Epilogue
Abram
“You’re late.” Haden and Cassius were staring at me.
“I had to finish up something.” I smiled.
My gaze moved to Elowyn who smiled at me. I had to make sure my wife finished, twice. My chest tightened at the memory, a flutter of warmth and exhaustion mixing together.
“Yeah, bet you did.” Cassius snorted, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe us.
I glanced around, noticing Ezra’s absence.
I had checked on him earlier. He was doing well, better than I would’ve been doing.
But I stayed the morning with him, lingering close, watching for the smallest sign of strain.
Elowyn came too and made him some food, her hands gentle, her presence soothing.
But family dinner night seemed wrong without him.
“How’s Ezra?” Cassius asked, his voice soft now, edged with concern.
“He seems to be doing alright, but I’m more curious about what happens when Farris wakes up.” My throat tightened, a lump forming as I tried to push down the worry curling in my stomach.
I had told them some of what happened with Farris and Ezra. But I didn’t think I could ever convey the heartbreak and devastation I had seen on Ezra’s face when she confessed her secrets. My chest ached again, the memory pressing against my ribs.
“I’m sure they’ll work it out.” Cassius frowned, glancing at me. “Right?”
“I don’t know.” Haden looked at me, eyes shadowed with unease. “I saw him yesterday, and he seemed disconnected from everything around him, like he wasn’t himself but pretending to be.”
I knew he was putting on a show but I hoped, prayed even, that when Farris woke they’d work through it, and he’d return to the talkative, friendly Ezra I knew. My fingers clenched at my sides, nails digging into my palms.
Haden’s gaze shifted behind me, his eyes widening in alarm. “Ezra.”
I whipped around, my stomach twisting. Ezra stood like a ghost, shoulders tense, a fragile figure bracing against the world. His eyes were red, glimmering with unshed tears, and for a moment, panic clawed at me. My heart thudded painfully against my ribs.
I looked at him, searching for some sign of what had happened.
“I need to talk to you. I fucked up.”
I nodded, my hands trembling slightly as I followed him out of the house to Haden and Della’s pond in the back.
The air was heavy, thick with tension, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows across the water.
Ezra paced back and forth, his movements tight, rigid, as if every step cost him effort.
His hand raked through his hair repeatedly, fingers threading through dark strands as he tried to steady himself.
“Ezra, is Farris alright?” I asked, anxiety tightening my chest, each heartbeat a drum of worry.
I looked over my shoulder and saw eyes on us. Everyone stood frozen on the porch, worry etched across their faces. When I turned back, Ezra’s gaze met mine, raw and fractured.
“She’s fine.” His voice was brittle, fragile. But he seemed to hesitate, the weight of guilt pressing on him visibly. “She woke up.”
“That’s great.” Relief bubbled up in me, but it was hollow, laced with tension. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
He swallowed hard, eyes dropping to the ground. “Before she woke, I went to check on Philip and Loma. Their souls.” His jaw tightened. “They were… empty. Stripped bare. No magic left in them at all.”
My stomach turned.
“Philip told me Farris took it,” Ezra continued, voice flat with disbelief. “Said letting her go was a mistake. That she’s dangerous.” A bitter laugh escaped him. “And I—” He closed his eyes. “I lost control. I got so fucking angry that I consumed them.”
The air felt heavier.
“Consumed them?”
“If I consume a soul,” he said quietly, “they don’t move on. They don’t exist. Not in any realm. Not in any life. They’re just… gone.”
He dragged a hand through his hair, tugging it roughly. “This is what she does to me,” he whispered. “She makes me feel out of control.”
He shook his head, a shudder passing through him.
“I asked her about it,” he added quietly. “When she woke. She denied it at first. Swore she had no idea what he was talking about.”
His jaw clenched. “Then she admitted it. Said she took the magic, but wouldn’t tell me why.”
His hands curled into fists. “She was still lying to me, and I fucking lost it.”
“She started crying. She kept saying she was sorry, asking me to forgive her for everything, and she reached for me.” His throat tightened, a catch in his voice.
“It’s alright, Ezra, you’re upset. You’re allowed to be upset.” I tried to steady the trembling lump in my chest, my hands balling into fists at my sides.
