Chapter 45
Chapter
Forty-Five
brENTON
The crossing of astral realm fell with a hollowing silence.
Magic still heated my palms and beneath my skin as an echo of what we’d done.
What we’d destroyed. The air in Respandora tasted too clean after the smoke and ruin.
Finley trembled against me, her thoughts a storm that bled through our bond.
Relief. Disbelief. Sorrow. All tangled in one furious pulse.
We won. But it didn’t feel like a victory.
But something in the air had shifted. I felt it as soon as we were back in our realm.
For the first time in a year, the magic that lived beneath my skin, the vibration of fae magic, felt steady.
Not frayed or gasping. I lifted my hand and let my smoke magic rise.
It came obediently, without hesitation or a sense of urgency.
It curled through my fingers. No flicker.
No fight. Just the calm, steady pulse it had always been.
Finley felt it too. She let out a small, startled sound. Threads of her magic brushed against mine through the bond. Stronger than before. Whole. We both knew what it meant, and some of the tension that had lived within our bond eased. Zaicha’s pull on the orb was truly gone.
Fae magic had finally returned home.
But Eiran was gone. The god whose magic lived inside her.
The one who’d left her as a youngling to fend for herself.
Who, when it’d mattered most, finally trained her, tested her, and taught her how to become her magic.
He’d met the destruction in his realm by his own choice.
And just as he’d promised, he’d rebuild. He’d find his way back to her again.
I hoped wherever he was in the other corners of the astral realm, he could still watch over her.
Across from where we sat on the couch, Alastor settled on the floor, his shoulders bowed. He looked less like the mage I’d known and more like a male made of shadow and smoke. I knew better than to speak. His silence was sacred and heavy with the kind of pain no words could ease.
Eiran’s words to him clawed down the sides of my mind. “You will die at the hand of the one you still reach for.”
Alastor’s visions of the female had been killing him long before this mission.
Yet he still reached for her, wanting those visions.
Maybe needed them as much as I needed my mate.
If breaking that space in the astral realm severed her from him, maybe it would end the visions.
But maybe that would leave him emptier than before.
Luana walked in, her nails clicking on the wood floor, and without hesitation, she curled onto Alastor’s lap. The tiniest huff of air left him, not quite a sigh but not indifference either. He rested a hand on her head.
When he finally spoke, it was a whisper. “I should take my leave now.” He said it without moving, without any inclination that he actually wanted to leave.
I tightened my hold on Finley. She didn’t speak or lift her head, but her fingers dug around my shirt.
“Stay,” I said just as quietly.
Alastor looked at me, eyes swollen with exhaustion, and gave a single nod. No argument, just quiet acceptance.
For a long time, none of us moved. The thump of Luana’s tail was the only thing to break the silence that the astral realm had left behind.
Finley’s heart drummed against me, uneven. Her magic brushed alongside mine through our bond, thin, flickering threads of life weaving back together.
Footsteps sounded in the hall, and Etienne stopped at the doorway, Frisky rubbing against his ankles, as his eyes swooped over the disaster we’d become.
“It’s over,” Finley said before he could ask. Her voice was raw, small. Final.
Etienne crossed to us and sat beside her. She leaned into him, and he took her hand without saying anything. Similar to the way Teddy treated me with such easy affection.
Alastor shifted as he dug through the inner pocket of his magic and pulled out a book covered in gold. The living book. Its cover breathed, its pages rippling as if aware of Alastor’s hold on it.
I pressed a kiss to Finley’s temple. When I met her gaze, she nodded in understanding. I joined Alastor on the floor, pulling out the tome of the gods from my pocket of magic. The weight of it was familiar although I hadn’t done more than thumb through it.
I set the book beside his. “We’ll find a way to free Blaise.”
The faintest spark shone in his eyes, but I couldn’t tell if it was hope or resolve. Finley exhaled, and in that single, shaky sound was everything we’d lost and everything we had left.
His fingers trailed the edge of the book, his movements slow but precise. “The living book answers better to Teddy,” he said, voice steady, but grief shadowed each word. “Will you allow me to summon her here?”
For a few beats, his words didn’t register. Not because I didn’t understand, but because of how he said them. His voice was too brittle, too fragile. The mage who’d once forced his way into the astral realm now sounded like a man holding the last piece of something he couldn’t bear to lose.
