Chapter Twenty Five
The light was blinding by the time I finally broke through the last of the creatures separating me from her, heat rolling off it in waves strong enough to feel through my clothes, strong enough to sting against my eyes even squinted half shut.
I didn't slow down. Couldn't. Every instinct in me had narrowed down to one single point in the whole burning clearing, and that point was Amber.
"Amber!" I screamed her name loud enough to tear something in my throat, pushing through wind and heat and the last scattered remnants of the fight to reach her.
She didn't turn. Didn't respond at all. Her eyes had gone distant, fixed on something none of the rest of us could see, her whole body rigid, her face pale and drawn in a way that scared me worse than the entire battle behind me had.
I knew exactly what was happening. She was the key.
Using herself to balance the magic, to fix whatever had broken loose in this town years before either of us had understood what was actually at stake.
And I knew, with a cold certainty that settled straight into my bones, exactly what that kind of magic could do to someone who wasn't ready for the weight of it.
The magic was pulling her away. Pulling her somewhere none of us could follow. If she went too far into it, there'd be nothing left to bring back.
I couldn't lose her. I refused to.
I fought through the last stretch of wind and light separating us, my hands finally closing around hers, though she didn't so much as flinch at the contact.
Her eyes stayed distant, unseeing, fixed on the magic pouring out of her like it had claimed every part of her attention and left nothing behind for the rest of us.
"Amber!" I grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her gently, desperately, and got nothing back. My heart slammed against my ribs, fear closing tight around my throat. I wasn't losing her. Not now. Not after everything it had taken to get here.
I did the only thing I could think to do. I reached up, cupped her face in both hands, and forced her to face me even though her eyes stayed empty.
"Amber, come back to me." My voice shook with everything I felt for her, all of it rising up at once. I pressed my forehead to hers, breathing her in even through the smell of smoke and magic thick in the air around us. "Please, love. I need you. We need you."
Nothing. Just the crackle of magic building louder around us, the light climbing brighter, hotter, more dangerous by the second.
I closed my eyes and reached for the bond instead.
The mate bond, the thread that had tied us together since the day I'd stood at our mothers' grave and felt it lock into place, deeper than magic, deeper than anything I'd ever understood before her.
I poured everything I had into it — every ounce of strength left in me, every scrap of love I'd spent years too afraid to say out loud — and pushed it straight down that thread toward her.
I know you can hear me, I thought, willing it toward her with everything left in my chest. You're not alone in this. You don't have to carry it by yourself. I'm right here. We're all right here.
The light flared again, hard enough that for one terrible second I thought I'd already lost her. That she'd slip past whatever edge she was standing on and disappear into the spell completely, gone the same way Cian and Yakob had nearly been gone for years.
Then I felt it. A faint shift in the current around us. A thread pulled taut, finally responding.
"Amber," I whispered again, forehead still pressed to hers. "Come back to me. Please."
Her breath hitched. Her eyes fluttered, blinking fast, some of that terrible distance finally starting to clear as she fought her way back toward the surface.
The magic still swirled thick around us, but I could see her wrestling it now, actively pulling herself back from wherever it had tried to drag her.
"Rowan..." Barely a whisper, but clear. Hers.
Relief hit me hard enough that my knees actually threatened to buckle under it. "I'm here, love. I've got you."
The light started to dim as she regained control, the magic settling around us instead of consuming everything in reach.
She gasped, whole body trembling with exhaustion as the last surge of the spell finished tearing through the clearing, darkness dissolving into nothing, the shadow-things gone as completely as if they'd never existed at all.
Then, just as the final light faded, her legs gave out entirely.
"Amber!" I caught her before she hit the ground, heart hammering so hard it hurt. For one endless second my mind went completely blank, fear tearing through me as I checked for her pulse, for breath, anything.
She was still. Too still.
"No — no, no, Amber, please—" My voice cracked apart on her name, panic clawing up my throat faster than I could contain it.
Then her eyes fluttered open.
"Rowan?" Groggy. Soft. Alive.
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding the entire time, my whole body sagging with relief so complete it felt like it might knock me over on its own. "Amber."
She blinked a few more times, gaze still unfocused, then a weak, real smile broke through. "Did we... did we actually do it?"
A laugh tore out of me, unsteady, half sob, entirely full of everything I felt in that moment. "Yeah, love. We did it. You did it."
She groaned, shifting slightly in my arms. "That was intense. I don't think I like being a witch. It hurts."
I couldn't stop myself. I leaned down and kissed her, soft at first, then deeper, feeling the warmth of her mouth against mine, the strength of her heartbeat finally settling under my hands. She was okay. Alive. And we'd won, all of us, together.
When I finally pulled back, my voice came out rough with everything I still hadn't said. "You're the hero here, Amber. You fixed it. You saved every single one of us."
She smiled up at me, eyes still a little dazed but warm, and for one long moment the whole battlefield, the fear, the years of darkness — none of it mattered. We had each other. That was enough.
A cheer rang out behind us, and I turned to find Cian and Dad running toward us, faces lit with something I hadn't seen on either of them since we'd all found each other in that Sanctum.
Dad pulled Amber into a fierce hug the second I let her go, voice thick.
"You did it, sweetheart. You actually did it. "
Cian clapped a hand on my shoulder, grinning wide despite the blood and exhaustion painted across all of us. "You've got yourself a good one there, brother. A really bloody good one."
I couldn't stop smiling either, even through everything the night had put us through.
The air itself felt lighter, brighter, like the whole world had finally clicked back into the shape it was always supposed to hold.
The Hollow was balanced. The darkness was gone.
And for the first time since any of this had started, we were actually free.
Amber looked up at me, eyes still dazed but full of warmth. "Come on, love," I said, helping her back to her feet, keeping an arm braced around her in case her legs weren't quite ready to hold her weight yet. "Let's get you home."
She leaned into me, hand resting flat against my chest. "Home sounds perfect."
Somewhere off to the side, Orias was already limping toward us, blood soaked through his shirt but grinning despite it, and I felt the whole weight of the last few weeks finally start to lift off all of us at once as we turned back toward the treeline, toward the world we'd fought this hard to get back to, finally ready to go home.