CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“YOU REALLY NEED TO STOP doing this to us,” Nero mutters, and I feel him shift on my chest.
“Nero? What happened?” My voice comes out as a hoarse whisper and opening my eyes feels impossible.
“You absorbed the Soul Stone and then passed out for a week. We thought we lost you. Again. With your magick gone we thought the bonds snapped, but they were dormant until a few minutes after Talyn caught you. They’ve been getting steadily stronger, so maybe the stone didn’t take all your magick…”
My brain goes into overdrive trying to comprehend everything he just rambled about, and I instantly reach out to my bonds to see that they are all still intact and safe inside my chest. I blow out a relieved sigh and just feel my magick pool for a moment, never wanting to experience that kind of pain again.
“Is anyone brainwashed still?” I ask next while trying to piece things together.
The bed shifts beside me and that’s when I realize I’m surrounded by my mates whose bonds thrum happily inside my chest.
“Everyone is back to normal, but you scared the crap out of us,” Aemon growls. “I started second-guessing myself and almost snatched that Stone and chucked it into the Safir Ocean.”
I try to sit up, but my muscles are slow to start.
Jesper scoops me up silently and places me against the headboard as I try to get my bearings.
My body feels like mine but also doesn’t.
I swallow and try to summon any of my elemental magick but nothing works.
Panic builds in my chest as I go for my shadows and then illusion magick but there’s nothing there—nothing but this new thing sitting in the center of my chest, foreign and terrifying.
Tears spring to my eyes. “My magick—” I gasp, rubbing my chest.
Talyn takes my hand. “You’re alive, and I could care less whether you have your magick or not.”
I shake my head. “I feel it, but it’s not working.”
Aemon frowns. “Maybe the Stone is affecting it. You absorbed it after all…”
My hands shake and I stare down at them in betrayal.
The Fates did say that to save my realm it would require a sacrifice.
They told me what I would have to do, how to do it, but didn’t tell me what would happen after.
I suspected, but I didn’t think I would lose access to my magick. The first non-magick Queen.
I shake my head. “You’re right. Magick doesn’t matter, and my mother—despite what happened to her and how she handled it—this was what she was fighting for. Equal rights for all fae.”
I continue to rub my chest, staring at the dead plant in the window, one I’ve been neglecting to care for with how insane our lives became, and now I couldn’t even nourish it magickally.
Talyn sees me staring at it. Feeling my grief through the bond, he brings it back to life, using his magick as if it’s as easy as breathing.
Killian groans as he rolls toward me and for some reason my eyes dart to his side. Something there calls to me. “Are you hurt?” I ask.
His brows furrow as his hand tenderly lies there before lifting his tunic and showing a large bandage wrapped around his torso. “Just a flesh wound. I had it tended to after the battle, but it’s still tender. I’m okay.”
My hand presses against it and a red glow emanates from my palm.
Killian hisses and when I pull away he unwraps it.
Nothing is there but smooth skin. If it wasn’t for the blood and pus on the bandage, I wouldn’t have believed he was ever injured.
I roll up my sleeves and panic when my scarred flesh is smooth, like I was never caused any pain in my entire life.
Tears slip free and I’m relieved but also devastated, because I earned every single one of those scars.
I know without looking that my back is smooth, too.
Jesper laughs. “You became the Soul Stone!”
I stare at my palms before staring at him. “What do you mean?”
Aemon wags his finger as he pieces things together.
But Jesper seemed to have figured it out faster than all of us.
“No, he’s right. That would make sense. It took all your magick, but you took in the Stone—the Stone’s magick.
To heal the soul, you would also need to heal the vessel. You’re a new kind of Fae.”
The Fates’ words surface. “A new era of fae will rise,” I whisper. “That’s what the Fates said…” I stare at my hands again. “I can heal…”
“The Soul Stone could also warp minds and raise the dead to fight. So that makes you some sort of necromancer…with healing abilities?” Jesper asks, tilting his head. “My mate is so amazing,” he sighs.