“Whatever you need, Alastor.”
His gaze lifted, distant but grateful, then he closed his eyes, reaching through his mind-speak magic to connect with Teddy.
“Elias and Teddy are on their way once someone can stay behind with the younglings,” he said.
His gaze dropped to Luana, still curled on his lap, her slow breaths filling the silence the rest of us were wary to break. His fingers moved through her fur, slow and deliberate, like he needed the motion to center himself.
With the kind of bluntness only Alastor could manage, he said, “We should speak plainly before they arrive.”
My stomach tightened. I swear the mage loved being unpredictable and dramatic. Except, I already knew what he wanted to speak of.
He lifted his head, his gray eyes on Finley. Finley shifted, her attention now solely on Alastor.
“Finley,” he began, his tone even but measured with the gravity of his upcoming words. “You already know I’m dying.”
Her throat bobbed with her swallow, and she blinked several times, but her eyes grew glassy with the tears she kept away. “Yes.”
His tone softened as he took her in. “When my time comes, I’ve asked Brenton to lead Respandora.”
Surprise flashed across her features, and she turned her wide eyes at me.
“Not for power,” he continued. “For balance. The people here will need a leader they already trust. Someone I trust. He has the loyalty of my warriors and the heart of my people. I tell you this not to burden you but because he has already agreed. And I would like you beside him.”
She blinked at him, her lips parting. “Me?”
“You understand hardship and sacrifice,” Alastor said quietly, the corners of his mouth twitching.
“You love this fool and aren’t afraid to tell him when he’s wrong.
And”—he paused, his features softening—“here you can rebuild yourself. You can dictate who you are and how you wish to use your magic.”
Emotions caught in my throat, the weight of what he offered her slamming into me. Here, she would finally be free.
“You’d trust me with that?” she asked. “With your people?”
“I already do.”
“If it helps you rest when you pass, I’ll do it,” she whispered.
Alastor’s hand stilled on Luana’s fur, and he nodded in silent thanks.
“The visions,” I started, but the words froze. My throat worked around my question before it finally came out. “The female who visits you in your dreams. She’s your soul-bound mate, isn’t she?”
“She is.” A small, wistful smile lifted at the corners of his mouth.
“She crossed through death to reach me, Brent. To remind me I was not lost even when I wished to be. When I stood at death’s edge, she was there.
Waiting. Calling. It was agony to turn away, knowing she would’ve stayed my hand if only I stepped closer. ”
My chest twisted, sharp and familiar. I knew the pain of distance, of reaching for someone you couldn’t have. The memory of years without Finley pressed against my ribs until it was hard to breathe. That same empty ache lived in Alastor’s eyes now.
“Do you think she’ll still be able to visit you?” I asked, my voice rough. “After what we did in the astral realm today?”
“I hope so.” His gaze returned to Luana, to the rhythmic motion of his hand on her coat. “What I do know is that when my time comes, she will be waiting again. That is the only peace I’ve ever been offered.”
I’d lived years believing I’d lost Finley to someone else while begging whatever gods would listen for her to be waiting for me should I fall.
Watching Alastor, I understood. He wasn’t asking for peace or relief.
He wanted what each of us did. For a soul that would reach back for them even in the dark.
The rustle of pages and low murmurs between Teddy and Alastor were all that filled my home. Spheres of fae light brightened the table where they sat shoulder to shoulder, their attention on the living book. Every so often, Teddy spoke to it, and the script rearranged itself, obedient to her.
Across from them, I went through Eiran’s tome of the gods, my fingers tracing over the phrases until the words blurred. My eyes burned from hours of reading, but sleep wasn’t something any of us sought tonight.
Not when hope for Blaise felt so close.
Finley had disappeared into the kitchen earlier and returned with a stew, thick with vegetables and herbs, while Etienne carried bread, browned along the edges.
It wasn’t anything grand, but it was ours.
The savory scent still lingered around us, grounding me in the realness of that moment after all the unreal we’d survived.
Conversation around the table had stayed practical. Strategy, theory, fragments of history. Elias had spoken the least, though, arms crossed, occasionally glancing at Alastor but never staying.
Years of friendship told me he wouldn’t declare it aloud, but he felt betrayed.