CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN ISI
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
ISI
Coralee yanked her blade from Trew’s chest and he crumpled, falling to his knees before toppling sideways. Blood pooled beneath him, spreading across the ground in a dark stain. My vision blurred with tears.
Through our bond, I felt his life force flickering like a candle in a storm. Fading. Dying.
“No,” I screamed, trying to pull my arm from the breach. But the weave held fast, my blood and magic creating a connection I couldn’t break.
Gavelle roared, a sound full of so much anguish it shook the battlefield. He raced toward Trew’s fallen form. Pherin followed, both companions shifting mid-run to their smaller forms, landing on Trew’s chest, where they pressed their bodies against his wound.
Heal him, Pherin’s voice shot through my mind. Must heal!
But Trew’s healing magic wasn’t responding. I could feel it through our bond. His power felt scattered and unfocused, unable to gather itself while his body struggled to keep his heart beating.
Coralee stalked toward us, her blade dripping with Trew’s blood.
“The breach,” Addie gasped beside me, her body flickering rapidly now. “Isi, it’s not working. Our blood isn’t enough.”
She was right. The threads we’d woven into the corrupted pattern held, but they weren’t spreading quickly enough. The breach still gaped wide, Skathes pressing against the barrier from the other side. We’d slowed the tearing, but we hadn’t stopped or reversed it.
Our mother had tried and failed, and we were failing as well. Maybe Velacross was wrong. Maybe his blood couldn’t heal the breach.
It may take more than I’m able or willing to give, yet I would give all, including my life, to protect them.
The force must be harnessed, but how?
The words my mother wrote rang in my mind, and clarity crashed through me.
“It needs life force,” I whispered. “Not just blood. The veil was torn by Velacross forcing his way through while alive and it will take life force to seal it. Someone’s essence poured into the weave.”
Addie met my eyes. In hers, I saw acceptance and fierce determination.
“Then it takes mine,” she said.
“No.”
“I’m already dying, Isi.” She smiled, tears washing her face. “Veil-sickness is eating through me. At least this way, my death will mean something. It will save the world. It will save you.”
“I won’t let you—”
“You don’t get a choice.” She pressed her hand against my cheek. “I love you. I always have. You’re my sister. But Trew needs you to go to him, to heal him. The world needs you to fight people like our father. And I need you to let me go.”
She pushed more of her magic into the weave, and I felt her essence beginning to drain into the breach. The threads strengthened immediately, spreading faster, knitting the corrupted pattern together with silver-blue light.
But it was killing her. Her body flickered more violently, becoming more translucent with each passing heartbeat. Soon she’d fade entirely, consumed by the veil.
“Please,” I sobbed. “Please, Addie, there has to be another way.”
Trew’s pain lanced through our bond. His heart stuttered, struggling to beat. Gavelle and Pherin were desperately trying to keep him alive with their magic, but it wasn’t enough.
I was losing them both.
My love and my sister.
Coralee’s laugh rang out. “How touching. But even with your sister’s death, you won’t seal the breach in time.
My Skathes will still come through. I’ve planned it for a very long time.
” She latched onto Lexie’s arm and with Alfred on the other side, started dragging Lexie toward the stone slab. “This sacrifice will do nicely.”
Since they couldn’t reach Fenmark, they’d kill my friend.
The only way to stop them was to seal the veil.
But even with Addie pouring herself into the weave, it wasn’t happening fast enough. We needed more power. More magic. More—
Velacross’s words echoed in my mind. Twin flames bond twice. When companions choose as hearts have chosen, the weave strengthens.
I reached for Trew through our bond to say goodbye. To tell him I loved him one last time before…
Power surged across our bond, a roaring inferno of combined magic. I didn’t just feel Trew. I felt Gavelle’s fierce determination and fury. Pherin’s wild joy and certainty.
Four souls. Two fae, two companions, connected in ways that transcended normal bonds.
Twin flames bond twice.
Understanding exploded through me like lightning.
“It’s not one sacrifice,” I gasped. “It’s not even two. It’s all four of us. Trew and I, and Gavelle and Pherin. We’re the seal. We’re the living bridge that can heal the veil without death.”
“What?” Addie’s voice came out weak, her form barely solid now.
“The double bond.” I grabbed her hand with my free one. “When companions choose as hearts have chosen, the weave strengthens. Trew and I are bonded. Our companions are bonded. That makes four sources of magic that can weave together into something stronger than any single sacrifice.”
Through the bond, I felt Trew stir. Felt him hear my words despite death clawing at his mind. His understanding bloomed alongside mine.
Do it, his thought came through faint but determined. Use us. Use everything, love. I’ll remember you. I’ll find you…somewhere.
Coralee and Lord Alfred flung Lexie down onto the slab.
Coralee’s companion shifted again, though not into an ermine. It morphed, twisting, until it became an enormous bird. Taking flight, it soared toward Coralee.
This same bird had delivered a body to Caldrith’s ballroom.
It had been her all this time.
Derren roared and flung himself against a wall of Skathes keeping him from Lexie, his sword slashing.
Kira and Kerralyn rushed over and engaged other Skathes, Kira’s blade arm bleeding freely but her strikes no less savage.
I reached deeper into our bond, past the pain and fear, to the place where our magic intertwined. Golden threads and silver, wrapped around each other so tightly they’d become something new, something that belonged to both of us and neither of us at once.
And beneath that, I felt our companions. Gavelle’s ember-bright essence and Pherin’s wild copper fire, merged as completely as Trew and I.
“Addie,” I said. “Pull back your magic. You don’t have to die.”
“But—”
“Trust me.”
