Chapter 95
Chapter Ninety-Five
Tovi
For the first time in centuries, Tovi moved without the curse coursing through her veins.
Blood splattered across her face as she sliced her sword against a god’s throat.
Droplets landed on her lips and sweetness bloomed on her tongue.
An irony tang wafted under her nose, but nothing hissed in the back of her mind.
The urge to feed didn’t creep up her spine, and Tovi killed another god without conjuring the red haze that had once plagued her vision.
Death hung in the air, and yet, it did nothing to her.
Her friends had broken the curse, and Tovi let the tears fall.
She yanked her bloodstone necklace off and thrust it into the mud. The sun kissed her skin, and bloody hel, despite the filth coating her, she welcomed its warmth. Tovi had fought for freedom, and now it flushed through her like she had a magic all her own.
Tovi glided across the battlefield with newfound weightlessness.
She danced, Saoirse her partner, and she chased the tune of the blade as it sang with every kill.
She plunged it into an unsuspecting god’s heart.
Severed a demon’s head with it. Struck down vampyrs who—despite everything—still fought under Riven’s banner.
Coated in the blood of her enemies, Saoirse gleamed in the sunlight.
The sunlight.
Its rays reflected off the numerous trees sprouting from the once cursed ground.
Magnificent. Silver. Tovi’s heart pounded with the familiarity of her friend’s magic flowing across the battlefield.
Trees grew so rapidly, they shot through the fray.
Gods snarled as they weaved between them.
Demons avoided them as if poison dripped from the luminescent leaves.
Nearby scáths crumbled and writhed as the curse left them.
Tovi and her friends had almost won. Yet, one foe remained.
Riven.
“ARGH!“ a god—Nótt, if Tovi recalled correctly—dug his hands into the dirt.
He clawed his way across the battlefield, fighting the insatiable pull of Kade’s power as it tugged. Other gods flew through the air and were sucked through a seam of blinding light. Evelyn stood above it, as if she held it open.
The makeup lining his eyes smeared down his cheeks, and blood stained his fangs. “Help me, mortal! I am the God of Night, and I command you!”
The authority in his voice grated against Tovi’s resolve.
It echoed in her ears, joining the voices of the other males that had tried to command her over the centuries.
She reared closer, fisting her hands at her sides.
Tovi raised her foot in the air, readying to stomp on his hands with her boot, but halted.
Her heart pounded inside her chest. The anger in the god’s gaze mirrored her own, but she refused to also embody the same cruelty the gods possessed. It was a thread of darkness, and she’d not let it weave into her soul.
Tovi lowered her foot, inch by inch. She inhaled, exhaled, and decided she’d let fate handle him instead. She turned on her heel and marched away, not daring to look back as he was sucked into the air and torn from this realm.
“No!” Yards away, Riven raged. He jumped into the air, trying to grasp hold of the gods as they tumbled past. “Bring back my wife and child! I demand what was promised!”
Tovi’s chest tinged with pain. She hated this end. Loathed it. Her brother’s rationale crumbled before her. She tried to recall the brother who’d left worms in her boots and whispered about faeries. Tried to envision Riven with a sketchbook, admiring the wonder of Drystan before the curse.
But that version of him no longer existed. Perhaps it had died with Iona and Oli.
His chest heaved. Madness churned in his eyes. He searched and searched the battlefield, Tovi fell flush behind a tree, hiding from sight.
“Where are you, dear sister?” Riven’s voice cracked as he shouted over the chaos. “I have something of yours.”
The warmth Tovi had relished in vanished. She peeked behind the tree, assessing Riven. Her heart skipped a beat. She didn’t move, didn’t breathe.
Eldrick fought—hard—against a unit of vampyrs.
Four against one. They had him surrounded, and for every blow he blocked, another cut him down from behind.
Tovi’s heart swelled at the sight of Eldrick’s unbending resolve.
Despite the wounds streaking across his body, calm etched into his determined expression.
