Chapter Thirty-Four
Elysia
A low crackle threads through the silence of my prison, the sound much closer than the clash of magic I’d felt rocking the distant areas of the castle.
The soft hum of enchantments that line the bars pulses faintly in the dark of night, weaving blue-and-silver patterns that shimmer against the stone walls.
I walk over to a particularly shadowed area of my cell in an attempt to hide, as a sharp, splintering crack echoes off the walls.
As much as my heart wants it to be my allies, this world has proven that it loves nothing more than to test my strength when I’m down. If there were ever a time I felt too ragged to defend myself from whatever fate wants to send me now, it would be this moment.
The faint glow of the enchantments brightens for a heartbeat as the door to the tower bursts open.
My breath catches, the fragile hope I’d clung to flickering back to life.
The moonlight spills through the narrow window, and for a breathless moment, it feels like the world holds its breath with me as the figure steps into the light.
Rhune.
The sight of him cleaves through the haze of pain and hunger clinging to my bones.
I’ve always found him beautiful, but in this moment, he truly takes my breath away.
His skin, that dusky blend of deep blues and muted purples, looks almost celestial in the moon’s pale embrace. His hair catches the light like spun silver, the longer strands on top tousled imperfectly enough to make him seem untamed and wild as he breaks in.
He lifts his head, and the light catches those violet eyes I’ve come to crave seeing each day.
For a single, shuddering heartbeat, I don’t feel the bruises, the chains, or the cold.
I feel only him.
I rush from the corner, my knees nearly buckling beneath me as a reminder that I’m not fit to run.
He’s here.
He’s alive.
Our eyes clash, and with one glance over my body, his face turns to one of fury.
His voice comes out in a rumble. “Stand back, Little Dove. I’m going to tear this prison to the fucking ground.”
His hand presses flat against the enchantments and I stall in my approach as light magic crackles and sparks violently against his palm, casting wild flashes of light across his face. I see him grimace as the enchantments resist, the magic fighting to hold.
His other hand comes to the bars and his eyes close as his entire body lights up, pulsating and moving through him to his hands like a perfect conduit.
He grits his teeth as his jaw clenches and pours more of himself into the assault. His body shines like he’s a star in the sky cast down to live with us.
With a final roar, the enchantments shatter in a cascade of silver sparks as the bars snap open with a deafening boom.
Then he’s here, crossing the threshold between us in two strides. With a jolt of light magic, my shackles fall off my wrist, clattering to the ground with a resounding finality.
I crash into him so hard it nearly knocks the breath from my lungs.
His arms wrap around me instantly, pulling me tight against his chest, so tight I almost can’t breathe, but I don’t care. I press my face into his shoulder, trembling, the full weight of everything I’ve been carrying breaking open inside me.
For the first time since they took me, I feel safe.
I let out a soft, broken sound—raw and deep from my soul. His arms tighten even further, as if trying to shield me from the entire world.
From the atrocities he can only begin to imagine with the bruises on my body.
“I never want to feel that helpless again,” I whisper against him, the words cracking under the weight of everything I cannot say. A shudder wracks my body. “I couldn’t do anything except hope that all of you made it out alive. I … I’m so sorry I couldn’t help you or the others.”
“Stop it,” he soothes before leaning back just enough to look down at me, his hands sliding up to cradle my face like I’m something precious. “You stayed alive. There’s more strength in that than you give yourself credit for.”
Pain flickers in his eyes and he hesitates as his mouth opens again to speak. I blink up at him as dread swirls in my stomach. I’ve never seen him choked up, and I prepare myself for the worst.
“Enari …” he says finally, voice rough. “She got us out. She gave everything to get Serenath and me away. She …”
His throat closes around the words and I know. She’s gone.
I shake my head, tears spilling over even as I try to smile for the woman who changed our fate. “She was so brave,” I whisper through them as my eyes close.
Her voice comes back to me. “You know what it means to fight for something bigger than yourself. It’s my turn to do that.”
“You did it, Enari,” I murmur, hoping that somehow her soul hears me. “You fought like a warrior.”
My eyes open and I steel myself.
“And Serenath?”
“She’s alive,” he says, and just as quickly as my heart soars, it comes crashing down, breaking into jagged pieces. “But she hasn’t woken. We don’t know if she will.”
