Chapter Sixty
The deepest scars are not of war
But all the things worth fighting for
Teddy shifts the shield.
Dragonfire collides with it like the wrath of the gods.
The impact ruptures the battlefield apart.
Heat detonates outward in catastrophic waves as the shield screams beneath the collision, the sound sharp enough to split straight through Seren’s skull. For one blinding heartbeat, the world becomes nothing but fire and light and impossible magic tearing itself apart.
Tarrakai’s roar shakes the Stars. Grief and rage and fury and loss coalescing in a single sound.
Teddy angles the shield perfectly, redirecting Tarrakai’s fire with precision. The redirected blast tears across the battlefield in a violent torrent of dragonfire, slamming into Nyrielle with enough force to send her screaming backward through the fractured stone.
If Tarrakai hovers any closer, Nyrielle’s magic would spear straight through the soft flesh beneath his scales.
He stays angled above Teddy, directing his wrath into the shield of Aether, exactly as Teddy demanded.
But Nyrielle is too slow to recall the strike already in motion.
Her magic continues forward. Into Teddy.
But this time, there is no shield to protect him.
Dravara’s dragons can see the truth the same way Seren can: Teddy is protecting Dravara with his life. Tarrakai lets out another guttural roar of agony and anger.
But the damage is already done. Nyrielle’s stolen magic surges toward his exposed frame and collides with him exactly where the shield should’ve protected him.
The magic punches through Teddy’s body in a catastrophic burst of light. The strike tears clean through him, burning straight through flesh and bone alike.
His back arches violently.
Blood sprays across the shield.
“No!” The scream tears itself from Seren’s throat like devastation made flesh.
But war does not wait. It does not grieve. It moves.
The goddess is too slow to stop Tarrakai’s fire outright.
But she manages to fire off a protective blaze of magic before she’s completely engulfed.
Not enough to stop the force entirely. But enough to protect herself from certain death.
Enough to clash with the dragonfire before it hits her straight in the chest.
But Teddy is not done. He does not yield.
Still he holds the shield. Still he directs the dragonfire. Like one man standing between the realm and annihilation.
Still he forces the redirected blast toward Nyrielle while the goddess screams beneath the full catastrophic force of it, barely able to protect herself.
Still he stands.
Nyrielle sends a strike into the sky, desperate to stop Tarrakai. She falters under the pain of the dragonfire, and her strike only clips Tarrakai’s wing. But it’s enough for him to bank hard, retreating from the blast.
He roars.
Not the vicious kind.
Pained.
And Seren knows without doubt that it’s Ronyn’s pain she hears.
“Teddy,” Seren breathes.
He’s still standing.
Fuck.
He’s still standing.
The shield trembles violently in his hands, blood pouring down the front of his body now in impossible amounts as Nyrielle’s magic burns clean through him. The smell of smoke and scorched flesh floods the battlefield.
Still he holds the line.
Still he refuses to fall. As though Death himself has to pry him from the line by force.
“No.”
The word tears from Seren as golden threads explode violently from her palms. A Gateway rips open beside Nyrielle’s feet.
Another tears through the air behind her.
Seren throws everything she has into the magic, trying to drag the goddess sideways into the echo-plane before Teddy’s body gives out completely.
Nyrielle barely even looks at her. A spear of stolen power lashes outward instantly.
Pain detonates through Seren’s ribs as the strike catches her mid-cast and hurls her violently across the fractured stone.
The Gateway collapses. Golden magic shatters apart around her.
Seren slams hard enough into the battlefield to split skin across her shoulder, breath ripping from her lungs as smoke and agony flood her senses.
Still Teddy holds the line.
Seren’s eyes drag to Nyrielle. She is not dead. But she is wounded. Weakening. For the first time since the battle began, she looks afraid. She looks… human.
And Teddy sways.
The movement is small.
Barely noticeable beneath the chaos of battle.
But Seren sees it.
Stars.
She sees it.
“Teddy.”
The shield flickers violently in his hands now, blue Aether destabilizing in frantic bursts of light as blood continues pouring down the front of his body in impossible amounts.
Still he tries to hold it.
Still he tries to stand between the world and ruin.
Because he does not know how to stop protecting people. Does not know how to stop protecting her.
Not even now.
It is the truest thing about him.
The shield finally shatters apart. Blue light explodes outward in fractured shards of Aether before dissolving into nothing. And suddenly Teddy is no longer holding the line.
He is only a dying man trying to remain standing long enough to keep his promise—to choose her.
His knees buckle.
“No!”
Seren is moving before the word fully leaves her mouth, golden curls snapping wildly around her as she stumbles across the battlefield toward him.
Around them, the war still rages.
Dragons scream overhead.
Soldiers clash beneath collapsing stone.
Elyssara and Maireth continue tearing the heavens apart.
Black-silver shadows still spear into the skies, cutting down dragons mid-flight.
But none of it feels real anymore.
Only Teddy.
Always Teddy.
Rage flares hot and sharp in her chest. I won’t wait to be chosen forever, Teddy. That’s what she said. That’s what she told him.
It was a lie.
Because here, feeling him die beneath her hands, she would. She would wait forever for him.
And finally… Teddy falls.
“Told you,” he rasps weakly, blood spilling down his chin. “Good strategy.”
A broken sound escapes Seren’s throat. Not quite a sob. Not quite his name. Something worse. Something torn out of her.
She catches him just before he hits the ground fully, collapsing to her knees beneath the weight of him as blood immediately floods across her hands. Too warm. Too much. Gods, far too much.
