Chapter 69
Alora
The light consumed everything.
The sky burst with an explosion of light, tearing all away. When the world stopped shaking and the smoke cleared, only silence remained.
Alora scrambled to her feet, screaming Rune’s name.
She searched for him in the Heavens scattered with ash.
Then she saw him.
Blood trailed after Rune’s form as he plummeted. She ran, her throat raw, reaching up as if she could catch him. Shadows slipped around her like mist. She blinked and she was in the sky. With a final surge of her magic, the shadows caught Rune.
He was at the edge of consciousness. Half of his body was already scorched black. Only the bone and membranes of his wings left.
Alora portaled again to the ground with him and he sank into his knees.
“Rune,” she choked, clutching him.
His form was breaking apart, golden light eating through him, burning him slowly to ash and embers. His wings unraveled into motes of light, his armor fell away in fragments. He was vanishing before her eyes.
“No, stay with me,” she begged, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please—please. Don’t go where I cannot follow. Not now. Not after everything.”
His crimson eyes found hers, soft even through the fire. He smiled, the way he did when no one else was watching.
She kissed him hard, desperately pouring her power into him, begging him to take what he needed to live. But Rune’s skin broke apart like porcelain. Pieces of him crumbled from his body, lifting away.
Alora sobbed, her shadows lashing wildly, trying to shield him, to hold him together.
But Rune only looked serene. As if he had already accepted what she could not.
He gently cupped her face, his voice fraying like threadbare silk. I love you, he murmured, thumb stroking her cheek. More than my own life.
His fingertips flickered red, his power weaving through her bones as he gave the last of his power.
The clouds thinned, and the light of dawn streamed down.
“No—no—NO!” Alora cried.
With a snap of her hand, the dark clouds blotted out the sun again. Alora clutched him as if she could hold the pieces together. But for all her power, she could do nothing.
With that same gentle smile, Rune dissolved away in ashes and embers, carried off into the wind.
Alora choked back a cry as the bond faded from her chest. The agony stole her breath, leaving her floundering for that presence that had become her home.
Alora sobbed, clutching her arms to herself, as the rest of her fell apart.
Ash scattered across her hands, across her dress, across the blood-soaked earth.
She collapsed over what little remained of Rune, her tears falling into the ashes.
Where her tears fell, life grew. Grass and flowers spread over the devastated land. But she found no joy in it.
Only a vast emptiness where her mate had been.
The God of Shadows was gone.
“My lady,” Calla called softly. The Harbingers stood close together, shielding her from the many eyes watching.
Alora didn’t move. She could do nothing but stare at her trembling hands stained black.
“You must stand.” Segrith appeared by her side, her voice low and severe. “A queen cannot fall into the dirt while the court watches. They grieve alone.”
Alora closed her eyes.
Then the sky shuddered.
A sound rolled out of it, low and vast, like the groan of something too large to be contained. The air warped. The edges of the Rift bled light and shadow, fraying, stretching, as if reality itself were being pulled apart thread by thread.
A tether snapped in her chest.
The Covenant broke.
The sky tore open again at once. It widened, hungry, sensing the loss of one half of its binding.
“The Rift,” she whispered.
One soul could not hold what two had bound.
The ground quaked beneath Alora’s feet as the tear split open with slow, terrible insistence. Shadows surged upward from its depths, skeletal hands scraping at the edges, seeking purchase.
If it continued splitting, the world would not survive it.
Alora staggered forward and raised her hands.
Power tore out of her.
It was neither spell nor song, but pure will given form. Light and darkness poured from her palms, weaving together as she pressed them against the ruptured seam. The Rift howled in answer, resisting her with a force that drove her to her knees.
She cried out as the strain ripped through her veins, her bones, her very soul.
The tear recoiled, shuddering as her power forced it inward, stitches of divine force lashing across its surface. The wound narrowed, edges knitting together in jagged, imperfect red seams.
But it did not fully seal.
It could not.
Alora gasped, breath shaking, sweat and blood slicking her skin as she held it there, arms trembling violently. The Rift throbbed beneath her Primordial grip, pushing back, testing her resolve with relentless pressure. It held.
