Page 336 of House Ignis

He stood a few feet away, his jaw locked, shoulders rigid, eyes bright silver again—but colder than I’d ever seen them.

The bond throbbed, desperate and wild. “Asher…”

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. His expression was carved from stone.

“Let’s take her,” he ordered, voice flat, final.

Ezra hesitated.

“Now,” Asher snapped, shadows curling at his boots like smoke.

Ezra swallowed hard, cradling me against his chest.

My vision flickered, darkness creeping in.

“Asher…” My voice was barely a whisper. “Please…”

He looked at me then, and what I saw in his eyes was worse than hatred.

It was love—raw, unending, tearing him apart.

The world dimmed. The last thing I felt was the brush of his magic—cold shadow against burning fire. The bond cracked open one last time, and I heard his voice soft, breaking.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way, darling,” he sent, the words sounding like a death knell.

“I swear to the gods, Ava, I do fucking love you.”

The world darkened, and the fire went out.

ASHER

The whiskey wasn’t working.

It should have. It was Aelmyran-aged, older than most kingdoms, decanted from a cask that had outlived every Fae who’d ever sworn the stuff could kill. I’d poured it into crystal because some part of me was still pretending this was a drink and not a sentence, and I’d been staring at it long enough for the fire to burn down to embers without my permission.

I drank.

It tasted like smoke and bad decisions.

Fitting.

Because this was not how it was supposed to happen. Not even fucking close.

Beyond the windows, Isereth glowed beneath a moonless sky, silver-glass bridges strung with starlight and the Umbrithorns standing guard in the distance. Home. I should have felt something about being back. Relief, maybe. Satisfaction.

Instead, all I could feel was her.

Ava.

Somewhere beneath me, behind wards I’d keyed with my own blood, she slept. I could feel every slow breath through the blood bond, every faint flicker of emotion, every tiny shift of that impossible fire that had somehow become as familiar to me as my own fucking heartbeat.

She was here.

In Isereth.

Because of me.

I dragged a hand through my hair and stared out over the city.