Chapter 42
Daed
The world crumbles around me, but it means nothing.
Anethesis thrashes beneath my hands, his pulse fluttering like a trapped bird, his breath wet and broken against my knuckles. I should end him. But what is vengeance when the only heartbeat that tethered me to this wretched world has gone still?
Our bond was never just magic. It was fate. A golden thread woven through every piece of me, binding my darkness to her light. I felt her in everything, in the pull of the void, the whisper of smoke, the rise and fall of my breath. She was my constant, the warmth beneath my ribs, the tether that kept me from becoming nothing.
And now she’s gone. Torn away, leaving only this harrowing silence.
I want to fill it with her voice, the way my name sounded on her lips.
How can this be the end? How do I keep breathing?
My hands slip from Anethesis’s throat, falling useless at my sides as I collapse to my knees. My head bows, breath ragged, the fight bleeding out of me until there’s nothing left but the hollow thrum of loss.
Anethesis staggers backward, clutching at his neck, drawing in greedy, wheezing gulps of air. He watches me, wary and bewildered, waiting for the trick, for the snare I no longer have the will to spring.
“What are you doing?” he rasps.
“She’s gone,” I whisper, the words splintering on my tongue. “She was all that mattered. Now nothing matters. So kill me.”
He frowns, uncomprehending. “What?”
“You heard me,” I murmur. “Kill me.”
Hope leaves me in pieces, thin wisps of smoke escaping through my chest. Amara was everything. With her gone, I have lost more than love. I have lost the future, the means tobring Estra back from An’kel, to restore what was stolen. The flame of another Awakened has gone dark, and with it, every possibility their magic could have given us. Just like Zema before her.
Anethesis glances toward the vortex still clawing at the earth. “What do you mean, she’s gone?”
“The earth was healing her,” I say through clenched teeth. “But you wouldn’t listen.”
He swallows hard. “No. She can’t be gone. She’s Awakened.”
I snarl. “And since when has that made them immortal?”
“No…” His voice trembles, panic crawling through it like cracks in glass. “No, no, no. She can’t be dead. I need her. I need the portal. I need to get to Meranor. I need to gethome!”
He throws his arm toward the vortex, but instead of rising higher, it collapses. The wind dies, the soil settles, and my hair falls heavy against my face.
Anethesis stumbles forward, half crawling, half running. Twice he trips before reaching the upturned mound of dirt. He drops to his knees and digs, fists clawing at the dirt, hurling it aside in frantic handfuls. The sight of him, this once-proud lord reduced to a madman scrabbling in the mud, turns my stomach.
Through the fog of grief, I drag myself upright. My limbs shake beneath the weight of my despair, but still, I move. Step by step. Until I stand behind him, watching the soil fly.
“Enough, Anethesis,” I say, voice breaking.
He doesn’t listen. He continues to mindlessly dig.
“I said enough!”
But my plea comes too late. The dirt gives way to flesh, and my stomach lurches. Gods. It’s her.
“Stop!” I seize his arm and wrench it back, but he tears free with a wild cry, throwing himself forward again. Nails rake through the soil, clawing deeper, unearthing her an inch at a time.
“Get away from her!” I roar, lunging. My hands hook beneath his arms, dragging him away.
Anethesis jolts in my grip, and when something slams into my ribs, I think he’s driven an elbow into my chest. The pain is blinding, far too strong for the state he’s in. I release him, then stumble and drop to one knee.