Axe in hand, jaw tight, that was the male she’d fallen in love with. The one who held her heart.
Yet, Riven knew it. He watched Eldrick fight like he witnessed entertainment. He laughed and searched the battlefield again.
“You took Iona and Oliver away from me and kept them away!” Her brother shook. Angry tears streamed down his face. “If I can’t have happiness, sister, neither can you.”
Riven turned, chest heaving. He held out his sword and stalked closer, intent gleaming like his sword.
“Eldrick!” Tovi shouted his name, her throat turning raw. “Eldrick!”
But he didn’t hear her at this distance, nor did Riven as he fell into a trance of vengeance.
Live, Eldrick had said.
But there was no breathing in this world without him. Tovi refused to shed a curse only to accept another.
Tovi stifled a broken cry. Her healed homeland seeped into her leathers, the new soil crusted her under nails.
Feathers brushed against her fingers, and Tovi froze.
A bow and arrow rested by her hand. She’d been running and fighting for so long, but the weapon abandoned by another warrior reminded her of whom she’d first been in this land.
A survivor.
Not a vampyr, princess, or queen.
The winds shifted, as if Drystan sang, yes, yes, yes.
An idea formed. In the past, Tovi had tried to reason with Riven.
Met him in battle. Fought him countless times.
Perhaps Tovi had held onto hope that he’d find a different light than foretold in the prophecy.
Hope nor fate were to blame, for Riven had made his choice.
Because, Tovi realized, they were nothing alike.
Love, regardless of the curse and everything she’d endured, lived in her heart.
It didn’t poison. It didn’t fester. It bloomed.
Beautiful and vibrant and pure. Like the forest flourishing around her, Eldrick had planted the ever lasting seed in her soul, and she’d not lied all those weeks ago—she’d kill for him.
Even if it was her twin brother.
“Come out, Tovi!” Riven said. “Show yourself! I want to see the look in your eyes when I spill his blood!”
Tovi grasped hold of the bow and arrow and fell back into the fighting. She used others to hide behind, dashing from one warrior to the other. She didn’t let Riven find her. See her.
For she hunted, and he was her prey.
She darted behind another tree. She had to get closer, at better shooting range.
For Tovi’d not kill him as a queen or an angry sister, blade against blade. She’d end him in the way she began in this land.
Tovi nocked an arrow. She had one shot.
A stillness entered the air. The world around her changed to the winter months seven hundred years ago. Snow kissed her cheeks. Her mark stood thirty yards away. He and Eldrick fought, moving. Riven seethed. Eldrick bared his teeth. Tovi waited. For the right moment, the perfect shot—
Tovi inhaled.
Exhaled.
Her breath plumed in the air as she released the arrow. The bow string echoed, and time slowed as the arrow flew through the air. It whizzed past fighters, the shaft flexing side to side. Beyond the iron head, Riven searched and searched and searched—
The arrow shot through his throat. Riven rocked back, stunned. He dropped his sword, reaching for the intrusion lodged into his neck.
Tovi’s eyes stung with tears. Pain lanced through her heart. Her brother, her twin, someone she’d once loved, fell to his knees.
As she approached, Riven stared at her in disbelief.
Apologies sat on her tongue, but she muttered none of them. They’d been destined for this moment. Riven had hurt countless. The woman he murdered in Callum. Evelyn’s parents. Lou. The curse was broken, but Tovi had slayed the last shred of darkness still left in Sorin.
“Do you think I’ll see them again?” he said, words wet with blood.
Tovi swallowed. She gave him one last piece of love, choosing grace. “Yes, brother, I do.”
He shuddered with her words and slacked.
Eldrick laced his fingers into hers. Tovi leaned into his touch, needed it. They fell forehead to forehead, breathing the same air.
A chant rippled across the battlefield.
“Queen Tovi!”
“Queen Tovi!”
“Queen Tovi!”
The war was won. No curse. No demons. No gods. No angry corrupt tyrants. It was over. The prophecy was fulfilled.