A soft, broken sound escapes me as I lean my forehead against his chest.
“We’ve lost too many,” I breathe out, unsure if he can even hear me with the battle ensuing in the castle.
Life is so fragile in this world. Tomorrow truly is never promised for any of us.
It’s a miracle we’re both standing here now.
An aching urgency awakens within me to not leave things unsaid. To not go to my grave with my heart locked away in a prison even stronger than the one Sorryn built.
Rhune tilts my chin up, his thumb brushing a tear from my cheek with devastating tenderness.
“I’ll always find you,” he murmurs, his voice a low promise that cuts straight through me. “There’s nowhere you could be lost to me.”
My heart cracks wide open at that.
I bury my face in his shoulder again, my body trembling with everything I’m too afraid to say.
“What if I want to be lost with you?” I whisper. “What if I want to leave all of this behind and choose you?”
He goes utterly still against me. I hear his breath hitch as his hands fall to my hips, tightening like he wants to pull me even closer.
Slowly I tilt my head back, and when our eyes meet this time, it’s like the rest of the world falls away.
There are no courts, no crowns, and no semblance of duty.
Only him.
Only me.
His hands slowly slide up the sides of my body until they caress my cheeks and gently thread into the hair at my temples. His movements are so soft and tender, a stark difference from the storm I see raging in his eyes and the way his jaw clenches like it’s going to shatter.
For a moment, we just breathe each other in, our foreheads nearly brushing as he leans in, the space between us crackling with everything we’ve tried to deny.
I’m not sure who moves first, but suddenly his lips are on mine.
It’s desperate and fierce. The kind of kiss that consumes your body and mind.
I gasp against him, my hands fisting in the front of his tunic, pulling him closer as his mouth slants over mine again, like he’s trying to brand himself into my being.
His fingers tighten in my hair, angling my head, deepening the kiss until I’m dizzy from the hunger he pours into every searing touch.
I feel the way his chest shudders against mine as if he, too, is barely holding himself together.
When I open for him, he growls low in his throat, a sound of pure, ragged possession before his tongue sweeps into my mouth, stroking, claiming, and tasting.
It’s two broken souls finding each other in the wreckage.
I drink him in like water after a lifetime without it, and he gives no mercy in return, devouring me with the kind of reckless, brutal need that leaves no room for caution.
Heat surges through me, curling low in my belly before spreading outward until I’m trembling from the force of it. My entire body presses against his, desperate to feel every inch of him, to convince myself that he’s real. That he’s here and I’m not alone anymore.
His hands leave my hair to grip my hips once more, hauling me against him so tightly there’s no space left between us, only the pounding of our hearts pressed together.
I lose myself in him.
In the strength of his arms, the heat of his touch, the taste of him—salt and shadows and something fiercely, achingly Rhune.
When we finally break apart, we’re both gasping, our foreheads pressed together, his thumb tracing slow, reverent circles against my waist as if he’s trying to memorize the feel of me in his hands.
I keep my arms around his neck, unwilling to let him go, grounding myself in the feel of the way his body vibrates with restrained need beneath my touch.
He leans in again, slower this time, brushing his nose against mine. His breath is warm and unsteady across my lips.
His thumb comes up to drag along the curve of my lower lip, a featherlight caress that sends a shiver rippling down my spine.
“I almost lost you,” he murmurs, so quietly I barely catch it over the pounding of my heart.
I tilt my head, pressing a kiss into the center of his palm that comes up to cup my cheek once more, savoring the way his hand trembles ever so slightly as he holds me.
This moment feels like we stole it from the beings above that tried to keep it from us, untouched by duty or fear … like we’re defying fate.
I want to stay in it forever.
A sharp bang echoes down the corridor before I can even steady my breathing.
Rhune stiffens around me, his body going rigid in instinctive defense. His hands tighten against my hips, his chest vibrating with a low growl deep in his throat.
Heavy footsteps slam against the stone, accompanied by the shrill hum of power slicing through the air.
“Stop them at all costs!” Sorryn’s voice bellows from beyond the doorway.
Rhune spins, shoving me behind him just as the High Priestess bursts into the room and lifts her hand. His shadows begin to rise just as the same thunderclap of energy she wielded in the grove during the selection erupts outward, spilling through the room.
