Chapter 48
Amara
“Daed!”
His name rips from my throat before I even reach him. I stumble over broken stone and ash, my legs barely holding beneath me.
He lies still in the center of the ruin, the shadows around him gone quiet, the air hollow in his absence.
I fall to my knees beside his body, gather him into my arms, the weight of him both familiar and unbearable.
His head lolls against my shoulder, his hair matted with soot and blood.
His skin is cold and when I press my palm to his chest, there’s nothing.
No heartbeat. No spark. No golden thread.
The bond that once hummed between us, that constant pulse of life and magic, is gone. Torn.
Zyphoro folds in on herself, knees tight to her chest, arms cinched around her ribs as though she’s afraid she’ll split apart. She rocks, breath hitching, sobs tearing out of her in ragged bursts. Daed’s moonstone gleams in her fist, gripped so fiercely her knuckles bleed.
My fingers trace his face, his jaw, his mouth. I press my forehead to his.
“I love you,” I whisper, again and again, like a prayer, like a curse. “And I will not live without you.”
My tears fall through the cracks in the stone, vanishing into the dark beneath us. The earth stirs. A low hum begins in my bones.
Zyphoro sniffs, then gulps, then slowly rises to her feet, one trembling hand pressed to her heart. “Amara…”
The light comes first as a flicker, a single pulse of green beneath my skin. Then another. Then it spreads, winding across my arms, my throat, my face, until the air around me shimmers. The glow thickens, radiant and wild, spinning in a slow spiral around Daed’s body.
“Amara, stop!” Zyphoro calls, shielding her eyes. She remembers the fire. “You’ll burn yourself alive!”
But the power is beyond stopping. My grief is beyond stopping.
It builds, pulsing, swelling, until the entire temple trembles with it. The light engulfs us both, wrapping Daed in its embrace. I scream, my voice breaking with pain and power as the ground splits beneath us and a beam of green light erupts skyward, spearing through the heavy clouds above.
The brilliance blinds even the gods. Demons still crawling through the ruins crumble to ash, their bodies disintegrating in the wake of that holy fire.
And I feel it. A tearing, a ripping through bone and blood, something ancient and wild clawing its way out from beneath my skin.
Heat sears down my spine, bright and unbearable, and then wings burst from my back.
They tear into existence in a spray of emerald and gold light, feathers unfurling like shards of dawn.
The pain is exquisite. Pure. Endless. It is agony that remakes. Fire that cleanses. My body trembles, reshaping around power I did not know I carried. The world narrows to the raw, brutal beauty of it, to the sound of muscle splitting and magic stitching me into something new.
And through the torment, a terror and wonder fill me. I am not what I was. I can never be what I was.
When it finally ends, when the light fades and the world grows still again, I collapse. Exhausted. My hands tremble where they cradle him. Daed, motionless in my arms.
His face is pale beneath the soot, his lips are parted, but no breath escapes them. The golden threads that once connected us, that sang through my soul, remain dark.
“No…” The word breaks from me like glass. “No, please.”
I press trembling fingers to his throat. Nothing.
To his chest. Still nothing.
I curl over him, the sob tearing through me so hard it steals my breath. My wings unfurl, curling around us both like a cocoon. Blossoms spill from them in a cascade of emerald and white, drifting over his body, over the stones, over my hands shaking against his heart.
The petals gather in his hair, on his shoulders, on the curve of his jaw. A thousand tiny goodbyes.
“I tried,” I whisper into the hollow of his throat. “I tried to bring you back.”
I press my lips to his skin.
Something shifts.
So faint I almost miss it.
A tremor beneath my palm.
I freeze, breath held, heart hammering, and then another. Stronger this time. A flutter. A heartbeat.
My head snaps up, tears still spilling freely down my cheeks.
“Daed?”
Then his chest rises. A ragged, shuddering breath breaks the silence, followed by another, and another, until he gasps, sharp and desperate, as though the world is rushing back into him.
His eyes open, unfocused at first, then burning.
The petals fall faster, the blossoms shiver on my wings, and I laugh through the tears still streaming down my face.
“Welcome back, my love,” I whisper, cradling his face as he blinks up at me, confusion and awe mingling in those eyes I thought I’d never see again.
As the brilliance dims, glittering ashes of light drift down like slow-falling stars. They touch the wounded earth, the shattered stones and the fallen. The shimmering dust settles upon Solena and Orios, upon Reon and Ronin, seeping into their wounds, their blood, their bones.
I cradle Daed’s face and lift his chin so he has to look at me.
