So will I.
FIFTY
IMARA
I’m drowning in red.
The power is everywhere—flooding my scars, tearing through my channels, scorching every nerve. I can feel Kharvek somewhere ahead of me, a beacon in the crimson storm, pulling the worst of it through himself so I don’t have to bear it all.
But there’s so much. Gods, there’s so much.
Every death. Every sacrifice. Every life ended in the Vale’s name. They scream through me—thousands of voices, centuries of pain, an ocean of horror that I’m trying to hold back with nothing but will and desperation.
Let go. You’ve done enough. Let me?—
No. We finish this. Both of us.
The power surges. I feel a part of me crack—a channel giving way, a piece of myself burning out to make room for more. The pain is beyond description. Beyond thought. Beyond anything except the single unwavering truth that holds me anchored:
He needs me. I won’t let him die alone.
The ritual reaches its peak. For one suspended moment, I feel everything—every soul the clan ever consumed, every life the Matron ever stole, every drop of blood ever spilled on thiscursed ground. They’re not screaming anymore. They’re singing. Celebrating.
Finally free.
Then the power releases, and the world goes white.
FIFTY-ONE
KHARVEK
The silence is deafening.
For as long as I can remember, the Vale has hummed. A constant pulse beneath the surface—blood-wards, accumulated magic, the heartbeat of two centuries of sacrifice. Background noise I stopped noticing decades ago.
Now there’s nothing. The hum is gone. The pulse has stopped. The Vale is truly, finally silent.
And Imara isn’t waking up.
I shift her weight in my arms, press my fingers to her throat again. The pulse is still there—weak but present, fighting against odds that should have killed us both. Her chest rises and falls in shallow breaths. Her eyelids flutter occasionally, chasing dreams I can’t see.
“Come on.” My voice is barely a rasp. The ritual burned through my throat, left it raw and bleeding. “Open your eyes. Look at me.”
Nothing.
The resonance between us flickers. I can feel her—distant, muffled, buried deep beneath layers of unconsciousness. She’s there. Somewhere. But reaching her is impossible from this side.
Around us, the Red Fields have gone gray. The rust color that marked centuries of spilled blood has faded, leaving behind ordinary earth—cracked and barren, but ordinary. No crimson glow pulses beneath the surface. No screaming echoes from nowhere. The residual magic that made this place a living nightmare has drained away with everything else.
I did this. We did this.
And now she won’t wake up.
“She’s breathing.”Dena’s voice cuts through my daze. “Aunt Imara is breathing. I can see it.”
I look down. The child is right—Imara’s chest continues to rise and fall. Shallow. Steady. Alive.
She’s alive. She’s still alive.
