THIRTY-NINE
HUX
Hux felt it the moment the curse started to truly break.
She felt it through him—the emptiness that had defined his existence contracting rapidly, collapsing, being consumed by the same energy that was destroying the Hollow King. He staggered, shifting back to human form involuntarily, naked and bloody and overwhelmed by sensations he’d never experienced.
The curse broke. Across the battlefield, Isandro collapsed to his knees, tears streaming down his face, a lifetime of silenced grief finally released.
The void creatures were dissolving, their forms unraveling as their source lost coherence. The wolves howled triumph. The lions roared. The bears bellowed victory. The dragons soared through the sky, fire and lightning illuminating the dawn.
And the Hollow King?—
NO—
It shrieked its final shriek, a sound that shook the foundations of reality. The void that had been its form collapsed inward, consuming itself, and where it had been, there was nothing. Not darkness—just absence. And then even that was gone.
The Convergence passed. The stars faded from the daylight sky, resuming their normal invisible positions. The barrier between realms solidified, thickening back to its proper strength.
The Hollow King was dead.
The fragment of Cornelius that had stalked the gardens dissolved with it—a shadow that had outlasted its master by six decades, finally done.
And in Lunaria’s chest, in Hux’s heart, their fragile bond blazed full strength.
For a moment, the gardens were utterly still.
The orrery flowers settled. The constellations slid back to their ordinary positions. The air, which had hummed with impossible tension for weeks, simply breathed.
FORTY
LUNARIA
She fell.
Her knees hit the stone floor of the pavilion, every ounce of energy drained, her body refusing to support her for another second. The orrery powered down, its living mechanism settling into peaceful dormancy. Deia’s ring cooled on her finger.
Arms caught her before she collapsed completely.
Hux. She could feel him—not just beside her butinher awareness, a presence anchored in her soul. Not telepathy, not emotion-sharing. Just the absolute certainty of where he was and the bone-deep knowledge that she belonged to him as completely as he belonged to her.
The curse was broken. Their bond was real.
“We did it.” Her voice came out as a croak, barely audible. “We actually?—”
“Youdid it.” He was crying. She’d never seen him cry—not through all of this, not through learning about his family’s curse, not through the claiming. But now tears streamed down his face, cutting tracks through the blood and dirt. “You saved us. You saved everyone.”
“We saved each other.” She reached up, touching his face, feeling the dampness under her fingers. “That’s the whole point. That’s what they could never understand—we’re stronger when we choose each other than when fate chooses for us.”
He laughed. A sound rough with exhaustion and relief and joy she’d never heard from him.
“I love you,” he said. “I should have said it more. I’m going to say it constantly now. You’re going to get sick of hearing it.”
“Probably.” She grinned, too tired to pretend she wasn’t absolutely besotted. “Say it anyway.”
“I love you. I love you. I?—”
She kissed him. Hard and fierce and triumphant, tasting salt from his tears and copper from blood and the sweet certainty of forever. Around them, Haven Shores was celebrating—wolves howling, lions roaring, dragons bugling, witches laughing and crying and hugging each other.
