“Lucien...” My voice cracked as my left arm vanished into dust. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’ll forgive you if you come down,” he shouted, voice raw with desperation. He took a step forward, feet skidding on the ice. “Rook, please. Come back to me.”
Another sob ripped free as my legs snapped in multiple places. “I-I can’t—”
“I’m not letting you die!” He staggered forward, balling his hands and summoning the weakest flame around his shoulders. “Come here!”
The ice merely carried me higher, consuming me faster.
More pieces of me broke—my shoulder, my collarbone—feeding the violent ascension.
Pain tried to swallow me, but I kept my gaze locked on him.
I wanted him to be the last thing I saw. The only thing.
“I’ll find you again,” I whispered. “I promise.”
A savage roar echoed across the Icelandic wilderness as Whisper howled.
“Rook,please!” A bolt of fire arrowed toward me, but...it was too late.
My heart beat once, twice—
The ascension didn’t just split me in half; itshatteredme.
My spine disintegrated mid-air—silver shards exploding from my chest with a supernova of ice and light. The glacier answered with a deafening crack as a massive crevasse belched open beneath me.
And then...I fell.
Whatever power held me aloft dropped me like a pebble into a vast, unforgivable ocean. Polar wind howled past my ears. Silver snowflakes lifted from my skin. Each flake glittered and sparkled before vanishing into nothing as if the universe erased me.
Strong arms caught me.
Lucien crashed to his knees, cradling my breaking form against his chest. His fire flared hot and fierce, trying to hold me together. “You can’t. You can’t leave me.”
I tried to see him. I couldn’t. I tried to speak. Nothing worked.
“Rook...don’t. Don’t you dare.” Rocking me gently, he cupped the back of my head with one hand and pressed his other over my fracturing heart. “I will never be able to say goodbye, so don’t fucking make me.”
A barrage of flames soaked into my dissolving chest. But they were like tiny candles compared to endless winter.
I tried to lift my hand to touch his cheek, but I had no arm, no fingers. Silver mist replaced my limbs, and my heart pumped its last.
I seized in his embrace.
“Fuck, don’t. Please don’t.” Pressing his forehead to mine, our energies mingled one final time—fire and ice, gold and silver, love and agony.
His lips landed on mine in a wicked kiss as if he could restart my already dead heart.
I tried to kiss him back.
To tell him I loved him.
But the pain ended.
My body vanished.
And then...nothing.
