Chapter 36
It was so cold.
The blade was gone, but Xavi could still feel the ice that pierced between his ribs and deep into his chest.
The scalding heat of blood running down his back.
More pain to feed that witch’s power.
So he gritted his teeth. Refused to make a sound or let her see his agony until Kel fell to his knees in front of him, and the torment in his eyes wrenched an answering cry from Xavi’s throat.
“No,” Kel cried, as tears ran down his cheeks. “No, Xavi. Not this. The price is too high. I never wanted you to die for me.”
But Xavi only smiled. Out of everything he’d done since his king and brother fell into that enchanted sleep, this alone brought no fear, no doubt, no regret.
“This… is finally my choice,” he said hoarsely. “I always told you I was willing. And now my promise to your father is fulfilled.”
“But what about your promise to me?” Kel demanded roughly. “A few moments ago, I asked you to swear a new oath—that you would not seek death, but find something to live for. Anything, so long as you stop trying to throw your life away.”
So that was what Kel had been trying to tell him when the fae’s magic tore him away.
“My life was always meant to protect yours. And hers.” Xavi coughed, and the pain shredded him from within. Was this the wound that would kill him? He did not know. He only wished he’d managed to end the fae enchantress in the process, but he’d barely marked her. “Is Ryn…”
“I’m right here.”
His vision swam, and then Kel’s face was replaced by hers. Stark white, with those light freckles across her nose and cheeks. Gray eyes red and swollen with tears. Lips that trembled as she reached for him, stopping just short of touching his face.
So he reached for her instead, taking her hand and clasping it with what strength he had left.
“This is my fault,” she said, her voice shaking as she fought to speak past her tears. “If only I’d never left the university. Never hired those mercenaries. If only…” A sob ripped from her chest. “If only I’d turned back when they told me to.”
But then he never would have met her. Never would have known that he could still feel anything besides bitterness and pain. Never would have remembered the man he used to be or discovered that his heart still had the capacity to…
Love.
There was no other word. No excuses left. No denial could change it, and as his own blood stained the stone floor beneath them, there seemed no more reason to pretend.
“Did I not warn you,” the fae purred, “that your pain was only deferred?”
But Xavi no longer cared about her cruelty. Only about the devastation on Ryn’s face.
“Do you now wish,” the fae went on, “that you had never seen this place? Never met any of us? That you could just walk away and pretend that this is all just a story?”
Did she wish that? If she were offered the chance here and now, would Ryn choose to walk away? Would she choose for everything to go back to the way it was before?
“But it is too late,” the fae continued mockingly. “Like a nightmare you cannot escape, this moment will haunt you until you realize that all of this was your own fault. That if you’d never come, all would be as it was before.”
The fae was right about one thing. It was too late. Nothing could ever go back to the way it was before.
“If it weren’t for you, everyone could live.
But now, because you wished to know the truth, you have brought only death and destruction.
It is thanks to you that one of these immortals will never again breathe the air of freedom.
Thanks to you that either I will have the prize I have longed for through all these long centuries of waiting, or I will drown this land in the fires of my vengeance.
And either way”—her voice fell to a whisper—“I win.”
“No.”
Xavi had not meant to speak, but the word tore from his lips as he watched Ryn grow pale and thoughtful beneath the relentless assault.
He could not bear for her to believe a word of it.
So he forgot about fae enchantresses, forgot his own blood slowly leaving his body, forgot their fiery prison and the coming end of this long torment. He cupped Ryn’s face in his hand and tilted her chin up till he could look into her gray eyes and tell her the truth.
“She does not win. Not when this pain is of our own choosing. Not when we suffer willingly for those that we love.”
Her tears flowed freely then, and he wiped them from her cheek with his thumb.
“Know this, Camryn Halivard. I regret nothing. Not a single moment that I spent either in service to my king or as your protector. No matter what she claims, no matter how she manipulated my memories and my feelings, those sacrifices were my choice. My choice to give away the one thing that truly belongs to me, and while she could steal my memories and my sense of purpose, she could not steal my honor. That has always been my own, and whatever is left of it, I would gladly lay down here to finish what I began.”
“Xavi, no…”
“Shhh.” He placed his thumb gently on her lips, and they trembled beneath his touch. “I promised Kel I would always stand at his back. I promised you I would protect you from these trials. And now… there is a way I can keep both of those promises.”
He leaned forward until his forehead touched hers, closing his eyes as he spoke the most important truth of all. The one thing he could no longer continue to hide.
“In another life,” he said softly, “I would have chosen the door on the right.”
Her hand rose to cover his where it rested against her cheek. “So would I,” she whispered.
And it was enough.
With one final flex of his magic, his form shifted and grew, snapping into place with a hoarse cry of pain as he took the shape of a massive silver wyvern.
Agony radiated from the base of his wing and stabbed phantom daggers through his chest—death still lurking on the edge of every breath. But even as he prepared to confront the fae for one last time—with claws, with teeth, and with bonefire—he felt a hand come to rest on his shoulder.
Kel stood beside him, his face drawn and gray with the shadows of unrelenting sorrow. “This is not your fight,” he said grimly. “It is mine.”
But Xavi did not falter. He would not allow Kel to face this alone. He had faced no enemy without Xavi by his side since they were both boys.
“I swore long ago,” Kel insisted, “to dedicate my life to protecting my people, and this is but the final chapter of that promise kept.”
And I swore to protect you, Xavi cried. My life is already forfeit. Allow me to spend these last few moments in keeping my vows to the very end.
“I will not let you give up so easily,” Kel commanded, his tone as fierce as the heat of his magic radiating from beneath his hand.
“If she has indeed marked you for death, then I am commanding you to spend your last moments ensuring the human’s survival.
Let me go. I have made my choice, and I am asking you to honor it. ”
Across from them, the fae began to laugh until tears ran down her face.
“Have you not yet learned?” she gasped when she could finally draw a breath.
“For every moment you torture yourselves, I only grow more powerful. But by all means, continue. You will only seal the fate of every living creature in the lands beyond this mountain.”
But before Xavi or Kel could respond to her threats with either fury or defiance, Ryn emerged from the shadow of the wyvern’s wings and stood before the fae.
Still a slight, unprepossessing woman with her hair in an untidy knot. Tears on her cheeks, her pockets full of pencils and string, with no weapon in her hands. No weapon but the wild and beautiful power of her curiosity and dreams.
“I think,” Ryn said, swiping at her cheeks with her sleeves, “that you are, in fact, quite mistaken.”