Chapter Fifty-Nine
The deepest grief is not goodbye
But knowing love was worth the price
Teddy knows he’s going to die.
The realization arrives without panic. Without denial. Just cold, immediate certainty as Nyrielle’s stolen magic tears into the shield of Aether in his hands.
He cannot move, anchored to the ground where the only thing between him and Nyrielle is the shield. It holds, but barely, shuddering and splintering under the force. And he knows with absolute certainty that he cannot withstand her for much longer.
The shield tremors in his hands, the vibrant blue of the Aether reinforcing it guttering and fading with every passing heartbeat. The shield caves inwards, threatening to split under the force of Nyrielle’s power.
Another blast slams into it.
The impact drives Teddy backward hard enough to fracture stone beneath his boots. Pain detonates through his body. His shoulders feel half-torn from their sockets. Blood runs freely down both arms now, slicking his grip as every muscle locks against the strain.
Still he holds.
He grits his teeth, a snarl ripping from his throat and every muscle grips around bone for extra torsion. Veins swell under the pressure, sinew tears apart under the strain.
But Teddy does not let go. That is, until…
“Teddy.”
He feels the words land in his soul before he hears them with his ears.
Seren.
He turns his gaze, sweat beading and dripping from his brow as their eyes lock.
“No,” she whispers, taking in the impossible position he’s in.
The only thing standing between units of Dravara’s soldiers, Jax battling five on her own, and The Black Stream bridge that offers the final crossing before the enemy reach the castle, the people of this kingdom.
He is the last protector of Dravara. And he knows it.
And gods, Teddy has spent his entire life standing between people and ruin.
“No,” she breathes again.
The word barely survives the chaos around them.
Above the battlefield, dragons tear through smoke and cloud in violent arcs of flame.
Tarrakai’s roar reverberates through the city hard enough to shake stone beneath Teddy’s feet as dragonfire rains across the northern ranks below.
Somewhere beyond the wall of Nyrielle’s power hammering into the shield, Elyssara and Maireth collide in another catastrophic burst of magic that fractures the sky in a clash of onyx and gold.
The world is breaking apart around them.
And still Teddy holds the line.
He has to hold the line.
He always holds the line.
Even when it costs him everything.
Another blast slams into the shield hard enough to drive him backward across the stone. Agony tears through his shoulders. Something in his ribs cracks beneath the force.
The shield caves inward again.
Nyrielle smiles between blasts. The kind of smile that is not born of victory, but inevitability. As though she already sees the exact moment his body fails beneath her power.
Teddy spits blood onto the stone and grips the shield harder.
Not yet.
Because behind him, the people he loves are still breathing.
In war, the mission outlives the commander.
The lesson had left his mouth a hundred times over the years, delivered to soldiers too young to understand the weight of it.
Teddy understands it now. Because the realms are burning. And they still need saving. Even if he won’t live long enough to see it.
He can hear them through the chaos. Soldiers shouting. Dragons screaming overhead. Jax drawing on the Starborn around her, and taking down more northmen than should be possible.
Life.
Still fighting to exist.
This is what Teddy does—he keeps people alive long enough to change this godsforsaken place.
Beyond Nyrielle’s onslaught, Nymerian soldiers still move through the chaos with practiced precision.
Shields of Aether from Caeloria locked into formation, exactly as he taught them.
Cannons angled to create overlapping fields of protection.
Reposition. Brace. Advance. The exact patterns he had drilled into them until they could execute them half-asleep and bleeding.
Teddy had trained them for the day their shores were breached. Never for the day he would have to stand against them.
“Teddy—”
He looks back at Seren again and nearly breaks at the sight of her.
Golden threads whip violently around her body, illuminating the tears already streaking down her face as realization settles fully into place between them.
She understands what this means.
Of course she understands.
She has always understood him too easily.
Another violent impact slams into the shield. Cracks splinter across the blue Aether in branching fractures now, flickering dangerously with every passing heartbeat.
Time is gone.
And then Teddy sees it—Tarrakai banking sharply overhead. Dragonfire pouring from his jaws, as he weaves between strikes of Skyfire and silver-threaded shadows.
Teddy sees the angle. The trajectory. And the answer arrives instantly. Not survival—strategy. Because Teddy has never been the kind of man who mistakes survival for victory.
“Tarrakai,” Teddy says roughly, blood filling his mouth now. “Tell him to direct his dragonfire at the shield.”
