Chapter 78
LXXVIII.
DANTE
The rage drained out of him. Left nothing but emptiness.
His bare hands were already on her face, cupping her cheeks. So cold. Her skin was so cold.
"Stay with me." The words came out broken. "Brynn, stay with me."
Her chest barely moved. Shallow breaths that stuttered and caught. Each one was wet, labored, like something vital had been damaged and was filling with blood.
He could hear her heartbeat with his enhanced hearing. Growing weaker. Skipping beats. Struggling to continue when everything in her body was failing.
Her face was pale, lips going blue. The bandages around her wrists were soaked through. She'd pushed herself too hard maintaining the wards while under attack. The circlet on her forehead had gone dark, ward-symbols that had blazed so brightly now dim as dying embers.
Dying.
She was dying in his arms.
"Don't." His voice cracked. "Not after everything. Not now."
She didn't respond. Didn't open her eyes. Didn't make a sound.
Just kept taking those shallow, stuttering breaths that were getting further and further apart.
His hands moved to her shoulders. Shook her gently. "Brynn. You're stronger than this. You survived the Forsaken realm. You faced down Caelum. You can survive this."
Nothing.
Her chest rose. Fell.
Didn't rise again.
Three seconds. Four. Five.
His own breathing stopped. Waiting. Willing her lungs to work.
Six seconds. Seven.
Then a gasping breath that sounded like drowning.
He pulled her against his chest, cradling her. Her body was limp in his arms. The woman who'd never stopped fighting had finally gone still.
Because he could see it now.
Her soul.
It was separating.
Translucent, shimmering, like heat-haze rising from summer stone. The essence of everything that made Brynn who she was. Her fierce defiance, her sharp wit, her refusal to back down even when facing monsters.
All of it pulling away from her body.
The connection between soul and body was visible to him. Threads of silver light anchoring her essence to her physical form.
They were fraying.
Snapping one by one.
Even as he watched, one thread broke. The sound was silent, but he felt it in his own body. A tearing sensation behind his ribs, like something was being ripped out of him too. His stomach dropped. His vision swam.
Her soul lifted. An inch above her body now.
"No." His hands tightened on her. Fingers digging into her shoulders. "No, no, no."
Another thread snapped.
Her soul rose higher. Still connected, but the pull was getting stronger.
He could feel it starting. Multiple directions. Different courts reaching for her.
The Violent court wanted her warrior's death. She'd fallen in battle, fighting to the last. The Consumed reached for her obsessive determination. The way she'd poured everything into closing that gateway. The Lingering pulled at her unfinished business. All the things left unsaid between them.
And the Forsaken.
His realm.
Reaching for her because she'd died while he was consumed by rage. Unable to protect her. The exact moment of abandonment that defined those who came to his court.
He saw it with horrible clarity. Her consciousness fragmenting. Pieces of who she was torn apart and scattered across realms. Each piece aware. Each piece suffering. Each piece calling for the others that would never come.
Part of her trapped in the Tower of Screaming Winds, replaying Caelum's attack forever. Golden light hitting her chest. The impact. The pain. Over and over and over. Screaming his name while he never came.
And he would hear it.
Every scream. Every sob. Every time she called for him and he couldn't answer.
Her voice echoing through his realm for eternity while he stood on the other side of barriers he couldn't cross. Unable to free her. Unable to grant her peace. Unable to do anything but listen while the woman he loved suffered in his own domain.
Forever.
The image gutted him. His hands spasmed against her shoulders. For a moment, he couldn't see anything except that vision. Brynn screaming, Brynn suffering, Brynn calling his name into darkness.
His hands started shaking.
"Please." The word came out strangled. His throat closing. "Take anything else. Everything else. But not her."
No answer came.
Another thread snapped.
Her soul lifted higher. Connected by only the thinnest strands now.
He could see the courts fighting for her. Golden light from the edges of where the Mourned had been. Red from the Violent. Hungry darkness from the Consumed. Mist from the Lingering. And his own shadows, reaching without his permission.
All of them wanting pieces of her.
She didn't move. Didn't react.
Three threads left.
Through the death-link, he felt his commanders' confusion and concern. They couldn't see what he saw, her soul departing, but they felt his anguish bleeding through the network.
My lord? Aldric's voice came through the link. Are you—
Dante couldn't answer. His throat had closed completely.
Could only watch as she died.
Two threads left.
He'd held her with these same hands just hours ago—her body warm and alive, her heart beating strong against his palm, her skin flushed with heat and life and want.
She'd looked up at him with those fierce eyes and said she wasn't doing this alone, that they'd finish it together. That whatever happened, they'd face it side by side.
And now she was slipping away while he knelt here uselessly.
He was death incarnate. The Reaper. One of the most powerful beings in any realm.
He could destroy armies. Could harvest souls with a touch. Could unmake a Death Lord so completely that reality forgot he'd existed.
He had just erased Caelum from existence. Had consumed ages of stolen power like it was nothing. Had made the walls of reality tremble under the weight of his rage.
And none of it mattered.
Because he couldn't save her.
All that power. All that destruction. All that time of being the thing every soul feared.
And he was kneeling here watching her die like the most helpless creature in any realm. His hands were useless on her body. His power useless in his veins. Everything he was. Useless.
One thread left.
The final anchor between soul and body stretched so thin it was nearly invisible.
About to break.
Time seemed to slow.
He could see every individual fiber of the connection coming apart. Her soul pulling upward. Her body going completely still beneath his hands. That struggling breathing had stopped entirely now.
The last thread began to fray.
His whole body was shaking now. His jaw ached from clenching. His fingernails had cut crescents into his palms without him noticing.
His mind screamed. Do something. Anything. There has to be—
He stared at his bare hands on her chest. Right where Caelum had struck. Where her soul was trying to depart.
These hands had only ever taken. Had only ever harvested. Had only ever ended.
But she was the one person they'd never hurt.
The thought cut through his panic like lightning.
What if he could do more than touch her safely?
He could channel. He always channeled. It was his nature. But what if he channeled differently?
Not harvest. Not take.
Give.
Force his power to work in reverse. Pour his essence into her instead of draining hers away. Anchor her soul with threads of his own power. Share enough of what he was to tether her to existence.
The idea was reckless. Desperate. The kind of thing that only occurred to someone watching everything they loved slip away.
His nature didn't work that way. He took life. That was what he was built for, what he'd always been.
It might not work.
Might kill her faster.
Might destroy them both.
Three fibers left in that final thread.
But doing nothing meant watching her die.
Two fibers.
And he'd rather risk everything, including himself, than lose her without trying.
One fiber.
That heart had beaten so strongly against his palm just hours ago. Had raced when he kissed her. Had belonged to him as surely as his belonged to her.
It was barely beating now.
But it was still beating.
Which meant there was still a chance.
"Stay with me." His voice came out rough. Desperate. "Don't you dare leave me."
The last fiber began to tear.
Dante stopped thinking.
Stopped questioning.
Just acted.
He reached deep inside himself. Past the control. Past the restraint. Past a lifetime of discipline.
Reached for the core of what he was.
And he let his power flow.
Not to take away.
But to give.