Page 109 of A Crown of Hopes and Sorrows

The powers glimmered and sparkled; they sizzled through me. My flesh ached like it ripped off and replaced itself, my heart stopped pounding and then roared forward again, as if every inch of me transformed into something different.

Something not of the human world.

I froze, shifting Hyacinth’s face towards me. “Cyn?”

His head slumped.

His body remained still.

“No,” I howled. “Please.” I leaned in closer to him, brushing my nose over his skin, breathing in his jasmine scent. “Please, Cyn. Don’t leave me. I didn’t have time to”—I choked over my words, tears tracing down my cheeks—“tell you everything. I didn’t even get to say I love you.” My thumb traced over the contour of his jaw, scraping along the rough flesh there. “Hyacinth, I’m begging you.”

Nothing happened.

But my body had taken on a new awareness. The sun sweeping across the sky called to me. The magic washed through me like it never had before.

But it didn’t matter.

I lifted Hyacinth’s hand and kissed his fingers, the cool metal of his rings scraping my lips.

The magic didn’t fucking matter because in the end, when I needed it most, it hadn’t helped.

I rested his hand down, gently, against his chest.

He didn’t have one of his ridiculous robes on. I sobbed again over that thought. He’d died unadorned.

My powers glowed like a spotlight, leaving us—for a moment—alone in the world.

“Hyacinth,” I said again. “Cyn…” I traced my finger over the coarse edge of his hair, down the noble line of his nose, over his lips. But words wouldn’t come. What could I say to the love of my life as he lay still and broken in my arms?

A silvery essence swept over his flesh, trembling along his form.

I brushed my hand over it but felt nothing but air.

As the light drifted from him, his skin grayed, his features darkening.

I gasped.

It was his spirit leaving him.

It had to be.

I didn’t know how I could see it.

But I could not allow it—would not allow it.

I poured myself back into my powers and pushed a veil out that wrapped around us like a shell, flooding the air in golden layers of my magic, thickening the surrounding shield until it consumed us, until the sun darkened and there was only Hyacinth and me, cocooned together.

My body trembled.

But I would not let him go.

Hours compounded onto themselves.

I remained still other than my fingers tracing over Hyacinth’s features. My muscles shivered from the exertion of holding us there like that, from attempting to heal him. But what else could I do?

Plum-colored smoke filled the surrounding space and caused me to lift my face. Hades stood, his arms crossed, his mahogany curls resting on his shoulders. “What are you doing, Apollo?”

I leaned over Hyacinth, placing an arm across him. “You cannot take him.”