Chapter 51
MAE
Asmo groans, and I burst into tears. The thump of his heart against my cheek is the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard, but I can’t bring myself to look at him. I’m terrified he’s not the male I remember. Terrified I just signed away his soul. Terrified he’s some Cursed version of my mate.
His hand cups the back of my head. “Princess.” The “ss” is slithery and I’m brought back to the very first time I met him. I let loose another sob.
Please, please, please.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. We’re okay.” His voice is warm and comforting and feels like home.
His shirt grows damp from my tears. He shifts beneath me, propping himself on his elbows.
I force myself to look up at him, and something in my chest warms as I find those fern-green eyes.
I reach for the mating tattoo on my chest, for the way I know he’s still there, still a part of me.
He wouldn’t leave me. Not the male whose eyes soften when they fall upon mine, who would rather look at me than the stars.
I curl my fingers in his hair, still damp from the rain and gritty with dirt from the riverbed. “Az,” I whisper. Even with that one syllable, my voice breaks.
“Princess.” One corner of his mouth quirks upward, and I threaten to break again.
I press my lips to his, tasting sweat and dirt and everything that makes him real. Alive.
“Mine,” I whisper.
He doesn’t repeat the sentiment. He just smiles against my lips. That’s all I need.
“Where are we?”
“The river that runs through the mountain,” I answer.
He blinks. “How did we get here?”
“You…Cora hurt you,” I say. “I shifted and managed to get you here.”
“Well, I guess that explains why you’re naked.”
I look down, at my fully nude body sprawled all over him. A laugh threatens to spill, but then I remember Thera finding me on top of him. And what came after. What have I done?
Asmo glances down, assessing himself. He moves his arms, then pats his stomach, his legs. “I feel fine…But it must have been bad if I don’t remember it. What happened?”
“You jumped on Cora and…She pushed you away, but she used her lightning.” And then your body hit the ground and my chest cracked and you—I squeeze my eyes shut. “And you didn’t get back up.”
He pushes himself into a seated position and pulls his shirt up. Unlike my interaction with Cora’s lightning, there isn’t a single mark on Asmo. It looks like it never even happened.
“How am I alive, princess?” His voice is deep, commanding. He knows. And yet, something in me screams to keep the truth from Asmo. For the second time, I wonder what he would have done. He would’ve made the deal and lied about it so I wouldn’t worry.
I force a smile. “My tears, remember?” I wipe them from my cheeks. “I don’t know how or why, but they can heal.”
He shakes his head in disbelief. “You’re…”
“Made by the Mother,” I whisper.
“I was going to say you were something else.” His lips press into a grimace. “I’m sorry. I acted recklessly.” He peels his shirt off and hands it to me.
I pull it over my head, thankful that it falls to my mid-thighs. I wave the apology away. It doesn’t feel deserved. Not after I just lied to him about why he’s alive. Not after I might have just thrown our future away by promising a favor to the Goddess of Hell.
“We need to get back to the battle,” I say as I rise.
He pushes himself to standing and tries his best to brush mud and dirt from his pants, but it barely makes a difference. “What was going on when you left?”
“I killed Cora.”
He turns his head to me. “You did what?”
I fight to contain the smile. It’s a sick and twisted joy that comes from killing another person, but she wasn’t even a person. People have have hearts, souls, a conscious. Well, I guess technically she had a heart.
Asmo nods appreciatively. “Alright, then. That’s a conversation for later. What else?”
“When I left, everyone was still fighting the witches and the Cursed.”
“Let’s go then. We have a kingdom to secure.”
We walk back in silence, hands clasped, both of us on high alert for any sign of witches or Cursed, or anything else Cora managed to drag up with her from below. But there is nothing. Nothing crafted from dark magic, at least.
Deer have begun to venture through the trees once more. A rabbit hops past us. The rain has stopped and the clouds have begun to disperse.
I don’t hear any screaming, which means the battle has either been won…or lost.
Back at the battleground, Barrett and August stand before a group of witches.
They sit on the ground, hands bound behind by their backs, hissing and spitting at the two High Princes.
On the other side of the field, Elle and Basil help wounded hybrids walk to an area filled with makeshift cots.
Healers tend to stab wounds, burns, and the like.
I smile when I see Brynn, the healer who helped my cambion burn, among them.
Witches lie bloodied and limp on the floor, their heads burned or missing altogether. Hybrids and Fae drag them into a pile. Ivan has begun creating a separate area for fallen hybrids, resting their bodies with care side by side.