She hesitated for one heartbeat, then two. Then she nodded and withdrew, her essence pulling away from the weave. The threads we’d already woven held, but the healing stopped spreading.
I opened myself completely to the bond. Not just to Trew, but to Gavelle and Pherin. I let their magic flood through me along with his, four sources becoming one massive river of power.
The sensation nearly tore me apart. So much magic and raw energy, all channeling through my body like I was a lightning rod in a storm. My bones threatened to shatter. My blood scorched through my veins.
But the weave recognized us. It saw what we’d become through our bonds, a fusion of fae and companion magic that bridged the gap between realms in a way no single sacrifice ever could.
This was why our people had sought bonds like this. The old stories hadn’t been exaggeration. They could do amazing things.
Golden-silver threads erupted from where my hand reached within the breach, diving into the corrupted pattern and spreading like wildfire. Transforming it. Healing it. Weaving it into something whole and strong.
Trew gasped. I felt his wounds begin to close as our combined magic, amplified through the bond and our companions, flooded him with healing power beyond what his own abilities could manage.
His heart steadied. His breathing deepened. Life surged back into his body with enough force to make him arch off the ground.
“No,” Coralee shrieked, leaving where she was trying to pin Lexie’s arm to the slab, then rushing toward Addie and me with her blade lifted.
Trew’s eyes snapped open, blazing with golden light. He pushed himself upright, every movement costing him, and grabbed the sword he’d dropped. Gavelle and Pherin launched from his chest, shifting mid-air into firecat forms. They flanked him as he moved toward Coralee.
He slammed into the woman who’d killed so many, using his momentum to drive her toward the breach.
She realized his intention too late. Horror flooded her eyes as she stumbled, her feet slipping in the mud-slicked ground.
“No—”
Trew shoved again with all his strength, amplified by the magic still surging through our bond.
Coralee fell backward, impacting with the breach.
The veil sucked her in eagerly. She’d soaked herself in bloodfire magic for decades, her entire essence steeped in dark power.
And the breach didn’t just take her, it devoured her.
Coralee’s scream cut off as she passed through the barrier. Her bird companion was yanked from the sky and hauled in along with her.
On the other side of the flimsy barrier, in that nightmare realm, Skathes swarmed them both. Thousands of them, drawn by power, magic, and her corrupted life force that burned so bright it shone like a star.
They fell on her like starving wolves.
The breach shuddered. Coralee’s magic and life force and everything she’d stolen and hoarded over the years poured into the veil all at once. Combined with the blood Addie and I had already given, it provided exactly what the weave still needed.
The corrupted threads began transforming rapidly, swampy green turning to silver and gold. The pattern that had been splayed and broken started coiling inward, tightening, weaving, healing.
But it needed guidance and direction.
I poured everything I had into it, using my veil-sight to see every thread and connection. I guided the pattern as it bound together. Trew’s power flowed through me still, amplified by Gavelle and Pherin, all four of us working as one to reshape this edge of reality.
The breach began to close. Slowly at first, the ragged edges pulled together like a wound finally allowed to heal. It went faster as momentum built, the spiral tightening inward as the fundamental weave of our world reasserted itself.
The breach contracted further. The Skathes on our side lost their coordination as the controlling influence that had directed them vanished with Coralee. They scattered, their movements wild and erratic.
The veil began pulling them back. Like a great inhale, the breach sucked the Skathes toward itself. They shrieked and scrambled, trying to resist, but one by one they were drawn through the rapidly shrinking gap and deposited back in their own realm.
I watched through teary eyes as hundreds of Skathes vanished into breach. Our companions stopped fighting, panting and bloodied, watching the creatures that had nearly killed us get dragged back to where they belonged.
The breach contracted to the size of a dragon, then a person, then a fist.
One last Skathe scrambled across the ground, trying desperately to remain in our world. But the veil gobbled it up and slammed the remaining hole shut with a clap like thunder.
Silence fell across the battlefield.
The breach had sealed. Smooth and whole, the weave showed no sign it had ever been torn. Silver and gold threads spiraled in a perfect pattern, stronger than it had been before the damage, reinforced by everything we’d poured into it.
I lifted my arm, finding it unmarked despite the blood I’d given. The veil had taken what it needed and returned me whole.
Addie sagged beside me, her body no longer flickering. The veil-sickness that had been eating her alive had vanished when the breach closed, her connection to the damaged weave finally severed.
“We did it,” she said with a shaky smile.
Then her expression shifted. Her eyes went distant, before a touch of pain and dismay filled them.
Her hand came up to her chest, pressing flat against her sternum.
“Isi.” Her voice came out very quiet. “It’s gone.
The veil… I can’t feel it anymore. The ability to travel. It’s gone.”
I took her hand. I didn’t know what to say. She’d given so much of herself into the weave that it must’ve burned the connection out entirely, like a wick consumed past the point of relighting.
She swallowed. Nodded once, the way she did when she was deciding not to fall apart yet.
“Good,” she said, though her eyes were bright with tears. “I never want to go back there anyway.”
Through our bond, I felt Trew’s overwhelming relief and love, Gavelle’s and Pherin’s fierce joy. We’d survived. Against impossible odds, we’d actually survived.
A blast of magic slammed into the ground between us, throwing up corrupted earth and making us scatter. I grabbed blades from their sheaths on my sides.
Lord Alfred stood at the edge of the now-empty ritual circle, his ceremonial robes torn and bloodstained. Fury twisted his face as power crackled between his fingers.
“You’ve ruined everything,” he snarled. “Years of planning, decades of preparation, destroyed.”
He rushed toward us, magic blasting from his hands in frantic bursts.