But his shoulders slumped, weighed down by something heavier than regret.
“It made me feel good to see her crying and broken. I thought she deserved to feel how I do. So I told her I’d never forgive her, in this life or any life that follows. I told her I hated her.”
He fell to his knees in front of me, sobbing loudly.
My chest constricted, a raw ache pressing against my lungs as I watched him unravel.
Quickly, I fell to my knees in front of him and pulled him into a hug.
My arms wrapped around his trembling body, clinging to him as if holding him close could mend the cracks in his heart.
“It’s alright, Ezra,” I whispered, voice low and shaky.
He shook his head violently. “You didn’t see her face.
I didn’t hurt her, I fucking annihilated her.
She looked at me like I was a monster, and I didn’t stop.
I unloaded years of hurt and anger on her.
And now, every time I close my eyes, I see that look, that pure, raw devastation, and it’s like I’m being torn apart right alongside her. I don’t know how to make it right.”
“So you’ll apologize.” My words were soft, fragile, carrying the weight of hope I barely felt.
“I can’t!” He pushed away and stood, fists curling at his sides, jaw tight. “I left the room trying to calm down, and when I went back she was gone.”
“Gone?” My heart stuttered in my chest, a sharp stab of fear tightening my stomach.
“Disappeared. I’ve been searching for her, but it's like she vanished into thin air, like she never existed.” His voice was hollow, carrying the echo of his devastation.
He turned back to me, eyes wide, panic-stricken.
“What if she is still sick, and I’m not there to take care of her? What if I never see her again? I didn’t mean it. I was just angry at her. I just wanted her to feel a fraction of the godsdamn torment she put me through.”
I took a tentative step forward, trying to bridge the chasm of despair between us. My chest ached with the weight of it all.
“We’ll find her,” I promised, my voice small but trembling with certainty I didn’t entirely feel, as if repeating the words could somehow make them real.
“I’m back to the days before I met her. Back to wondering why no one wants me. Back to when I dreamed of loving someone so much that they’d never be able to walk away from me because I’d love them so thoroughly that they’d never go looking for someone else.”
His hands trembled as he spoke, curling into fists before falling open again like he didn’t know what to do with them. The raw ache in his tone sank into my bones. I’d seen gods bleed before, but never like this—never from something that couldn’t be healed.
“Ezra…,” I whispered, but it felt useless.
“I always told myself that if I would’ve told her that she was my mate, it would’ve changed all of this. That she would’ve stayed and loved me back eventually. But she knew. Abram, she fucking knew and still thought I wasn’t good enough to stay.”
His voice cracked mid-sentence, and he dragged a shaking hand through his hair. He looked like a man hollowed out, stripped of every bit of arrogance and divinity until only despair remained. My throat tightened.
“Ezra, she said she loved you,” I reminded him quietly, even though the words felt fragile, too small against the storm inside him.
He turned toward me, eyes bloodshot and wet, fury and heartbreak twisting together until it barely looked like him anymore.
“Would you forgive Elowyn if she did this to you? Would you believe that she loved you and that is why she has destroyed you over and over again? She married another man, one that beats her none the less, even after you begged her to stay. And her excuse was that she did it because she loved you, could you forgive it?” He asked.
“I don’t know,” I confessed.
“I’ve been playing it over and over in my mind.
These years of torment could not be because she loved me.
I truly can’t think of one good reason that would make all of this alright.
And I still sit here wondering what I am not understanding about this so I can forgive her.
I am in love with a woman who has done nothing but hurt me over and over again.
“And maybe I will never get another chance to understand why I am not enough for her.”
He fell silent, the words hanging in the air like a curse. I could feel the grief radiating from him, heavy enough to choke on. The pond rippled behind us, the night wind carrying the sound of it—gentle, indifferent. For the first time, I realized that even gods could break beyond repair.
“Maybe this was always how it was going to be,” Ezra said to himself. “Maybe she will make this all worth it in the next life.”
Then he disappeared, and I just stared at the spot he had been in. The grief and hollowness of his words gutted me.
Farris was not this cruel. I refused to believe it. The fates would not give Ezra such a cruel ending. We would find her and hopefully she had a true reason to do this to Ezra.