Chapter 80
Evie
It took Evie’s mind several seconds to register the sword protruding from her brother’s stomach, and the horrific, guttural noises that came from her mouth.
“Gideon!” Evie dropped to the ground, nearly crawling the rest of the way to her brother, who’d fallen to his knees, chains clanking, staring at the sword with wide, unflinching eyes.
Eyes like their father’s. Who burst from the tree line in a rage. “Benedict, what are you doing!” Griffin yelled, charging for Evie and Gideon, but Evie raised her chained hands with a nearly feral sound escaping her lips.
“Stay back!” she screamed. “Don’t come near us.” This couldn’t be happening. How could every moment of hope, of goodness, end here? In tragedy. In pain. “Gideon. Don’t die.”
Gideon held tight to the sword in his middle. “I’ll give it my best, Eve.”
“Don’t pull it out,” Trystan ordered at her shoulder. “It’ll just escalate the bleeding. We need Tatianna. She can fix this.”
“He won’t make it to Tatianna,” Keeley whispered with more panic in her voice than Evie had ever heard from the captain. Evie hadn’t seen her come closer, but the guards appeared to have retreated to the edges of the clearing, ensuring none of them had an easy means of escape.
“Trystan. You’re a Core Healer! Can you—”
“I’m afraid Trystan can’t help you, Ms. Sage.” Benedict tsked.
And Trystan growled, an inhuman sound, at the statement. “Like the deadlands I won’t.”
“Even if you manage to heal the wound, you won’t heal the poison because there is no cure.” Benedict’s words fell upon them with heaviness. “Not in this world, but in the one beyond. The cursed Rennedawn.”
No.
No.
Please.
“You have starlight magic.” Evie looked up frantically, her eyes landing on the king. “Use it to heal him.”
Benedict was watching the scene with triumph, as if this was what he’d wanted all along. He’d wanted to torment them into this moment, to play with them like prey. And they’d fallen right into the trap. There was no way out of this.
“I’d be more than happy to. But the healing magic of this world will not cure this poison. I do not lie to you, Ms. Sage. You can save him if you say the incantation Destiny requires. As must Gideon, of course.”
Gideon gripped her hand; his dear face was etched with such pain, Evie’s heart broke for the thousandth time. “Don’t, Evie. Don’t. I deserve this, really. It’s all right.”
Tears burned at the hopelessness of it all. They’d always had a way out of things before, but not now. There was only one way forward, and Evie would walk through that door before she allowed her brother to die.
“I thought I lost you once,” she whispered, kissing her brother’s cheek.
“I refuse to do it again. Everything will be okay.” They were words she used to say to Lyssa, words she’d always believed.
There was a profound relief in her that even now, in this terrible, heart-wrenching moment, Evie still found that optimism buried below the pain.
Everything would be okay. They would make it so.
No matter what they had to do before it was.
“Fine,” Evie said, standing with her shoulders back, her eyes on the man who’d ruined her life in so many different ways. “Bring the book. I will give you what you want.”
“Evangelina.” Trystan stumbled toward her, coming close enough for her to touch him.
She lifted her fingers to his cheek. “You promised there was no world in existence in which you wouldn’t come for me. Did you mean it?”
His eyes were boring into hers. Anger, frustration, and fear were all emotions she read there, along with tenderness, unfailing love, and devotion. “I did.”
“Then find me in this next one. Would you?”
She dragged his face down toward her and placed a desperate kiss to his lips, one born of all the pain in her he’d healed, all the parts he’d mended, how vital he was to her, like air or water. He was her life.
He kissed her back with equal intensity, equal fervor, and it took every last stitch of her strength to wrench away from him, stumbling toward the book and summoning the magic inside her.
Griffin stepped forward to unlock the chains around her wrists, and they fell to the floor.
She might have seen remorse in him, but she imagined even the most wretched souls had second thoughts from time to time, and an ounce of sorrow from her father was worth nothing.
Mist spilled over the book in a swirl of darkness, then shot into the open pages of the book until it floated.
“Repeat after me,” Destiny said, no smugness, just determination to see the task done. “I claim my Fate as it will be and give Destiny free rein.”
In her surrender, through her agony, Evie found the silver lining.
At least it doesn’t fucking rhyme.
She repeated the words, though they felt sour in her mouth.
What would happen to them? To Lyssa? To Trystan? What would the world become in the wake of this curse?
“Gideon?” Benedict urged.
Her brother repeated his own words to the book, giving his shielding magic, the attention on him for a moment so that no one saw when Trystan turned to her.
“They cannot undo the past,” he murmured. “Do not let them fool you. They can curse the land and force it into something new, but no matter what they do, they cannot erase what’s already happened. When it’s done, you must remember.”
A loud boom echoed off the book, exploding into magical smoke, the edges of it spreading until it swallowed all of them, and Evie felt panicked. The force of it knocked her to the other side of the dandelion field.
When she sat up, she heard rumbling coming from the direction of the sea, and she saw a cloudlike, swirling mass coming toward them.
The curse.
Evangelina Sage and Trystan Maverine locked eyes.
And they ran. And ran. And reached for each other.
Their hands were about to touch. But just before they could…
The curse took them.
And everything changed.