The healer’s cottage still stands. Somehow untouched.
I slam my boot into the door, shattering it inward.
A scream pierces the room. Solena stands before Reon’s bed, sword raised, eyes wild. When she sees me, she nearly collapses with relief.
I glance back over my shoulder.
“Orios!” I roar. “She is in here!”
It takes less than a breath for Orios to come barreling through the door, tossing his sword aside as he scoops her into his arms.
I carry Ronin onto the nearest cot while Reon fights and groans nearby, desperate to haul himself up.
“Stay there,” I snap over my shoulder.
“Fuck you,” Reon spits. “If I’m going to die, I’m doing it on my feet, not my fucking back.”
I turn back to Ronin. His chest heaves in ragged stutters. There’s almost nothing left of him, burned hollow like Amara when I found her in Baev’kalath. I know it’s him only by scent, that stubborn human trace under the char.
“Ronin,” I say. He gurgles. “Where is Anethesis?”
He convulses on the cot, limbs buckled and twitching, smoke curling off blackened skin. “Amara,” he rasps.
That’s all I need. I spin on my heel and storm past Orios, Solena still in his arms. I grip his shoulder as I pass. He looks up, eyes raw.
“Stay here,” I command. “Bring these bastards to their knees. Every fucking one of them. Do you understand, Reaper?”
He nods. I don’t wait.
Zyphoro steps aside when she arrives at the threshold. “Where are you going?”
I don’t slow. I don’t look back.
No more mercy. No more surrender.
“To kill Anethesis,” I say, and take to the air.
I am a bolt of smoke and shadow as I tear past the vine wall toward the clearing. Even as I become a blur through night and wind, it is not fast enough. I rend open the void and spear through darkness in a plume of smoke, reemerging in the clearing to find Anethesis standing on the soil that holds Amara, Mirael on her knees before him, her hair wrapped in his fist. I hit the ground with a heavy thud.
“Anethesis! Stop!”
The hunched figure freezes. When he turns and the moonlight spills across his face, the creature that looks back at me is no longer the jade-eyed Fae I hunted across the Untold Sea. His features are a map of crevices and ridges carved deep into his once porcelain skin. One eye is fused shut by a thick scar, the other pale as fog. Half his mouth droops, slack and trembling, unable to close. What remains of his golden hair clings in uneven tufts to a ravaged scalp.
“My prince,” he spits, his words slippery. A sound like something dying. “It is… so good to see you again.”
“Let her go,” I command, my voice sharp as steel, eyes flicking to Mirael. She thrashes in his grip, her breath short, defiant even through her pain.
Anethesis only tightens his hold, winding his fingers deeper into her hair until she hisses through her teeth. “I think not,” he replies, that calm, precise tone still intact. “She has told me some interesting things, this one. That Amara is buried, but not dead.” He glances around the clearing. “She will not tell me where though, and I see no disturbed earth.”
I fight not to, but I cannot stop my gaze from flicking to the patch of blossoms at his feet. The place where the earth breathes and Amara sleeps. He notices. Of course he does, and when he stomps his boot on the soil, I hiss under my breath.
“She’s down there, isn’t she?” His voice slides into a purr, and he yanks Mirael’s head back until she gasps. “At first, I thought the little Tender was lying. Why bury something that isn’t dead? But it makes sense now. The Jewel of the Tenders, hidden beneath the earth like treasure. But it is time for her to come back to the light.” He pulls harder on Mirael’s hair, and she sobs. “I want to leave, Daedalus. Gods, how I want to leave. But I need sweet Amara to do it.”
“She cannot open a portal, Anethesis,” I say, forcing calm into my voice. “She doesn’t know how.”
He laughs, a broken, gurgling sound that dies in his throat. “No, perhaps not. But her blood remembers. HerAwakenedblood. Once it’s spilled, once she speaks the words I taught her, even if she doesn’t understand them, the gate will open. Meranor will call me home.” He meets my gaze, and for the briefest moment, there’s a flicker of the Fae he once was. “And then, at last, I will be… at peace.”
The irony stings.
