CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
EMMERY
The path Emmery and Brennen followed led farther into the womb of the Sacred Lands than she and Vesper had tread months ago.
As if unveiled by fire, the tree’s glossy blackened exterior had been replaced with a charred burn, and the land’s glow now dimly flickered.
At her side, the wolf walked, her hand rested on his neck the way Dez’s usually did.
Her fingers anxiously tangled in his fur as her chest shook and rattled the broken pieces inside her.
As if Aera had decided the two were now best friends, she wove in and out of Brennen’s legs. He gave her the occasional swat of his tail when she wandered off the path.
Brennen led her through a particularly dense thicket of burnt trees, and as they emerged on the other side, a vast expanse of blood spanned ahead, stretching to gods only knew where.
Maybe it fed into the lake in the Hollow.
Rather than the coppery tang she assumed would flood the cavern, the air smelled sweet. Like buttery brown sugar.
This had to be the Blood Mire. The story of how Kahlia had drowned herself sprang to Emmery’s mind as she stared out at the crimson pool.
At the shore stood Fionn, arms crossed, tapping his foot as he glanced at his pocket watch. Fionn was here, but—
Where was Dez? Brennen claimed he would be there. In his absence, her heart wrung itself dry.
Emmery scooped up Aera and sprinted, Brennen at her side. The soft earth shifted beneath her feet. When she neared the shore’s edge, Fionn peered up from his watch and gave her a cocky smirk so much like Briar’s she couldn’t help but return it.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he said. He winked at Brennen. “About time you got here. I almost lost the bet.”
Fire flickered in her eyes as her gaze warred between them. “What bet?”
“Nothing.” Brennen narrowed his eyes at Fionn. “Clearly he’s inhaled too many fumes from the Blood Mire.”
It did have some sort of intoxicating effect. Her head felt light, off balance, as she set Aera down and raised her hands. “I don’t care, I need to know where Dez is.”
“In there.” Fionn nodded behind him.
Her stare widened on the body of blood, still and yet never clotting. “He’s—what do you mean ‘in there’?”
Fionn shrugged. “Part of his pactum and magic. He drank whatever was in that vial, murmured some nonsense about ten times, and sauntered in there like some lunatic.”
“And neither of you are concerned?” she snapped.
She wrapped her arms around herself and stepped toward the shore.
As she gazed out at it, her palm pricked with sweat.
When she turned back to the imbeciles, they both grinned like fiends.
“What are you two smiling about? And how long has he been in there?”
Brennen plunked his furry behind in the sand. “Don’t ruffle your delicate feathers, princess. We’ll get him out before he drowns.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” Her attention turned on Fionn. “Tell me how long he’s been in there.”
Once more he flicked open his pocket watch and pursed his lips. “Give or take five minutes.”
“Five minutes?” Emmery’s stomach sank as they both shrugged. “Fuck you two, I’m—”
She didn’t get to finish her thought.
Because the Blood Mire rippled. Actually rippled.
Her heart rose in her throat as it shuddered. As if drawn from the inside, the blood shifted like a violent storm, a tidepool, a rising force sure to alter this existence.
Dez’s head broke the surface, and he gulped air as if this was his rebirth.
His soaked curls hung in his face and blood slathered him like a warrior wore armour.
As the mountains dawned snow. As the ocean held the sky.
It was him as much as he was it, the two melding into one being.
And as he stalked forward with an unflinching gait, ruthless power and aura quaked the earth with each measured step.
He rose from the crimson pool like a—
Like a god.
Beside her, Fionn whispered, “Calamity take me.”
Her world narrowed on Destonne. On his flawless face, his gaze on the ground, and those black clothes that made him so very Dez. A magnificent, deep crimson vestige swathed him and—
It was the most glorious thing she had ever seen.
As Dez raised his hand, the blood licked off him and gathered into a smattering of crimson mist. He suspended it in the air, and then, with a flick of his wrist, cast it back into the mire.
Then his eyes met hers.
His footing faltered, and he stumbled, his gaze one she had seen many times but hadn’t known the meaning. Not until now. Inside her, sunlight flickered, heated, blazed, and chased away all her shadows as his steps sped. As he raced toward her, the blood sloshed under his boots.