He spits blood onto the fractured earth again, and torques his hips to offset the force of Nyrielle’s strikes.
Seren goes completely still.
Horror floods her face.
“No.”
“If dragonfire hits the shield directly, I’ll redirect the blast.”
Understanding hits her with brutal clarity.
Into Nyrielle.
The shield trembles violently again as another collision of magic detonates across its surface.
Nyrielle’s lilting voice tries to reach him through the chaos. Taunts and teases that he knows are true. Promising death. Promising failure. Promising that love has always been humanity’s greatest weakness.
Seren shakes her head. “And what of you?” she asks, voice breaking apart around the words.
Teddy doesn’t answer immediately because they both already know.
If he angles the shield to catch the dragonfire and spear it toward Nyrielle, he’ll have to expose himself directly to her line of power. The shield will no longer be protecting him.
Another blast tears through the shield hard enough to split skin across both of Teddy’s hands. He clenches his jaw, but a scream detonates from his throat. Pure animal and agony.
Because suddenly all he can think about is how strange it is that after a lifetime spent surviving war, violence, and godsdamned grief, the thing that finally taught him the meaning of devotion was a sharp-tongued witch who could never truly be his. Not in this life.
But gods, he has loved her anyway. Completely. Enough to choose her future over his own survival.
The realization settles through him with astonishing calm. Not regret. Never regret… not with her. Choice.
He looks at Seren while the heavens burn around them and gives her the only truth he has left.
“I will choose you,” he promises quietly, the shield trembling violently between them, “across every plane, every lifetime, every version of this world.”
Seren shakes her head, as if the clarity of what he’s doing—what he’s choosing—settles in her chest.
He’s choosing her. Over it all. Over survival. Over the impossible, aching hunger to stay.
Because gods, Teddy suddenly understands with brutal clarity that he does want to stay.
He wants another summer of her sharp mouth and impossible heart.
Another night listening to her laugh at things she pretends are not funny.
Another godsdamned night bringing her pleasure.
Another fucking lifetime standing beside her while the world remakes itself around them.
Because that vow he made to Tali saved him from getting lost in his failures, but it buried him, too. It kept him trapped in a life half-lived. A cage by his own decree. Not dying, but not living either. And gods, Seren made him want to live.
But the realms are burning.
And Seren is still standing in them.
Nyrielle’s magic detonates against the shield again, violent enough to drive Teddy to one knee. He hears her taunting laugh over the carnage like this is all a game. Blood spills from his mouth as the shield falters.
Behind him, Elyssara and Maireth still collide in a catastrophic eruption of shadow and light powerful enough to fracture the sky itself. Dragons scream overhead. Soldiers still die by the hundreds below.
The world has narrowed to heartbeats. To one choice. One impossible act of love. The only thing left that he can give Seren.
“Teddy…” Seren’s voice breaks completely now.
He lifts his gaze back to hers and sees the exact moment she understands the truth of it.
“No matter what, Seren,” he grits out.
A whimper escapes her. She sees it.
Not sacrifice.
Choice.
He is giving her the thing this life never could.
A future.
Even if he cannot exist inside it with her.
“No matter where, Teddy.”
She grips her chest like she can hold her heart together from the outside.
“Just not in this one,” she whispers, but he hears it with crystal clarity through the war that rages around them.
He smiles, wide and unrestrained. “Find me in the next one. I’m yours.”
A strangled scream tears from her throat because she hears everything he refuses to say: goodbye.
“Tell Tarrakai,” Teddy says again, more firmly this time. “Now, Seren.”
She stares at him in horror, tears streaking down her face as golden magic lashes violently around her body.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
Another strike slams into the shield hard enough to split the stone beneath Teddy’s knees.
The Aether fails.
It will no longer hold. He has one chance.
Teddy feels Nyrielle’s magic drawing back to surge. To break through him with finality, thread by thread, like something ancient and merciless has finally decided to claw its way inside his bones.
Time is over.
And still, all he can think is how beautiful Seren looks standing in the middle of the end of the world.
“Across planes,” she whispers suddenly, voice shaking violently. “Across lifetimes. Across every godsdamned version of existence… it will always be you.”
Teddy’s breath catches. Not because the words surprise him. Because somewhere deep down, he has always known they were true.
Nyrielle moves to strike again.
And Teddy smiles.
Small.
Broken.
Certain.
Teddy shifts the shield.
Then he looks toward the sky and roars:
“TARRAKAI!”