Barely.
The weight of that binding fell entirely upon her. If she loosened her resolve even for a breath, it would tear itself open again and swallow everything she loved.
“So, this is the price,” Alora whispered hoarsely.
The Rift quieted, subdued but alive, pulsing like a restrained heart. The land settled around her, the wound reduced to a scar that would never fade.
Much like one now bleeding in her soul.
It was so unfair.
A dark part of her was tempted to let go and let it all be destroyed.
The moment they stole everything from him, Rune had decided he would be the end of the world. And in the end, he was.
The end that saved it.
Now it was her place to carry it.
Inhaling a deep breath, Alora rose to her feet.
The Wild Hunt lingered in the sky. Riders quietly snarled on their beasts of smoke caught in an unmoving wind. Ash and embers suspended in the air as though the world itself had gone still.
They watched her, waiting.
Because she was their master now.
Light rolled off Alora in slow, tidal waves as she walked toward them.
The earth trembled beneath her feet, stone fracturing in hairline cracks that radiated outward as if the land bowed in instinctive recognition.
Debris lifted into the air around her, pebbles and ash circling in a quiet orbit, drawn toward the gravity of her presence.
Two dark essences burned within her chest, flooding power into her veins.
She saw the Hunt for what it truly was.
The remnants of a will that no longer ruled.
Alora lifted her gaze.
“Your hunt has ended.” Her voice echoed in a layered resonance, carrying the divine authority of her command. “Return to the void that birthed you.”
The air split open behind the riders. A vast dark yawned wide, deep and endless, the Abyss answering the call of a sovereign. Shadow curled inward like smoke drawn to a flame, banners unraveling first, then armor, then bone.
Until the riders were pulled backward into the darkness that birthed them.
Light poured from her skin, softer now, steadier. The debris fell gently back to the earth. The ground settled beneath her feet. The shadows curled around her as the wargs rubbed against her, licking at her palm, coming to heel at her feet.
One by one, the demons lowered themselves to the ground in acknowledgment. No one questioned who ruled them now.
“You have inherited Rune’s power,” Calla murmured quietly. “And Vorak’s when you defeated him. Who better to rule us than the daughter of a Titan?”
Alora glanced down at herself on a fallen shield. Strange and otherworldly white eyes looked back at her. And new dainty horns curled from her brow.
A pull tugged in her chest.
The Gate thrummed beneath the mountain like a drumbeat buried beneath the stone. But the rhythm faded as it fell dormant once again.
It was her Gate now, but her mate was dead.
But she was no longer limited by the laws of the Realms as the new gods were. Because she was both Primordial and Goddess. Light and dark. Titan-made and Shadow-forged.
Lifting her finger, Alora drew a line downward and crimson light spread as a new doorway opened into the Netherworld.
She turned to the demons. “It is time for the Court of Sin and Ruin to return home.”
They wasted no time.
The demons crossed over, faction by faction. Alora watched it all with the Harbingers by her side until all had passed through. Segrith went last, helping Lady Nexia limp along.
The blind seer’s head turned slightly and gave her a nod, before vanishing into the dark.
Taking a breath, Alora faced the Harbingers. Rune’s faithful generals.
Calla, clever and sharp. Hadeon, silent yet secretly kind. Deimos, torn and battered, tail flicking as always.
Both males bowed to her, then both went through. And then, as if satisfied, as if their purpose was fulfilled, the wargs faded.
Into mist.
Into memory.
Into her.
Alora stood alone in the silence.
Not the kind of quiet that follows a victory song. But the kind that comes after something ancient has ended.
At last, Calla, beautiful, cruel, and loyal, gave the smallest of smiles. “He chose well.”
Alora’s eyes welled. “I…I cannot go through yet.”
Because she couldn’t face that world without Rune.
And because she sensed what she had ignored the moment the Blood Moon had waned.
The Sleeping Curse had reached its completion.
She looked over the land, to the many bodies of the fae and mortals lying still.
Not dead but sleeping.
