Chapter 45 #2
When Teddy leaned closer to Alastor, both of them reading the same phrase, I touched Elias’s shoulder and nodded toward my front door. He hesitated before following me into the warm night.
The air outside tasted of the pending rain while the stars hung brightly above Respandora’s skyline.
Elias huffed, his eyes narrowing at me. “You’re going to tell me he had a good reason.”
“I’m going to tell you Alastor had his reasons,” I said, leaning against the white railing bordering my yard. “Eiran told him he could manage her, contain her, and Alastor believed him.”
“She could have killed more of our people, destroyed our realm,” Elias said. “All of them.”
“And Alastor would’ve done what had to be done to stop her,” I said. “He did do what had to be done. You don’t know what it cost him.”
Elias grunted.
“He hides things because he thinks carrying the weight alone is safer than asking anyone else to bear it with him.”
Elias’s gaze slid toward the window, where we could see Teddy and Alastor. “And you think that justifies it?”
“No.” I pushed off the railing. “But I understand it. You’ve done the same for your people. So have I.”
He looked at me, assessing me the way he did during combat training.
“He was ready to destroy her, Elias,” I said. “His own sister. In a way, he did destroy her. And he made that choice knowing it would destroy him. That’s not betrayal. That’s sacrifice. That’s love. He did it to protect you. To protect all of us.”
Elias exhaled slowly, his anger draining out of him as his shoulders loosened some of their tension. “Do you really think he loves her? After everything she did to him and Blaise?”
“In their own ways, I think they both do.” I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to piece the right words together. “They were raised with the intent of avenging their people. They were raised to be weapons. Maybe the love between them doesn’t look like ours. But it’s still love.”
The door creaked open from behind us, and Teddy stuck her head out. Alastor hovered from behind her, pale and tired, but his eyes shone in a way I’d never seen.
“We know how to free Blaise,” she said.
Elias was the first to move, stepping through the open door and tugging on Teddy’s hand while he clapped Alastor’s shoulder, quick to forgive and eager to assist.
“How can we help?” he asked.
Back at the dining table, Alastor’s attention went to the glowing script hovering above the open book. I pointed at them, a half laugh escaping from deep within me.
“I’m not the only one seeing this, right?” I asked.
Finley wrapped an arm across my back, a small laugh coming from her as well.
Alastor almost grinned. “If you’re seeing words suspended in the air, no, that’s only you.
You should see a healer about that.” His words came out dry but amused before his expression turned solemn.
“The answer isn’t in the words, though. It was hidden in the sigils, in the spaces between them.
” He gently shook his head as if he were still piecing it together.
“I’d never used sigils until today. I was taught them, but never dared until instinct took hold.
The sigils, though, create a path. Teddy figured out how to walk it. ”
Teddy’s shoulder lifted in a shrug. “We figured it out together.”
Alastor’s eyes held hers, a silent communication passing through them before he straightened his tall frame. “To open this path, I’ll need more strength than I have.”
Elias shifted, but it was Etienne who spoke. “I’ll lend you from mine. You can absorb my magic.”
Alastor shook his head. “I appreciate the offer, but this magic is old and specific. Teddy’s mage blood aligns with mine. It’ll be enough.”
Teddy frowned. “No, it won’t. You’ll burn out before the connection stabilizes.”
He remained quiet.
“You can use mine, though,” I said. “You used it last year to poke around Elias’s and Teddy’s heads.”
Teddy huffed out a laugh while Elias smacked the back of my head good-naturedly. All I felt was Finley’s hand in mine, squeezing in reassurance.
“My sibling bond with Ted is strong enough to anchor through her,” I said.
Teddy’s hand went to my shoulder while she reached her other hand to Alastor’s wrist. “With Brenton, this could work.”
Hope flared behind his eyes, and he bit on his bottom lip in contemplation.
“I already told you, Alastor,” I said. “Whatever you need.”
Finley looked between us, her brows knitting. “My magic wields both life and death.” Her attention went to Alastor. “I think I can help too.”
Alastor blinked, and for a few beats, he didn’t seem to know what to do with the offer. Then he inclined his head, and a faint tremble ran through him. “I think so.”
“It’s worth a shot, cousin,” Teddy said.
Alastor shifted to grip her hand, and after he pulled the Orb of Sacrifice from his pocket of magic, he guided us to my living room.
We formed a circle, Teddy to his left, Finley to mine, the living book at the center, and the orb on Alastor’s lap.
All but Finley took our turn pinching our fingers so three drops of blood dripped into his bowl.
When our hands touched, heat surged through our link.
It wasn’t gentle but a raw current that demanded reverence, with Finley’s surging forward, seeming to call for the life that lived in death.
Alastor began to chant, sigils forming from his shadows, Finley’s red threads spearing through them. His voice, rough and harsh, rose and fell like waves. Teddy repeated each word a breath behind him, their voices coming together in a strange harmony.
More symbols came both from his shadows and the book, each sigil burning with purpose. Magic thrummed between us. Threads of shadow and gold twisted through my smoke, and Alastor’s green ribbons, but it was Finley’s magic that took hold.
