Chapter 65 Say It Out Loud
(While Standing Over His Body)
Arabella
The sky above churned with darkness so thick it seemed to swallow light itself. I ran toward Kazimir, dodging the shadow creatures, the panicked soldiers, and even a swipe of the Bone Behemoth. Through our bond, I felt nothing but vast, ancient hunger. The man I loved was drowning.
“Kaz!” I screamed, but my voice was lost in the cacophony of battle.
A shadow creature lunged at me from the left. I barely had time to raise a shield before its claws raked across the magical barrier. The impact sent me stumbling, but I kept moving. Nothing mattered except reaching him.
Bodies littered the ground—Solandrian soldiers, our own forces, all equal prey to the darkness Kazimir had unleashed.
Another creature attacked, this one more solid than shadow. I drove a blade of light through its center, watching it dissolve with an inhuman shriek. The Heirloom burned against my scalp, feeding me power I’d never felt before. It was intoxicating, terrifying, and absolutely necessary.
Because the thing wearing Kazimir’s face had finally noticed me.
He turned slowly, and my steps faltered. His eyes were pools of absolute darkness, no trace of the storm gray I loved. When he smiled, it was the smile of something that had waited centuries for this moment.
“The heir of Soriven,” he said, but it wasn’t Kazimir’s voice. It carried the weight of ages, the echo of tombs. “How fitting that you should witness my triumph.”
“Give him back,” I demanded, closing the distance between us. “I know you’re in there, Kaz. Fight him!”
The Shadow King laughed, a sound that made my bones ache. “He is nothing. A vessel worn by time. He served his purpose.”
“That’s fucking bullshit.” I was close enough to touch him now, close enough to see the familiar scars on his hands, the way his hair fell across his forehead. “Kazimir Blackrose bows to no one, especially not some ancient parasite. And he’s mine.”
What’s mine, stays mine.
I reached for him, but faster than thought, a hand closed around my throat for the second time in a few minutes.
The touch burned cold as frost spread from his fingers. I gasped, clawing at his grip, but it was like trying to move stone. My already bruised neck felt ready to break.
“Your ancestor bound me,” the Shadow King hissed through Kazimir’s lips. “Trapped me in darkness for centuries. It seems fitting that I should start my revenge with you.”
Black spots danced at the edges of my vision. Through our bond, I searched desperately for any trace of Kazimir, any spark of the man who’d taught me to embrace my darkness, who’d held me through the return of my memories, who’d—
There. Buried deep beneath the ancient presence, I felt a flicker of recognition. A flash of horror at what his hands were doing.
“Kaz,” I wheezed, pouring everything into that single word. “I know you’re in there. You”—I clutched his wrist and squeezed, pouring my magic into him—“promised.”
The grip tightened. The Shadow King’s smile widened.
And then, because I might never get another chance, because if I was going to die it would be with truth on my lips. I had no air, no voice, but I formed the words anyway:
I love you.
The Shadow King froze. Even the battle seemed to pause.
For a heartbeat, then two, three, nothing moved. Then those bottomless eyes shifted. A crack in the darkness.
“Arabella?” It was barely a whisper, but it was Kazimir’s voice. His real voice.
The ancient presence surged back, trying to reassert control. I saw the battle play out across his features—my husband fighting a god for control of his own body.
Fight him, Kaz. You’re stronger than him. You’ve always been stronger.
His hand loosened slightly, trembling. The darkness in his eyes flickered between solid black and familiar gray.
“No,” the Shadow King snarled, but there was fear in it now. “You are mine. You have always been mine!”
“Wrong,” I rasped, pressing my hand over his where it gripped my throat. “He’s mine. And I’m not letting go.”
I poured my magic into him through that touch—not an attack, but the same sharing of power Kaz and I had done dozens of times before. Light and shadow twisted together, our magics recognizing each other, yearning to merge.
The Shadow King recoiled from the intimacy of it. This wasn’t how power worked in his age. This was a give and take that he couldn’t understand or counter.
Kazimir’s entire body went rigid. His eyes rolled back, showing only white, and then he collapsed.
I barely caught him as he fell, lowering us both to the blood-soaked ground. His breathing was shallow, erratic, but he was breathing. The titanic struggle happening in his mind shuddered through me—Kazimir fighting to reclaim himself.
Distantly, I registered a halt to the Bone Behemoth’s rampage and the armies suddenly more confused than ever as the shadow creatures faltered.
“That’s it,” I murmured, cradling his head in my lap. My throat was raw and barely formed sound. “Fight for me. Fight for us.”
I began channeling power into him, the same way I’d done after battles, after nightmares, after that first terrifying fusion with the Heirloom. Our magics knew each other, trusted each other. Where the Shadow King brought only hunger and darkness, I offered something else.
A future. A choice. A reason to fight.
The humming thread that connected us, the one that had become as natural as breathing, was gone—snuffed out by the entity wearing his face.
But then, a fierce, defiant heat bloomed from the birthday ring on my finger.
Since the sentiment rings connected us through Kaz’s magic, and his alone, they didn’t depend on the Heirloom to keep us connected.
He was still in there, fighting.
A blast of red magic slammed into the ground near us, sending up a spray of earth and stone. I looked up to see Amaryska hovering above the battlefield, her gray robes billowing with power.
“Meddling whore!” she shouted. “I will kill you just like I did your mother.”
