Chapter 39
Theo
She was gone.
One moment she was standing there, betraying me, tearing down everything I loved, and the next, she was gone.
Just… gone.
How had I not seen it?
How had I missed the signs?
I should have known.
Should have pieced it together.
Stopped her.
But I hadn’t.
I was too late.
Her body lay crumpled in the center of the ritual circle. Blood trickled from her nose and mouth, pooling beneath her cheek. No movement. No breath. Just stillness.
Something inside me snapped. Centuries of restraint gone.
I fell to my knees beside her. My fingers brushed her hand, still warm, and for a heartbeat I thought—
But no. Nothing.
Her eyes stared past me, unseeing. I closed them with shaking fingers, smearing blood across her skin.
Her magic, now inside me, pulsed beneath my flesh like wildfire. It didn’t settle—it screamed. It demanded to burn, to kill, to make the world hurt the way I did.
There was no logic left, no strategy, no wisdom.
Only rage.
I didn’t remember how many I killed. Two? Three at once? It didn’t matter. Any Herald who crossed my path fell. My blade, my magic, both found their targets with brutal precision.
The Fraction tried to scatter, but Malek’s soldiers pursued them.
Some fled. Some were caught. The rest… died.
I offered no mercy.
Because the only person who had ever truly mattered was lying broken on the floor.
Maelis.
And she hadn’t died for power, not for herself. She’d died for me, for my people, for the humans who would have chained her the moment they discovered her heka.
A heka that now throbbed inside me, a constant, burning reminder of what I’d lost.
I wanted to hold her and tell her I loved her, because I did. I hadn’t realized how much, until I felt the silence she left behind.
Caelan appeared in the courtyard, panting. His eyes swept over the wreckage, then found her.
He froze. “No… no, no, no!”
He dropped to his knees beside her, fingers pressed to her throat, searching for a pulse that wasn’t there.
“What the fuck happened?” His voice cracked. “How is this possible?”
I rose slowly. Every muscle ached from the magic and grief I’d tried to contain. My throat burned raw.
“She fooled them all,” I said, my voice a rasp. “She got the Abbot to tell her how the harnessing worked. Convinced the Fraction she was on their side. They thought they were taking my power…”
I swallowed hard. The next words wouldn’t come.
“She gave them the wrong chants,” I finally managed. “She—”
My voice broke.
I reached for her hand one last time. Still, cold, stained red, and then I screamed.
It tore out of me, primal and endless, echoing off the courtyard walls and up through the mountains. I screamed until my throat gave out.
Until I couldn’t breathe. Until I didn’t care who heard me.
I didn’t know when Lythandra came.
But I remembered the blanket and being guided to the Pathways, arriving at the Lodge.
Someone placed a bowl of soup in my hands. I stared at it until it went cold.
Breathing was all I could manage, and even that felt optional.
At some point, nausea overtook me.
I stumbled to the nearest plant pot and vomited, my whole body shaking.
The sound must’ve drawn them in—Caelan, Lydia, Lythandra.
I felt arms around me.
Lydia handed me water.
“I need to tell her mother,” I rasped.
“Mae had sent someone from the temple to bring her mother here to the Lodge, where she would be better protected. Someone told her before we even got here. She is in shock and sleeping right now. You should do the same.”
I shook my head.
“I don’t want to sleep. I can’t sleep. I don’t know what to do, Lydia. How do I fix this? How do I bring her back? I can’t be without her.” My words were jumbled, tears streaming down my face and I could feel her power responding to my emotions. “I can’t be without her.”
“Shh,” she whispered, pulling me closer. “I know. But you need rest. You were held for days. No food. No magic. You’re in shock. Sleep first. Then we’ll talk.”
I nodded. Numb.
Lythandra handed me another bowl.
I drank this one.
My body gave in before my mind could fight it.
Sleep took me.
But when I woke, I would find a way.
Somehow, some way, I would bring her back.
And when I did, I’d tell her.
All of it.
That I loved her.
That I always had.
She was gone.
* * *
“Theo, are you awake?” I heard Malek’s voice outside my bedroom door.
“Go away!” I snarled and hurled a pillow towards the door with all my force. The door opened slightly and Malek peeked his head in.
“I don’t think I heard you, oh wise God of Wisdom. Could you speak up a little?”