Once, I kissed August on this field. I watched young hybrids chase each other as their parents smiled at them. I met my mate here.
Now, it’s a graveyard.
“We need to get those witches into the dungeons,” Asmo says, pulling me from the memories of my coronation day.
Throw the witches into the dungeons, dispose of the dead ones, hold funerals for the deceased hybrids, heal the wounded, figure out what the hell is going on with Marik, save the world, redeem a favor for the Goddess of Hell—
Asmo steps in front of me and tilts my face upward. “Hey,” he says softly.
I blink and focus on him, shoving my racing thoughts to the side. “Sorry,” I say. “Witches. Dungeon. Yes.”
He stares at me, eyebrows drawn together. “I know this is a lot. It’s okay to not be okay right now. But stay strong for everyone. You can lose it later.”
I clench my jaw. He’s right. Add “lose it later” to the list.
He rolls his shoulders back and strides toward everyone.
I imitate him, hoping to show everyone that I’m confident, that I know what the fuck I’m doing, that I’m not a fraud.
All the emotions from the first week of being High Queen resurface—the anxiety, the insecurity, the feelings of being an imposter. I just won back my kingdom. My home.
But all I can think about is the unknown fate I just doomed myself to.
“Mae!” a voice calls. I turn. Elle, her hair threatening to come undone as she sprints toward me. She pulls me into a fierce hug. I cling to her. My sister. “You’re okay.” She pulls back and stares at Asmo. “You’re alive.”
He cocks his head. “Yes?”
She shakes her head. “No, I just…I thought you were dead.”
“Happy to disappoint, then.” His smile is razor sharp, his teeth dazzlingly white.
“Your Highness,” Ivan calls as he walks toward us. But his gaze is fixed on Asmo. “We need to transfer the prisoners and get the wounded inside.”
Asmo and Ivan walk away, Asmo’s hands clasped behind his back as Ivan details what should happen next.
Elle stands beside me, our shoulders brushing as we watch the two get farther away. “How is he alive?” she whispers.
“I don’t know,” I admit. It’s the truth. I have no fucking clue what happened or what I did. “What happened after we left?”
She moves to stand before me. “When you killed Cora, the Cursed just…fell.” She points to the battlefield, where animal corpses lay amongst the mud and trodden grass.
Add “burn the Cursed” to the list.
“We were able to turn all our efforts to the witches,” Elle continues. “Some of them surrendered, but many of them fought to the death.” She looks at me, a smile threatening to break loose. “It’s over, Mae. We beat her.”
My eyes close and I inhale, deep and true. We beat Cora. We saved the kingdom. I know I should be happy—and I am—but my stomach twists again. What have I done? What will Thera ask of me? “How are you feeling? About…Marik?” I ask.
“Oh, that,” she says, her smile fading. She looks at the ground, mouth twisting as she stares at her feet. “He’s…” she hesitates. “Alive but…not. He’s breathing, but he won’t move or open his eyes.”
“How are you feeling about that?” I ask.
She shrugs and, again, looks down, seemingly intent on studying the pattern of the laces in her boots.
I don’t press. “Okay,” I say with a sigh. “Then we need to get him to a healer.”
She nods slowly. “Get everyone else checked first. Marik should be the last. He did this, after all.”
I nod once. “If that is what you wish.”
Her gaze finds mine. “I wish for none of this.”
The library is dark and silent, a far cry from what it used to be.
In a way, this place helped transform me.
I’ve always found solace in books, comfort in others’ stories, in the way the characters handle trials and tribulations, in who they become.
Tales of dragons, princesses, love, and loss have shaped me over the years.
But this library has helped shape my own journey—my first day at the castle, sipping coffee with Elle, laying here with Koa, Asmo breaking my heart.
Now, I’ve gained everything, lost everything, and fought tooth and nail to get it back.
Maybe even bartered my soul. But I have no regrets. Not yet, at least.
If I had fought for this kingdom, only to have to sit on a throne by myself, I would’ve burned it all over again.
“Do you plan to stare into the darkness all evening?” Asmo drawls from behind me. I smile, but it falls almost instantly. It was too close. “Brynn is wrapping up with the injured.”
I sigh. “Let’s go see Marik.”
Marik was moved to the spare bedroom in my wing.
He lies on the bed, black shirt and trousers torn by the Cursed’s teeth, dirt crusted along his jaw, and hair matted and stiff with what I’m assuming is blood and saliva.
Elle sits on a plush chair, her head in her hands.
She lifts it as we walk in. Purple shadows line her eyes.