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We’re in the gardens again. The other version of me is pregnant with our child – our heir. My stomach bulges in my exquisite black dress. We’re looking up at the dome. Our power has never been stronger. We can do things people thought would never be possible.

Technology had overthrown magic.

But our magic will overthrow technology.

We hold hands.

We look like the Card of the Soulmates.

Together, we channel our magic, and we split the sky.

The dome, from end to end, shatters. For minutes, we are drowned in a rain of tiny Rhavnan diamonds. We hardly feel them on our faces and bodies as we turn to each other and kiss, ravenously, tongues and teeth, with everything we have. Because it’s the end of an era, and we are at the forefront of it.

Magic is releasing outwards exponentially. The humidity is escaping, like a door has opened to the outside.

The Palace will be weaker.

But our country will be stronger. And that’s the real inheritance we’ll give to our heir – the real inheritance that anyone gives to their children.

We will not be declared war upon again.

We will not be bled for our magic.

Our enemies are defeated.

And we stand with pride.

Because if we made mistakes, it is because once, they were good ideas.

If we made bad choices, it is because once, they were the right ones.

If we feel any pain, it is because once, it was love.

He wasn’t the tyrant.

And neither was I.

We both were.

We all are.

“You want all of that?” I ask him, through heavy breaths, in his cabin.

We’re still connected by our hands. Mine are tingling. His eyes are blacker than his favourite colour.

“I want it,” he says, stroking my wrist until goosebumps cover me, “so I can give it to you.”

CHAPTER 48

The Erasure of Pain

I’m speechless. Breathless.

I can’t begin to form an answer to this. Any of this.

In the air, our magic continues to twist and writhe. But some of the strands are coming undone. Splitting at the ends. As if giving up the fight.

Swallowing, I say, “If we do all of that, then nothing changed, by initiating The Soulmates fortune. You still did end magic – the way we know it, anyway. I just helped you.”