Her red threads speared through it all, sharp and certain. They caught the others and drew them into patterns, binding Alastor’s sigils and centering the rest of us to her rhythm. Death and life were shaped in her hands. Not warring but moving as one.
Teddy’s mage magic and my shadow magic fed the current, giving it weight and strength, but it was Finley’s magic that guided it. Her magic knew how to free the souls and send them where they belonged.
The orb trembled, and light leaked from the forming cracks. A low hum filled the air, crawling beneath my skin.
A ripple took shape, roaring outward until the air against my wall split open with a new tear. Not breaking the stone but peeling reality away from it.
Of all the places for a doorway to the dead to appear, it had to be my home.
Alastor’s voice faltered, and Teddy went on without him.
Her hand lifted with the orb floating above us.
We followed suit, my hand still clasping Finley’s as we all shifted to stand.
Then it splintered completely. Shards of gold fractured above us, each line shimmering like hundreds of stars.
From within, a stream of light spilled upward, drifting toward the open ripple that formed along my wall.
The air trembled and shimmered. Souls, thousands of them, hovered between realms, drawn to the breach yet uncertain.
Finley’s threads raced forward, red against the faint glow, unfurling like veins through the ether. Her magic, twined with Alastor’s sigils, sealed the edges of the split, weaving order where there should have been collapse.
A pull beyond the veil came. Steady and cold. Eiran.
He was there on the other side, his presence holding the tear open. I could feel his shadows pressing from beyond, shaping the path Finley paved and guiding the lost through it.
The crossing we’d destroyed hadn’t returned. This wasn’t a doorway. This was Eiran answering.
She swayed, and I held her waist, sending my magic through our bond to strengthen her. Alastor’s joined ours, then Teddy’s, but it wasn’t until Etienne sent his as well that the current steadied.
The souls began to rise.
For long, impossible beats, life and death moved as one. Finley stood at the center of it, the bridge between what was lost and what remained.
One light lingered. It hovered before Alastor, trembling as if afraid to approach him. Then slowly it transformed until a male stood where it had been.
He looked almost exactly like Alastor. Same gray eyes, same proud line of his jaw. But where Alastor’s power carried weight, this male’s presence was almost empty.
“Blaise,” Alastor whispered, voice breaking as his shadows stilled.
The brothers stood there frozen, and millennia of loss pressed in that single moment, then Alastor stepped forward and the two embraced.
“You found your way to me,” Blaise said, voice raw.
Alastor’s shoulders trembled. “Too late.”
Blaise pulled back, gripping his arms. “No—”
The word faltered as light flickered along his form.
“I don’t have long,” Blaise said, urgency threading through his voice.
His gaze moved quickly, memorizing his brother and each of us.
He pressed a fist to his chest in a small bow.
“It seems you found a family who refuses to let you live alone.” He reached for Teddy and guided her trembling hand into Alastor’s.
“Remind him what hope looks like.” Then his eyes, already dimming, found mine.
“Continue to breathe life into my stubborn brother. Continue to remind him how to live.”
His form flickered again, thinner this time.
Alastor grabbed for him. “You can’t just—after all this—”
Blaise smiled, fragile and fading. “Live, Brother.”
Light unraveled through his chest. Alastor’s hand passed through him.
“No,” he breathed.
“Until we meet—”
The words dissolved before he finished. Then he was gone.
When the last shimmer vanished, the ripple sealed, leaving the stone untouched and only the memory of where reality had split open.
Finley sagged against me, letting me take most of her weight. Teddy wiped her face, then crossed the short distance between them before Alastor could retreat into himself. She wrapped her arms around him and, without a word, pressed her forehead to his chest.
At first, he didn’t move. Then the orb, dark and hollow, slipped from his grasp and hit the floor with a dull thud. He folded his arms around her, his fingers digging in the back of her shirt as a sob tore through him, raw and unguarded.
I stepped toward them, but when I hesitated, Finley’s fingers squeezed mine.
Her eyes pinned me, and she mouthed, Go.
I wavered, worried about the exhaustion that pinned her shoulders down.
Go, she mouthed again, her lips thinning.
So I crossed to them and rested a hand on Alastor’s shoulder.
He didn’t look up, but his fingers circled my wrist, and his body trembled beneath my touch.
It was the kind of tremor that came when someone finally stopped holding everything in.
“He’s free,” Teddy whispered.
Alastor exhaled, his breath breaking halfway through. “He’s at peace,” he managed to say. His voice was wrecked, bleeding with pain too old and too deep for words.
Finley joined us, her quiet and steady presence settling beside mine.
Her magic brushed through our bond and toward Alastor, soothing and calm, and I could feel the tension in him slightly ease.
Tears streamed down his face, silent and relentless, with years of loss finding their way out.
Of a brother who’d waited too long to grieve.
Watching him break, I understood. Peace didn’t come in the absence of pain. It was the moment you were finally allowed to feel it, surrounded by those who’d help you through it.