It strikes Rhune with a crack of force that splits the air as he absorbs it all, preventing it from touching me.
He grunts, his body jerking as the magic wraps around him—thick cords of silver energy weaving into ropes that slam him back against the far wall, pinning him.
His teeth grit against the pain, but he doesn’t cry out.
A fresh wave of horror slams through me, rooting me in place as Sorryn storms into the room.
A blade of searing white light forms in his hand and he stalks forward, his face twisted with rage.
“You will no longer interfere with what is mine!” he roars at Rhune, magic flaring wildly around him. “This ends now.”
He raises the blade just as I watch Rhune’s body begin to glow, as if he’s trying to wield his powers to break through the magic around him like he did to the enchantments in the bars.
Rhune turns his head toward me, violet eyes locking onto mine, filled with something I can’t bear to name.
Acceptance.
Like we know he’s not going to be quick enough this time.
No.
A scream rips from my throat. I surge forward as Sorryn lifts his blade.
Something inside me breaks as time slows.
The world narrows to a single point of focus: Not again.
I will not watch him die.
Pain explodes across my back, sharp and molten, in the same spot as in the Valgys nightmare.
A wild and ancient magic surges free and it feels like home. It feels like mine.
Light erupts from my back in a flood of silver and purple that lights up the room.
I move without thinking, instinct carrying me as power spills from my veins like a predator unleashed.
Sorryn’s arm jerks mid-strike as my invisible threads catch and coil around him. His sword clatters from his hand, useless, as I flex my fingers.
The blood in his body answers to me now.
I can feel the flow of life beneath his skin, the pounding rush of his heart, and with a simple, effortless tug, I throw him across the room like a discarded puppet.
He hits the stone wall with a crack of impact and slumps to the ground, unconscious.
I turn toward the High Priestess. She’s already charging, her mouth twisted in fury, her hands gathering power in crackling spheres of silver.
I don’t flinch. I remember the cold satisfaction in her eyes when she healed my wounds just to carve them open again.
I remember the way she used Enari against her will, as if she thought herself a god to do whatever she wanted with the lives around her.
I remember Virelle’s strength as she stared this monster down.
I remember the way Thalia sought to give me comfort as the orb seared through my mind and she died for it.
A cold clarity settles over me as I raise my hand.
The blood inside her responds and she stumbles mid-step, her face contorting as she realizes too late… what I’m capable of now.
I draw on her blood as easily as breathing, willing it upward through her body, siphoning the life from her.
She screams shrilly as blood seeps from her nose and ears.
I allow her body to drop to the ground and she falls to her knees, eyes blazing with hatred.
“You will never be as powerful as she was,” she spits, voice gurgling through blood that no longer obeys her as it pours from her mouth.
I step closer, my hand steady and my heart pounding for justice.
“I don’t need to be,” I whisper, not caring for a moment who she’s referring to. “I only need to be enough to end you.”
With a final pull, her heart ceases to beat. She crumples to the ground, lifeless at last.
I stand over her crumpled body, breathing hard with my hand still outstretched, like I’m half expecting her to jolt awake.
The room crackles with the fading remnants of magic, the metallic scent of blood suffocating the room. I hate the way I inhale it and feel … peace.
Taking her life shouldn’t feel this intoxicating.
A broken sound draws my gaze to Rhune.
He’s no longer struggling against the magic that bound him because it’s gone, unraveled the moment the High Priestess fell. Yet now he’s collapsed against the floor, his hands clawing at his chest, a ragged gasp tearing from his throat.
“Rhune,” I breathe, stumbling toward him.
Was I too late?
The moment I reach for him, pain lances through my own body again—a sharp, burning ache radiating from the spot on my back. I stagger, clutching the wall for support as heat blazes up my spine and into my skull.
Once more the light that seems to come from my back flares, and as it does, I watch the same glow begin from the torn fabric of Rhune’s tunic where he had clawed at it, pulsing just above his heart.
A mark.
Silver and violet, the same as the colors that seem to come from my back. The light from our marks spills outward, filling the chamber with a living glow that seems to pulse in rhythm with our heartbeats.
It hits me then, a flood of memories assaulting me.
My knees buckle as my consciousness twists.
The past claws at me, demanding to be remembered, and I feel myself slipping into it.