A teasing smile played on his lips, and I couldn’t help but huff out a laugh.
“What do you want?” I asked while lifting myself off the bed to stalk into the bathroom. Fates, something here smelled horrible.
A look in the mirror told me that it was probably me and I sniffed my armpits.
Yeah, I definitely needed a shower.
I turned the water on, not bothering to see what Malek wanted.
When I came back to the bedroom, he had opened the windows to let some cool spring air into the room.
“Thank the Fates, you took a shower,” he groaned and sat down in one of the chairs near the window.
There was a maid in my room now too, stripping the bed and collecting the plates and bottles from beside my bed.
“How long did you stay up last night?” Malek asked with a concerned look on his face.
I started getting dressed in shorts and a white shirt and ran my hand through my wet hair.“ I got a few hours’ sleep, if that’s what you are concerned about.”
Malek sighed. “This has been going on for months now, Theo. You have to let her go.”
I stopped in my tracks.
Months.
She had been gone for months now.
4 months, 3 days and… 17 hours to be exact.
And with every hour that passed, she was slipping more from my grip.
I could feel her inside of my veins, my head, my heart, but she was getting more distant by the day.
“I found some new texts last night that are promising. An ancient scroll talking about the afterlife and resurrection in ancient Mesopotamia. I am going back down to the temple now,” I said.
Malek remained quiet.
When I looked over to him, he had pressed his fists to his eyes.
“I don’t know what to do, Theo. This has gone too far, she is gone.
I know you are hurting, I know you wished things were different, but you can’t change what happened.
She was mortal, there is no way to bring her back.
We buried her, Theo. Just because you didn’t attend the funeral it doesn’t make it any less real. She is gone!”
My heart was pounding fast, anger churning in my stomach, bile rising up my throat.
“I can feel her, Malek. She is not gone. She sacrificed herself for me, for all of us, and I am not just going to let her go! I should have protected her! I failed her then, but I am not going to do that again. I will get her back.”
Malek shook his head.
The door to my room opened and Lydia came in.
She noticed the silent stand-off between me and Malek. She spoke softly, as if she was scared to set me off. It didn’t take much these days to make me lose my cool.
“We are just concerned about you, Auretheos. You aren’t eating and sleeping enough. She sacrificed herself so you could have a life. She loved you and she wanted you to leave this temple and finally live a life worth living. She—”
I had heard enough.
“What you don’t seem to understand is that there is no life for me when she is not in it. So you can either help me and find a way to bring her back, or you need to get the fuck out of my way and let me do it by myself.”
I slammed the door shut behind me and made my way back to the temple.
I needed to find a way to get to her.
* * *
I was standing in the middle of my library, again.
The smell of smoke, burned leather, and dampness was still clinging to the air, even though 8 months had passed since the attack on Lumoria and the temple.
A huge part of my book collection had been lost to the fire, volumes full of centuries-old knowledge.
I had started right away to re-write the books, the content of each pager sealed inside my brain.
But it was tedious work and took way longer than I would have liked.
It would take me centuries to restore the library to what it had been before.
Before. It seemed like this was a word I used too often now.
My whole life was measured in “befores.” There was a life before Maelis, but it seemed inconsequential now.
But now there was only before I failed her.
Before I had readily believed the worst of her when every instinct should have told me to trust in her.
Before I lost her and myself in the process.
I sighed and sat down on my desk in the center of the library.
Truth be told, I wasn’t getting much done in the way of restoring the books because I was still consumed with the thought of getting Maelis back somehow.
I had an endless supply of knowledge at my disposal and still I couldn’t figure out why I could still feel her around even after all those months.
It was easier for me now to put my books down and join my friends for dinner.
I managed to sleep more, I went back to exercising and had even gone on a little trip with Lydia to Maelis’ hometown.
But the ache in my chest, the yearning and the denial of what had happened were still as prominent as they had been this first day.
The edges weren’t as sharp anymore, but there was never an hour when I didn’t think of her.
* * *
Maelis
There was nothing but white light around me.
As if I was floating in a river made of bright white smoke, weightless and carefree.
There was only my body. Nothing left inside of me, no pain or joy, no needs, no duties.
It reminded me of the times when I was a child and would fall asleep on the sofa while my parents were talking and laughing together in the kitchen.