Daed’s gaze sweeps the room and finds mine, and the air between us tightens. “I will risk my life to bring back my daughter,” he continues, voice low but certain. “Because I cannot imagine a world where she is gone. Where I must live knowing the sound of her laughter has faded. That I will never feel her in my arms, never hear her call mefather.”
Something inside him fractures then, so subtle I doubt anyone else sees it, but I do. I feel it, the sharp twist of grief and longing, the desperate hope holding him together by threads. My chest aches with the urge to go to him, to take his face in my hands and tell him that he will not face that pain alone. But he straightens before I can move, shoulders squaring, armor of command snapping back into place. Daedalus the warrior. Daedalus the prince. The male who does not break.
He draws a long breath. “But we are not without our strengths. We have Amara, Jewel of the Tenders, the Awakened. She will open the portal we need to cross into An’kel, and with the power she wields over the earth, with the green fire that burns in her veins, she will make even the horrors that await us tremble.”
I bow my head slightly at his words, but my stomach knots. His faith in me is unwavering and that terrifies me more than any demon ever could.
Daed lifts his hand, thick tendrils of smoke twisting between his fingers. “And I,” he says, his voice deepening, “now wield the void freely without fear of Gygarth’s gaze. The smoke and shadow obey me.”
The air ripples around him. His jaw tightens, his body seizes. The temperature in the room drops. Then, before anyone can react, asecond headsplits into being over his shoulder, shrouded in black, its eyes white and empty, its mouth a writhing pit of teeth and tentacles.
A collective gasp fills the room. Solena grips Orios’ arm. Reon presses his back against the wall. Even Zyphoro’s hand goes to her blade.
The demon head snarls, a wet, guttural growl, but as quickly as it appeared, it vanishes with a rush of smoke, making me wonder if it was ever there. Daed staggers, bracing himself on the table, chest heaving.
“And I have a passenger now,” he says, his voice almost conversational. “Another weapon against Gygarth.”
Zyphoro’s voice cuts through the uneasy silence. “Are you sure you can control Emranth?” she demands. “How is he any different from Gygarth?”
It’s the question lodged in all our throats.
Daed straightens, his expression cold as stone. “Because his soul belongs to me. I am the master now.” His eyes blaze white, smoke coiling off his skin, and for a terrible heartbeat, I can’t tell where Daed ends and the demon begins. “I will do the same to Gygarth. I will consume him, devour him, and end him forever.”
The silence that follows is taut, until Zyphoro lets out a short, unexpected laugh. “He is death, brother,” she says, shaking her head. “You cannot kill death.”
Daed smiles faintly. “Perhaps you’re right, sister. But I will try, and I will keep trying until Estra is home.”
Daed’s gaze sweeps over the room, lingering on each of his warriors.
“You are the finest, bravest, and noblest Fae I have ever had the honor of fighting beside,” he says, each word steady as stone. “There is no one else I would trust at my side. No one else I would trust to fight for my daughter as fiercely as I will.”
They do not speak, but they don’t need to. The silence that follows is a sacred one, a wordless acknowledgment of the bond that has just been forged.
Then Daed turns his attention to Ronin.
“Never,” Daed says at last, “in a thousand lifetimes, did I imagine I would stand besideyouin battle… Ronin.” His mouth hesitates around the name, as though it tastes strange, bitter and hard to swallow. “But you have proven more than once that you are a man of honor. A warrior who will fight to his last breath for what he believes in. And if we survive what comes, I would count you not only as an ally, but as a friend.”
For a heartbeat, no one moves.
Then Ronin steps forward, meeting Daed in the center of the room. Their eyes lock, chests rising and falling, two creatures of immeasurable power, and inescapable rage. In another world, I have no doubt they would’ve been as close as brothers, had one not been born Fae and the other human.
But this world gives them something else. The chance to stand side by side and destroy something far worse than either of them could ever be.
Ronin offers his forearm, and the room falls still.
Daed exhales, lifts his chin, and clasps Ronin’s arm in his own.
A pact sealed. A hatred buried… for now.
Chapter 45
Amara
We spend hours more planning, until dusk bleeds into midnight and the night itself begins to tremble toward dawn. Yet no matter what scenario we prepare for, no matter how many outcomes we twist and turn in our minds, the beginning is always the same.
I must open the portal, and I must bleed to do it.
When all is said and every argument spent, when our voices have grown hoarse and raw, we fall into silence. It settles thickly over us, heavy and fragile all at once. No one speaks. Not for a long while. Each of us trapped in our own thoughts, our own fears and hopes, with the same aching hunger to see Estra again.