My mother’s face flashed before my eyes—those final moments I’d only recently recovered, her desperate attempt to protect me before Amaryska’s magic tore through her. Grief twisted in my chest, sharp and immediate, but it was quickly consumed by something far more powerful.
Rage.
Pure, incandescent rage that made my earlier fury look like a candle flame. This bitch had murdered my mother.
My magic erupted outward in shadow entwined with golden light. The ground cracked beneath my feet. My vision tinged red at the edges, and I felt my lips pull back in a feral snarl.
She gestured, and the shadow creatures that had been dissipating suddenly solidified again, turning their attention to our position. To Kazimir’s unconscious form.
I couldn’t move him while he was fighting his internal battle. But I could protect him.
Standing over his body, I reached out with my magic. The Heirloom pulsed, and suddenly I was aware of everything—every thread of power on the battlefield, every creature, every spell.
Including the Bone Behemoth.
It stood motionless where it had stopped, awaiting commands. I’d never controlled something so massive or complex. But my blood was singing with the combined power of the Heirloom and Kazimir’s dominion magic flowing through our bond.
What was the worst that could happen? I’d fail? We were already surrounded by enemies with my husband unconscious at my feet. Might as well go big.
I reached out with my will, touching the behemoth’s consciousness. It was like trying to grasp smoke at first—the construct was attuned to Kazimir, not me. But our magics were intertwined now.
Move, I commanded.
The behemoth’s massive skull turned toward us.
Protect him, I ordered, pouring more power into the command. Protect us.
The ground shook as the behemoth took its first step under my control. Then another. Bones the size of tree trunks swept aside shadow creatures like they were gnats. Its roar—if a creature without lungs could roar—sent our enemies scattering.
“Impossible,” Amaryska hissed. “You shouldn’t be able to—”
I cut her off by sending the behemoth’s massive fist toward her. She barely dodged, her hover faltering.
“Fuck you!” I shouted hoarsely.
Shadow creatures converged on us from all sides. I split my focus—maintaining the flow of power to Kazimir, controlling the behemoth, and conjuring shields when enemies got too close.
Through our bond, I felt Kazimir’s struggle intensifying. Flashes of memory that weren’t mine flickered through my consciousness—ancient battles, civilizations rising and falling, the moment of binding beneath fields that would one day bloom with Golden Roses.
“Come back to me,” I whispered, even as I sent the behemoth crashing through a wave of shadows.
“I know you can hear me, Kaz. You’re not him.
You’re not the Shadow King. You’re the man who kidnapped me and then got upset when I didn’t appreciate the accommodations.
You’re the one who taught me to make weapons from darkness and light.
You’re mine, and I’m not letting some ancient asshole take you away. ”
A shadow creature slipped past the behemoth’s defense. I barely got a shield up in time, the impact driving me to one knee. The position left me vulnerable, and three more creatures rushed in.
That’s when Nyx arrived.
My dragon materialized from nothing, fully phased between dimensions in a way I’d never seen her achieve before. One moment empty air, the next a fury of shimmering pink scales and purple fire. She grabbed the nearest shadow creature in her jaws and shook it like a dog with a toy.
“About time,” I gasped, using her distraction to regain my footing.
Nyx’s roar shook the entire battlefield. More importantly, spells that should have torn through her scales simply slid off, unable to find purchase on something that existed partially in another dimension. She was untouchable, unstoppable, and extremely pissed off.
Together, we held the line. The behemoth’s massive fists crushed any enemy that got too close. Nyx danced between dimensions, striking and vanishing before retaliation could come. And I stood over Kazimir’s body, channeling power and defiance in equal measure.
Our army, seeing the tide turn, rallied.
Thorne’s voice rose above the chaos, organizing our forces.
I wondered where the Sky Serpent was and why he wasn’t on it, but the captives weren’t as important as this battle right now.
Without the Shadow King’s will directing them, the shadow creatures became less coordinated.
More beast than soldier. Enemy forces were scattering, their will broken.
We were winning.
“My lady!” one of our soldiers called out, pointing.
Amaryska was fleeing too. I would find her eventually, but not now.
I looked down at Kazimir, still unconscious but breathing steadier. I felt the battle raging in his mind reach a crescendo. He was so close to breaking free, so close to coming back to me.
I dropped back to my knees beside him. “You’ve got this. Show that ancient bastard who really owns this body.”
Nyx landed beside us, her wings unfurling to create a protective barrier. The behemoth stood sentinel on our other side. Around us, our forces were mopping up the last resistance, but I barely noticed.
All my attention was on Kazimir, on the flutter of his eyelids, the way his fingers twitched as if reaching for something.
Victory was within reach.
If only Kaz could defeat the Shadow King.
If only he could find his way back to me.
“I love you,” I whispered again, pressing my forehead to his. “Do you hear me? I love you, and you don’t get to leave me now. Not ever.”
The Heirloom pulsed with warmth, and through our bond, I felt a shift. A wall crumbling. A chain breaking.
Soon. Soon he’d open those storm-gray eyes and smirk at me like the arrogant bastard he was. Soon we’d argue about whose fault this mess was while planning our next move.
Soon.
I just had to keep fighting for him the way he’d always fought for me.
Because that’s what you did when you loved someone. You stood over their body on a battlefield and commanded an undead monstrosity while your dragon ate your enemies.