Then it strikes again.
Harder.
A violent pulse beneath my sternum.
I choke on a gasp, clutching my chest. Another impact follows. And another.
But Anethesis isn’t touching me.
He isn’t even close.
This isn’t him.
It’s my own heart, pounding like it’s trying to tear free of me. Heat flares bright through my vision. I press both palms to my chest, gasping around the ache, the world tunneling to that merciless rhythm.
And then… a second heartbeat.
I go still.
Fear and hope collide inside me. I stagger toward the mound of disturbed earth. I hover there, trembling, suspended between terror and desperate belief. I don’t want to see. I can’t bear to, but I make myself look.
The soil cradles her face, the soft curve of her cheek, the slope of her nose, the mouth I have kissed and cursed and prayed for. She lies utterly still, burned and quiet and unbearably beautiful.
Something inside me breaks.
I stumble back, dragging my hands into my hair, pulling until pain shoots across my scalp. My heart riots, a frantic drum. I will tear it out of my chest before I let it lie to me again.
And then her eyes open, bright as the dawn and blazing.
A blinding shock of green light erupts from them, slamming into me with such force I’m thrown backward. I shield my face, but the radiance sears through my fingers, painting the world in emerald flame.
The beam bursts skyward, piercing through the canopy, shattering the night. The very air trembles. The battle halts. Legion soldiers stare, slack-jawed, blades falling from their hands. The beasts retreat, step by slow step, into the dark embrace of the forest.
“I told you!” Anethesis cries, voice shrill with wild ecstasy. “She cannot die!”
The earth heaves beneath us. The wind spirals, keening like the cry of gods, and the stars seem to shrink away, and then she rises, my Amara. Her arms outstretched, her chin dipped low, her body aglow with that same impossible light. The earth falls from her likedust shaken from a dream. The glow carries her upward, wrapping her in radiance and life.
Her wounds are gone. Every burn erased, leaving not even the faintest shadows of what had been. Her skin is even richer, smoother, bronzer than before, her hair longer, spilling in silken waves, tumbling past her knees.
A mantle of living moss and tiny blooms drapes over her body, clinging as though the forest itself had risen to claim her, to mark her as its own reborn queen.
And over her face rests a sheer emerald veil, the fabric is nearly transparent, a breath of green that barely softens the lines beneath: the curve of her cheek, the quiet shape of her lips, the rise of her breath that moves the gossamer like a sigh.
She looks untouched by death.
Untouched by anything but power.
“Amara!” Anethesis’s voice shatters the moment. He staggers to his feet, arms outstretched, his face lit with manic devotion. “Look how glorious you have become! Allow me to ease the weight of that power, sweet Awakened.”
My stomach twists. I see the hunger in his eyes, the same blasphemous greed that drove him to ruin. I know what he means to do before his lips even part. The collar. The curse.
“Don’t…” I choke out, but it’s too late.
Amara moves.
Her hands rise, palms facing outward, and she traces mirrored sigils in the air. I don’t understand the gestures. I don’t need to. The ground answers.
Vines burst from the earth beneath Anethesis’s feet. They wind up his legs, his torso, his arms, binding him tight. He gasps before the vines coil around his throat. One vine pauses, hovering, almost curious and then drives forward, forcing itself between his lips.