“You brought me back,” he whispers, voice thin as breath. His eyes focus, and when he notices my wings, his brows lift. “And now you can fly?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I haven’t tried yet.”
He manages a crooked smile, stubborn and bright as ever. “Then I will teach you, wife.”
A laugh slips from me, small and soft, something I thought I had lost forever. “I look forward to it, husband.”
He lifts his chin and I lean in, ready to kiss him.
Zyphoro barrels into me, shoving me aside. My wings vanish in shock as she wraps Daed up and squeezes him so hard his eyes bulge.
“I thought you were dead!” she shrieks.
“I was,” he croaks.
She loosens her grip. He drags in a wheezing breath.
“Do not ever do that again,” she orders, voice cracking.
Daed steadies his breathing. When he can speak, he reaches for her shoulder, squeezing it with what strength he has.
“You either,” he breathes.
Zyphoro and I haul Daed to his feet. He sways, then steadies.
“Gygarth,” I say quietly. “Is he truly gone?”
Daed brushes his knuckle against his chest. “I feel him,” he murmurs. “Writhing like snakes inside me. But he is imprisoned for now.”
I nod slowly. “For now. But what if…”
He cuts me off. “No buts. No what ifs. For now he is silent. and our daughter is waiting for us. Nothing else matters.”
Suddenly he lets out a low groan and lurches forward.
“Is this what it feels like?” he rasps, breath shaky. “Being resurrected?”
“I’m not sure,” I say softly. “How do you feel?”
He grimaces, rubbing the back of his neck. “Like shit.”
“Then yes,” I tell him. “That’s what it feels like.”
Ronin and the others climb the stairs toward us, healed and renewed, weapons drawn and ready to face whatever waits beyond the temple’s doors.
But Daed lifts a hand, his voice low but certain. “The battle is won,” he says. “What comes next, Amara and I must do alone.”
I lace my fingers through his and nod in agreement.
Then I take Zyphoro’s dagger from her belt, draw it across my palm, and let my blood spill into the air.
Each drop burns like molten emerald, and when they fall, the air shatters, splitting open in a shimmering rift. Through the veil, I glimpse the Grove.
“Go,” I tell them. “We will follow soon.”
“Are you sure?” Solena asks, worry shadowing her face. “You do not know what still lurks within.”
I glance at Daed, my heart steady, a small smile finding its way to my lips. “There is nothing left in this world that can stand against us.”
Solena exhales, nods once, then takes Orios’ arm. Together they step through the rift. Reon follows with a wry grin and a bow of his copper head, then Ronin with a quiet nod.
Zyphoro lingers. She approaches Daed, holding his moonstone necklace between her fingers, but instead of returning it, she unclasps her own. With deft hands, she braids the two leather cords together before dropping the newly woven strand into Daed’s waiting palm.
“Give that to my niece,” Zyphoro says, her voice trembling just slightly. “Tell her it belonged to her grandmother. Queen Veloria.”
Daed shivers. For a heartbeat, brother and sister mirror each other perfectly. The same storm flickering in their eyes, the same weight of legacy in their bones.
“As you wish, sister,” he replies.
She steps to me then, presses a kiss to my cheek, her breath soft against my ear.
“Thank you, Amara,” she whispers. “For saving my brother and for saving me from my oath to kill him.”
Before I can answer, she turns, a blur of motion, and twirls into the portal. The veil closes behind her, and the blood on my palm blossoms into a spill of flowers that scatter across the temple stairs.
Then it is only Daed and I, standing before the mouth of the temple. The heart of Gygarth’s kingdom. Darkness still lurks here, yet I feel no fear. Only resolve. Only faith that what waits inside will end with our family whole again.
We step forward. Once. Twice.
The temple looms ahead, columns scorched black where Gygarth fell, idols of bone and stone staring down from the walls. Demons, carved in the forms of beasts, a bat, a serpent, a lion, leer from every alcove.
We move deeper, our footsteps echoing against stone, until a single candle flickers in the distance. A trembling flame in a sea of dark. We follow it. The light grows, revealing a hall with open arches that gape toward the wasteland beyond and in the center of the chamber stands a crib.
My heart seizes, beating so hard I swear it might burst from my chest. Each step toward it feels like walking on a blade, thin and sharp and merciless.
We reach it together.
We peer inside.
Nothing.
Empty.
No… not empty.
I reach into the cradle, fingers brushing the furs within, and come away with a handful of pale ash that runs like dust through my trembling hand.
The sound that leaves me is not human. A scream, a sob, a breaking of the soul. I collapse against the edge of the crib.
“She’s gone,” I choke. “Daed. She’s gone!”