke to her alone. Shadows curled close to his frame, but his gaze softened in a way that made the hair on the back of my neck rise.
I angled my body in front of her. Whatever this god thought he saw in her, whatever claim his tone implied, it wasn’t his to take.
“It is something that is born within you as hers was born in her,” he continued. “It is yours to command. Even when you cage it, it knows its master.”
Finley stilled, her fingers curling around my wrist before she stepped around my protective stance. For a few beats, the sparks at her fingertips quieted, as though her magic leaned toward him, drawn to the impossible calm of his voice.
Every muscle in me went rigid. I didn’t trust the fondness in his voice. Didn’t like the way she seemed grounded by him. Every instinct within me roared, prepared to strike Death if I must.
Eiran’s gaze lingered on Finley for a moment before it shifted to me.
“I am not your enemy, Brenton.” His lips curled into a hesitant smile.
“Is it not enough you have a sister because of me, as well as two nephews who bear my name as their second? Do you think I would endanger one who carries my mark on their skin?”
His words should have eased me. Instead, they set me further on edge.
Then something rippled. Disturbed. As if the realm itself recoiled. I didn’t have time to assess it further when shadows I knew slashed through the otherwise stillness. Dark and jagged, bending the astral realm to his will.
Amused, I shook my head, loosening my grip on Finley when Alastor stepped through his shadows like he owned the place. His smile was sharp and cunning.
“You’ll forgive me for intruding,” Alastor said. “Death’s summons rarely includes me, and I do hate to be left out of the fun.”
A puff of air burst from Finley, and she clapped a hand over her mouth to smother her snort. Eiran’s expression barely shifted as if he was neither bothered nor surprised that Alastor had managed to force his way in.
Alastor strolled toward us, his shadows snapping at Eiran’s.
“Of course.” Eiran’s grin revealed the sharp gleam of canines, one at either side. Because of course, Death not only had shadows but fangs as well. “I didn’t realize you sought an invitation.”
Alastor’s smile only widened, his shadows pressing harder into Eiran’s in what felt like a deliberate taunt. “Now”—Alastor laced his fingers together, tapping them idly—“what were we discussing?”
Finley shook her head, disbelief widening her silver eyes.
I froze. Those eyes. Always sharp enough to slice me open, bright enough to hold me captive. Unique among the fae. No one else bore silver eyes. No one else carried Death’s gift.
My gaze raced from her to Eiran, and my breath caught in my chest.
The same silver burned in his.
It wasn’t simply that, though. But the pointed cut of their chin. The dark hair that neither her mother nor her father wore.
Eiran’s gaze slid to mine, too knowing. His voice brushed against my mind. “Do not speak of this until I am ready to tell her.”
My jaw clenched. “I will not lie to her. I won’t betray her trust.”
“She is barely holding on,” Eiran said, his tone unwavering. “How will she feel to learn that Zaicha is her sister?”
“She is stronger than you know.”
“She has been stronger than she ever should have been.” A sense of rawness bled through the calm of his words. “I do not wish for her to carry more.”
I drew Finley closer, my thumb brushing over the pulse on her wrist. “Then you don’t see her.
She would rather carry the truth than have it be hidden to spare her.
She will not bear it alone. Not while I’m breathing.
Not while our bond burns within me. Whatever comes, she faces it with me at her side. ”
His mouth ticked up at the sides. “This is why you still breathe. Why I allowed Teddy to save you from death.”
His words echoed in my head, shifting and bending the air around me.
Finley’s brows knit as her gaze bounced from my face to Eiran’s, catching the tightness in my jaw, the faint curl at his mouth. Alastor stilled too, his shadows thinning around him, predator-sharp eyes following our exchange with a flicker of suspicion.
I held a palm out, waiting for Eiran to speak. When he didn’t, I ground the words through my teeth. “Will you tell her, or shall I?”
Eiran drew in a deep breath, his eyes flaring to a glacier white. The air thinned, brittle and sharp. Shadows swelled at his back, not striking but looming, yet I felt them as if they were squeezing my chest.
“You forget yourself.” Eiran’s voice threaded through the cold air.
“I forget nothing,” I said, keeping my voice steady despite the weight of his power pressing harder. “I am Finley’s soul-bound mate. I am devoted solely to her. Threaten me if you must, but that truth remains. So I ask again, Eiran. Will you tell her, or will I?”