Her heart chanted mine, mine, mine, before it stopped entirely. Everything else faded away until it was only them. And her magic breathed—finally, my sanctuary, my rapture, my peace. It sighed a deep, heavy relief and hummed one single word like a hymn, until it simmered in her blood.
Home.
The ground trembled under his feet and the cavern quaked from his raw, unfettered power. It sang inside her, too, icy and swelling and delicious.
As he stepped ashore, Dez stared at her as if she were the sun and moon and all the godsdamned stars in the sky. He didn’t glance at Fionn or Brennen.
No, his attention all belonged to her.
And fuck it, she wanted it all. Craved it like air. Sustenance. Life itself.
For a moment, they both gazed at one another, unable to speak, unable to voice what they both felt. What the bond overflowed with. What was there and had been all along, and now that she’d tasted it, she was starved for it.
He slowly, too achingly slowly, reached for her. She stepped toward him, accepting his hand like his offer of the rose all those months ago.
It was her surrender.
Her white flag.
Because she was so damn tired of fighting this.
Of telling herself she didn’t want him. That she didn’t love him. That she wasn’t more herself with him than anyone else.
Their fingers had only brushed, when the cavern shook. The ground trembled and stalactites rattled.
Destonne’s head snapped up, and his face fell, whatever flooded his eyes just for her gone in an instant.
From within the nearby trees, a slew of creatures emerged. Their high-pitched wails filled the cavern, their footfalls shook the earth, and icy fear shot down Emmery’s spine and prickled the back of her neck.
In a flash, Fionn seized his bow, Brennen spun, teeth bared, and Emmery’s flame leapt to her fingertips. Beside her, a century’s worth of pent-up rage swelled Dez’s vestige and hummed the tune of victory.
The creatures were almost human, with mottled flecks of flesh peeking through thick, thorny vines, black and sharp like those of Destonne’s crown.
But unlike Dez, the vines had completely claimed their bodies.
They screamed through gaping mouths ripped from cheek to cheek, their jaws hanging open like mutilated gourds.
Emmery glanced between the men the second before chaos erupted.
Before the beasts charged.
Brennen surged first. He tackled two of the creatures to the ground and pinned them beneath two mighty paws. His jaws clamped around their limbs and tore vine from bone. Black blood spurted, reeking of wet wood and rot and death.
With an elegant arc of his arm, Fionn seized an arrow and notched it in his bow. He barely aimed before he let it fly. With a thunk, it landed square in a creature’s face. The abomination staggered backward, but shook its head and proceeded, limping as its limbs twisted, unnatural and grotesque.
And as if their minds were truly linked, Emmery and Destonne stepped in line with one another. She threw him a smug look before she raised her hands and unleashed.
Her magic barrelled through her, a plague of golden flame that licked up and devoured those vines, filling the cavern with the sound of crackling wood and snapping bone.
And she leaned into it, the release too damn good as her veins hummed.
Destonne’s eyes fell closed as the pulse of his vestige became a drum, a battle song, and raw, unrestrained power bled from him.
His magic erupted. Twin powers of obsidian ice and blood twined in an unmatched force.
And it utterly shredded the creatures. He ripped the blood from their bodies, suspended it in the air as a fine black mist before he funnelled it, moulded it, shaped it, and shot it back at them like a geyser.
The creatures staggered but didn’t have time to fall before black ice crept over them, leaving them turgid and lifeless.
They shattered into fragments as they crashed to the ground.
Emmery stared in disbelief as he decimated the pack. Each of the monsters fell as Brennen herded and lined them up for Dez to tear the blood from them, ripping their limbs from their strange, misshapen bodies. And yet, the limbless creatures rose again, limping or dragging their stumps.
They all seemed focussed on one thing.
Emmery. As if she had a big red beacon guiding them to her, screaming, I’m right here, assholes.
But her friends weren't about to let them have her, and, frankly, neither was she. She’d been offered up enough times, and this wouldn’t be one of them.
She released her fire, let it consume the cavern, and claim any lives it pleased.
Finally, when the last one fell, Dez took a shaky breath and turned to her, his vestige still thrumming with immeasurable power.
Emmery held his gaze and recognized the hesitation in it. That fear of rejection, the same she’d felt. But she met his gaze, unwavering.
Because she wasn’t and never would be afraid of him, even though it could have very well been Deimos himself standing before her.
The God of Blood and Ice.