“No,” she whispers again.
The word feels useless now. Small. Meaningless against the devastation in front of her.
Teddy’s body jerks weakly beneath her grip, blood spilling from his mouth as Nyrielle’s magic continues burning through him from the inside out. The smell of scorched flesh clings thickly to the air around them.
And still he’s trying to look at her.
Fuck.
Even now, he’s trying to find her face.
Around them, the war continues screaming forward. Magic fractures the sky. Men die. Weapons clash.
Seren hears none of it.
The world has narrowed to Teddy’s blood beneath her hands and the terrifying, impossible realization that she cannot stop it. That no amount of magic, no Gateway, no thread, no bargain can pull him back from this.
“I hate you,” she chokes out suddenly. The words shatter apart as soon as they leave her mouth. Not truth—grief.
Because this is what he’s done—chosen her. Loved her. And left her anyway.
A weak laugh catches in his chest and turns into blood. “Yeah,” he rasps softly. “Fair.”
A weak smile ghosts across Teddy’s bloodied mouth.
“The sight of you,” he rasps, voice barely holding together now, “spread before me…”
Seren’s breath catches violently.
“…told you it’d be the last thing I saw.”
A sound breaks from Seren that does not feel human.
Because she remembers.
Gods, she remembers.
The heat of his mouth against her skin. The way he’d looked at her like devotion incarnate. The teasing certainty in his voice when he’d said the words.
And fuck—he’d meant them.
Her hands shake violently against his chest.
“Teddy…” she breaks. “Please.”
A prayer. His blood-covered fingers twitch weakly toward her face. Seren catches his hand instantly, pressing it against her cheek hard enough to hurt.
And gods. She has never loved anything the way she loves him in this moment.
Not because he is dying—because he chose her while he was living.
“Seren?” he breathes.
“I am here,” she rushes out, gripping his chest.
“You are worth being brave for.”
Seren’s heart fractures into a thousand pieces.
She nods. Because she understands now—he was always choosing her.
“Next life,” he whispers.
Seren’s breath shatters.
“Yes.”
His thumb brushes weakly against her cheek.
Then stills.
And then the world crashes back in around her.
Vren screams overhead with Lara gripping tightly around his neck, her braids of onyx whipping through the night sky while her magic cleaves through northmen below.
Black-silver magic spears through the sky and tears another beast from the air.
Its burning body plummets somewhere beyond the battlefield, exploding into stone and fire hard enough to shake the fractured ground beneath Seren’s knees.
Another blast detonates across the city.
Another scream follows it. Another death.
And gods—Nyrielle is still standing.
Wounded. Burning. Weakened beneath the dragonfire Teddy forced on her. But still standing, staggering, stumbling. She shouldn’t have survived. But Lhira’s power weaves through her veins—the goddess of love and healing. Her skin stitches back together, flesh grows and smooths where flame kissed it.
Seren’s gaze jerks toward the center of the battlefield where Elyssara and Maireth continue colliding in catastrophic bursts of light and shadow powerful enough to fracture the heavens themselves. Dragons still wheel through smoke overhead. Soldiers still die screaming beneath collapsing stone.
The city is still burning. The war is still happening. No. Worse. They are losing.
The realization tears through Seren with such violence it almost feels physical. Teddy gave them everything. His body. His future. His final breath. And still it is not enough to stop it.
A terrible clarity settles over her then: mortals cannot win this war alone.
Her fingers curl tighter around Teddy’s body for one final heartbeat, blood warm and slick against her palms as grief threatens to split her open from the inside out. But beneath the grief, something else begins rising. Something ancient. Desperate. Immense.
Because Teddy cannot have died for this to fail.
He cannot have chosen her only for the world to end anyway.
Seren presses a shaking kiss against his forehead before forcing herself to let him go.
It feels like tearing her own soul apart. Perhaps it is.
Then she rises.
Around her, the battlefield continues collapsing into chaos.
Tarrakai roars somewhere overhead, the sound ragged with Ronyn’s grief.
Nyrielle staggers beneath the lingering damage of the dragonfire while Maireth continues trying to tear Elyssara apart across the ruined city. Where the fuck is Marin?
Daphinia appears through the smoke several yards away, blood streaked across her armor as she drives a blade through the throat of a northern soldier.
Seren grabs her hard enough to nearly wrench her off balance.
“Take me to the chamber beneath the palace,” Seren says.
Daphinia stares at her in confusion.
“The room where the spell to trap the gods took place.”
Understanding floods Daphinia’s face instantly, followed immediately by horror.
“No.”
Daphinia’s face drains of color. “Last time the gods walked freely among mortals, the realm nearly tore itself apart. Nyrielle turned the domains against each other. Forests became sentient. Oceans raged. Predators twisted into monsters. The balance of the world collapsed.”
Another explosion tears through the battlefield behind them.
Daphinia grabs Seren harder now, desperation flooding her voice.
“If we bring them back, we risk unleashing that again.”
But Seren made her choice the moment Teddy died.
“Look around, Daphinia. Do you see balance now? Do you see peace?”
Daphinia stills.
Another explosion rocks the battlefield behind them, but Seren barely hears it. Teddy’s blood is still wet across her hands. His final words still echo inside her chest.
Next life.
Her grief sharpens into something almost unbearable. Something holy. Something dangerous.
“Take me to them,” Seren demands, with no room for argument in her tone.
“I’m bringing them back,” she says. “All of them.”