“We don’t know that she can even do that,” Talyn adds. “She should rest some more, and then we can figure it out when she’s regained her strength.”
My head shakes as I start crawling out of bed.
“No, I won’t be able to rest until I figure this out.
” Nero lands on my shoulder, my unwavering companion.
Before my mates can protest I level a gaze at them.
“You can come with me, and then after, I’ll let you carry me back here and pamper me without any complaint. ” I raise my brow in challenge.
Aemon’s the first out of the bed. “Well if we are going to figure this out, I know the perfect place to start.”
WITH SOME RELUCTANCE from Killian and Talyn, we are all standing in the middle of the battlefield. Mud, craters and blood still stain the ground, but the bodies are long gone, taken back to families so they can say their goodbyes.
Hairs on my neck rise and power crackles at my fingertips, and when I blink and my eyes open again, I can see them—see the essence of souls that have not yet passed to the aether and into the arms of the Fates.
A soft gasp leaves my lips, and when I release the magick they’re gone again.
My magick called me to use them, to talk to them, to help them.
“The dead…” I swallow. “I can see them.” I can also see golden threads tying my mates and I together and this comforts me, knowing that it’s a physical representation of our bonds together while Nero’s is silver and I know Vasari’s would be too.
I’m probably gaping like a fish, but I don’t care.
This is amazing and terrifying all at the same time.
“Try to summon one,” Aemon suggests.
Fear knots in my stomach but I feel strong enough, so I agree. Red magick glows from my palms and a single soul emerges, and I can’t help the watery laugh as Batsil appears as herself and not as a wraith which has me blowing out a relieved breath.
“You did it. Thank you. The Fates have a message for you.” Her eyes glow, and the warmth I remember from the snowdrop field appears as they take over Batsil’s spirit.
“You have done well, daughter. You have shown great courage, and thus we grant you a new magick—a magick that will help guide you in leading our children. Your offspring will be blessed with Soul magick. Wield it well.”
“So the Soul Stone is gone?” I ask.
The Fates shake Batsil’s head. “It could never be truly destroyed, so it has been remade. You were born the perfect vessel. One who has been lost and known true grief, but not let it break the goodness in your soul. Who loves fiercely and fights for her home and the creatures in it.”
I feel my mates press around me, awe flooding the bond as they listen with rapt attention.
“I just did what was right. But some of my motives were selfish. For revenge on what was done to my family and friends… I’m not worthy of this, but I will do my best to honour you.” I dip into a deep bow.
When I rise, Batsil is smiling for The Fates. “You honour us, child, just by being you, and for helping to save all my other children. And for that, I will gift one of my sons—you call him Lennox—with what he has lost, so that he may find his way again.”
I gasp. “Mel?”
Jesper grips my hand tightly.
“She will not be the Mel you know in the flesh, but you will know her soul. Unfortunately you will all forget this part of the conversation,” they smile mischievously.
“You may be a keeper of souls now, but you mustn’t have all the secrets.
Go on now. Go home; celebrate and enjoy your males.
We will see each other again one day, young Queen.
” Then the Fates vanish along with Batsil’s spirit, their large presence lifting off my shoulders like the weight of the world.
Killian clears his throat. “Well that was—”
“Weird,” Jesper finishes nodding his head. “Weird and fucking amazing!”
I shake my head, laughing at their antics. “I think the Fates ordered us to celebrate?” I smile, pulling Jesper closer and down to my height so I can kiss him, his lips feeling otherworldly against mine.
Talyn moves behind me and my other mates surround me, and I bask in their presence, feeling more like me than I have in a long time. “Aemon, take us home and let’s celebrate.”
“And how would you like to do that, Little Dream?”
I smirk at him, relishing in the touch of his shadows, even though I’ll never feel mine again. “With all four of you ravishing me until the sun comes up.”
He kisses my knuckles and heat flares in all of their eyes. “Your wish is our command.”