74. Brennen
brENNEN
“Get everyone to the cellars!” I roar, ushering the women and children around me toward the closest shelter.
Philip runs past me, and I grab his arm. “Go door-to-door. Warn whoever is inside to get below ground.”
He nods. “What are you to do?” he asks, and there seems to be genuine worry in his creased eyebrows.
“I've been given a duty, and I willnae forsake it,” I say, but the words don’t feel right. My duty is so much more than what he believes it to be. No longer to the Cutter, but to Bea. To this entire kingdom that deserves so much more.
“Dìonadair bless you,” he calls after me as I take off toward the river, sending up my own prayer on his behalf.
The Cutter’s guardians may be on the wrong side of this war, but wasn't I only days ago?
It isnae their fault they are blind to the truth, and I do not wish for harm to befall on them more than anyone else.
The monsters continue to fly overhead as I search for Sable, relief washing over me when I find her alive and uninjured. We dinnae miss a beat as I launch onto her back, and she races toward the glen at a pace I’ve never seen before.
“Get me to her,” I urge, and she listens, hooves beating faster than should be possible.
The river appears in the distance, and the temperature rises. A dragon roars, savage and wild, and the sound of flames crackling hums beneath the furious sound.
Hope surges in my chest.
Lolly is fighting the monsters.
I break through the treeline, searching desperately for Bea. Above my head, charred bodies evaporate into thin air, turning to ash that rains down into the valley.
“Bea!” I shout, and she stumbles out of the tent, her eyes wide and face pale. There’s a scrap of tartan in her shaking hands, cut from one of mine and weighted down with the items of the spell. Something in my chest loosens so violently, it almost brings me to my knees.
She’s okay, I tell myself, but it's not enough. I need to hold her. To feel her warmth and the beat of her heart.
I turn to Sable, placing a hand on her forehead. She whinnies, and I send a prayer to the goddess of protection to keep her safe. “Wait here. If something happens to me, get to my family,” I say, pressing a kiss to the bridge of her nose.
Bea stumbles forward, eyes wide with horror, and I race to her, lifting her into my arms.
“What’s happening?” she asks, breathless.
“The Epoch.” I hold her tight against my chest as I carry her to the river, savoring the tickle of her hair against my chin and the steady rise and fall of her chest. She’s okay. She’s alive. The monsters did not get to her.
“Do you have everything?” I ask. It comes out rough, urgent and afraid, because this is it. What if we’re wrong? What if the After doesn’t accept her offering?
She nods, her wild curls whipping around her face. “How has the Epoch begun? It should have been several more years,” she says, eyes darting to the monsters still soaring overhead.
I pull her gaze back to mine. “I dinnae ken. Perhaps it's a blessing from the goddesses. This will create a distraction. The Cutter willnae leave her castle so long as monsters flood the Earth.”
“But what about your family?”
Pain shoots through my chest, but I shake my head, pulling out the broken hand-fasting rope.
“They’re prepared for this. My village will help them, and the Cutter will be so busy severing the threads of those who will die, she willnae have time to think of anything else.
Not for days, at least. We’ll get to them in time. ”
Bea nods, taking the rope. She adds it to her bundle of tartan and binds the ends together with twine, then picks up a flat piece of wood to set it on.
Her entire body trembles as she takes a few steps deeper into the river, staring into the After for a long moment.
I follow her, placing a hand on her back.
I hold my breath as she lowers her hands, but she freezes.
“What if it the curse doesn’t break? How can I have a changed heart when I wasn’t ever guilty?
” she asks, her voice tight, and for a single moment, I almost tell her the truth.
That she isnae alone in her fear. That I have never wanted something so fervently as her freedom in my life, and I’m terrified it willnae work, too.
Instead, I step forward, folding myself around her and placing my hands on top of hers. “Maybe your heart hasnae changed, but you’ve changed mine, mo chridhe.”
She straightens her spine, turning to me.
Her breaths go shallow, and she closes her eyes, but I refuse to give in to my fear.
To feel anything other than my adoration for Bea and the steadiness of my belief that this will work, because it’s true.
For the past six years, my dead heart has been nothing but a blazing, endless inferno of grief and vengeance, but somehow, she walked through the flames and burrowed into the center of it, cooling the white-hot grief and coaxing the stagnant muscle into beating once more.
I love this woman with a fervor I didnae think I would ever feel again.
Stronger, even, than what I felt before. But I dinnae feel guilt for it.
Bea is mine, and I am hers.
She nods, tears swimming in her eyes, almost as if she can read my mind, before turning back. And together, we set the bundle adrift. “An Glèidheadair, accept my plea,” she whispers.
Or you will answer to me, I silently add.
Time stands still as, hand-in-hand, we watch the tartan float into the mist.
I dinnae blink. I dinnae breathe.
All I can do is watch. Hope, and pray, and wait. It’s as if my entire life has narrowed to this singular moment, a divide between freedom and ruin.
The darkness swells as if waking, reaching out with long, black fingers. They wrap around Bea’s ankles, and my lungs constrict. I try to pull her back, but she stops me.
“No. They are my friends,” she says, caressing them, and as if agreeing with her, a long string of mist reaches out and pushes a strand of hair from in front of her face.
The realm shudders—a bone-crackling rumble that begins in the After and spreads outward.
I pull Bea against my chest, shielding us as branches fall from above.
Her chain turns orange, then white, glowing so bright, I’m forced to close my eyes to block out the blinding light.
Rocks tumble from the hillside, crashing into the water.
Trees explode in a perfect oval around the valley, the ones warded to keep Bea trapped. Bark shoots out in all directions, but none of it touches us, as if we are protected by the goddess herself.
The water warms as Bea’s chain melts away, and I watch in wonder as it disintegrates like it was never there at all. Her eyes fill with tears as she stares down at her bare ankle, and I look at her in awe, this strong, beautiful woman, who, for the first time since I met her, is no longer chained.
Her gaze meets mine, a joy shining in her smile I have never witnessed before, and it feels as if the sun is emerging after years of darkness.
Her body glows, a soft, warm light spreading through her skin, and then, everything stills.
“We did it," she says, looking up at me, breathless. “We actually did it. I’m free.” Her voice cracks, and a tear trails down her cheek.
I pull her against my chest. “You're free, Mo ghràidh,” I say into her hair, holding her so tight I fear I’ll harm her, but I cannae let go. Never again.
An ear-shattering roar shakes the ground, and we both look up to where Lolly battles the monsters.
Except, she is no longer fighting.
Ice-cold terror fills my veins as the purple dragon dives toward us, wings spread wide and talons extended.
“No!” I scream, pulling Bea into my arms and sprinting toward Sable.
My mind shifts through dozens of plans in an instant, searching for the best way to escape.
My dàn of speed activates, and I head toward the trees, hoping that if we can make it, the beast's wings will be too broad to allow it to pass through.
But the dragon bellows, flying so fast my eyes can hardly track her, throwing me to the side with a brush of its enormous wing.
Bea flies from my arms as I crash into the rocks, the edge of its razor-sharp tail catching my thigh. The beast's claws wrap around Bea, plucking her out of thin air, and I scramble to my feet. “No!”
But I am not fast enough. Not strong enough. With or without my dàn, I am no match for this dragon.
With a single beat of Lolly’s wings, she surges forward and dives into the After.
“Bea!” I roar, sprinting after her. I dinnae care if no one can survive the darkness.
I dinnae care if the guardian slays me on sight.
Where she goes, I will follow.
I do not even hesitate as I race into the black and jump into whatever comes next.