It had not affected the demons because they were not of the Mortal Realm.
“The curse… I thought it would break when Vorak died,” Alora said faintly. “But it’s taken over Argyle…”
And soon it would spread across the world.
Sunneva had told her she would discover how to break it when it was time.
“My people need me.”
Calla rested a hand on her shoulder. “I know. But the Netherworld is once again left without a king and most of the Dominions are dead. It is bound to fall into chaos.”
“What would you have me do?”
Calla glanced at the spider lilies wafting in the gentle breeze. “I suppose you must put us to sleep as well.”
Alora’s eyes widened, not sure if she could replicate the curse or if she knew how. But the magic rose in her throat, carrying her will.
Her voice hummed a soft song in a language she had not known. The world quieted as soft melody in Hellspeech carried over the fields of ash. Calla stepped in through the gate and Alora kept singing.
The air sparkled with her magic as dawn broke over the horizon. It swept over two kingdoms, one of light and the other dark.
One that hoped to wake.
One that lingered in slumber to await their queen’s return.
Even though she would return alone.
Sunlight blinded Alora as her vision welled with tears. The last note of her song faded into the sky.
The opening into the Netherworld vanished. All around her, the last of the shadows faded like a dream.
Alora stood unmoving, the silence heavy with everything she never got to say. Around her, the ground smoked, scarred by magic that had no name. There was no cheer of victory, but the stillness of a battlefield after the final breath.
Rune’s ashes had long scattered, swept into the wind like smoke from a dying fire. No trace remained except the ache in her chest and the ring on her finger.
It glowed faintly.
Still warm.
Wind gently swept through Alora’s hair as she gazed at the kingdom she had saved. Now broken and left vulnerable as they eternally slept.
Alora laid her palm flat on the ground. And beneath her fingertips, the stone vibrated. Spider lilies bloomed. One after another. Thousands spread like a new beginning that had crawled from the grave of something divine. Thorns rose like a wall, enclosing the kingdom like a shield.
Then she walked among the battlefield scattered with spears and arrows.
Flowers and moss spread out to cushion all those sleeping and burying the dead.
Among the fae, she found Lady Zinnia, leaning against her fallen elk with a gash in her side.
Alora rushed to her, found a pulse and sighed with relief.
Her magic weaved from her fingertips and stitched the wound closed.
Then she continued up the Hydell Hills toward Argyle’s walls. Her walk was slow, dreading what she would find.
The streets flickered with scattered flames. Many buildings had been destroyed, many dead among them. Her spider lilies spread through the kingdom, sprouting where the living remained.
The castle loomed ahead.
The gates had been torn open, blood filling the crevices of the cobblestone.
Her heart shook as she looked up at the towers, their windows dark except one where a single candle flickered.
“Rihan…” she whispered.
Alora sprinted up the castle steps, the shadows whisking her away to the main hall of the crown prince’s chambers.
She froze.
The walls were splattered red, bodies of Argyle soldiers and Minotaurs lying among red pools on the floor. She ran, stumbling past them for Rihan’s door.
Her heart caught into her throat.
Lord Zuma lay slumped against it, axe still in hand. He only slept, Alora told herself as she approached but then saw the spears driven into his stomach, blood cooling beneath him. His lifeless eyes were fixed on a scrap of pale fabric clenched tight in his hand, stained red.
Theia’s handkerchief.
Alora covered her mouth, silencing her sob.
Even as he lay dying, Lord Zuma had not abandoned the charge he swore to protect with his life.
“They called you a beast,” Alora murmured shakily, as she closed his eyes. “But you were more noble than all of them.”
Her shadows gently lifted him away from the door and she turned the knob, but a weight held it in place. She could have easily forced it open, but instead portaled into the room.
Theia was on the other side of the door. She lay against it, gripping the knob, her lashes glistening with tears.
And beneath the window, lay Lady Delphi clutching her son in a embrace, shielding him with her body. Rihan’s face was buried into her chest, holding Nexus in his small arms.
All slept. Frozen in time, leaving Alora outside of it.
She had won the war.
But lost every reason she fought it.