All I could do was be with her.
Pax came and sat down beside me, his eyes glowing with power. His face was stark and his eyes filled with grief. He’d felt that bond rip the same way I had through our bond with her.
Garrett and Simone were next. They simply sat down too, enclosing Evie in a half circle. Her face was turned away, her bun long gone and her hair obscuring her face as she rocked Rowan, murmuring something none of us could make out.
Evie lifted her hand once more and flicked her wrist. Every shifter who did not belong to us was gone in an instant. Dead or returned, there was no way to know, not with Evie’s current state of mind.
One by one, the shifters still standing from Rowan’s lands came and sat beside us, forming a circle of grief as their lady mourned the only one she’d ever love again.
I don’t know how long we sat there. The sun had long dipped behind the clouds, and still Evie rocked Rowan, holding him tight in her grip. She’d enclosed our circle in a cage of thorns, all but daring anyone to interfere.
A soft trickle of orange came up over the mountains, followed by a vivid shade of purple as Fee sailed overhead. The enormous phoenix encircled us, her crystalline gaze taking in everything.
Poe came next, his loud cry a screech shattering the quiet. He landed on Evie’s shoulder, one wing out over her neck, as if he was trying to hug her in the only way he knew how.
Fee kept circling, unable to find a spot to land inside our circle. The bird had always been wary of people, Poe and Evie’s influence no doubt. Instead, she soared over to where Caelan had fallen. She nudged him with her bright beak, but Caelan would never rise again.
A soft trilling noise came from her throat.
And as she began to glow, a terrible hope rose within me. I said nothing, did nothing, not until I was sure. In her grief, Evie was too distracted to notice Fee’s presence.
Fee’s glow began to take on an almost painful brightness. I nudged Pax and gestured for him to quietly rise. As the other shifters realized what was happening, everyone rose and moved away from Evie.
Caelan began to glow with a soft violet light. Fee moved to Ben, then Soren, Thorvin, then Ethan, encasing every Lord in her light. And when she came to Evie, her flight slightly off due to exhaustion, Fee nudged the Lady’s hands and encompassed them both in her magic.
I stood there staring in awe, tears falling down my cheeks at the miracle occurring. Fee leapt from the ground and let out a shattering, musical cry, her wings spread out several feet wide as she soared.
As she sang, magic hummed around us, until even Evie had to take notice. She lifted her tear-stained face up to the phoenix in the sky and watched, her lips parted with awe.
And as Fee revived every single Lord on that field, she gave her life force, every single drop of herself to save the Lady whohad once saved her. Her magic began to dim, and as I watched, Fee turned, our eyes locking.
An ancient knowledge burned in the phoenix’s eyes as she sailed right toward me.
I took a step back but could not avoid the collision. Right before she hit me, Fee turned into a swirling ball of powerful magic and sailed right into my heart, her physical form gone as she died.
Staggering power sent me crashing to my knees, the spot Fee hit burning like fire. I cried out as everything within me reformed, magic sparkling like champagne through my blood, short circuiting all my senses.
And just as I crashed to the ground, I heard a soft murmur come from one of the Lords.
“Evie?”
The bond slowly re-knitted, restoring Rowan as the fae king.
Epilogue
SIX MONTHS LATER
Iruled the fae with an iron fist at first, hunting everyone down who stood with Danu and banishing them to inhospitable realms as punishment. Some I outright killed.
Keeping my promise to disperse more land became a little complicated, as things did when the human government got involved. But we were working through it, and we’d managed to grant two territories to two new fae leaders who proved themselves worthy. Though I’d be watching them closely for a long time.
I’d dropped all my claims on everyone’s territories, Danu’s poison purged with her death. I’d kill the bitch a hundred times over if I could but turning her to ash and scattering those remains through different realms had reassured me she was really dead.
The Lords were…different.
Not personality wise, though they’d all come back shaken up. Every single Lord had new magic, and no one was fessing up. I smelled it on them every time I saw them, which was more often than usual after Fee had saved everyone’s bacon.
I missed the bird with a vengeance. Poe had left my side and hadn’t returned. I assumed he’d gone somewhere private to grieve.
