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I didn’t care about the Oracle or the magic or this war between the kings. None of that mattered if Zor was dead.
The three of us had been broken by this world. But we’d survived long enough to find each other, and we deserved more time. The fucking world owed us that, at least. “You are going to live,” I hissed down at Zor, daring him to contradict me.
I’d just brought an entire fucking realm back.
I could save one life.
One life was all I’d ever ask this fucking world for.
A world that had given me nothing. Only taken and taken and taken. “I am so fucking done with losing,” I hissed to the silent trees.
“Anaria.” Raz’s hands were gentle but insistent as he tried to drag me away, a tremor of fear in his voice. “He’s gone. We can bury him here in the forest, but he’s gone.”
“He isnotgone.”He wasn’t. He couldn’t be. Zorander was still here, I could feel his soul, caught in the magic welling up like an enormous wave, giving birth to the forest around us.
The wild magic wasn’t done rebuilding this world, and it hadn’t yet released Zor to the Great Beyond. There had to be a reason for that. The magic was going to save Zorander.
I was going tomakeit save him.
I pulled the stone out of my pocket, pressed my lips to the cool surface, and lay it on Zor’s chest, that gentle pulse of light beating at its core. I closed my eyes, focusing on that steady beat, willing the magic to listen.
Bring him back to me.
I will pay whatever price you desire.
Never mind the fact I’d soaked the earth with enough blood to rebirth this terrible power. Never mind the fact nobody cheated death. Not ever, not even in the books.
Death was absolute.
I sank deep within myself, Raz’s panicked voice fading away as I trolled the depths of my new magic threaded with ribbons of the old. The Fae magic was still there—different, like muddy water is from crystal clear—different, but not weaker.
I didn’t know how to do this, so I felt my way through the magic, searching for something to guide me.
Far beneath the two magics, far enough I had to dig, was a deep, steady throb, and I settled into that rhythmic beat, feeling it in my blood, letting my own heart beat in tandem with the world. Letting the magic sink deep into me, enough, I prayed, for what I was about to attempt.
Life for life.
I pulled Zor’s precious knife from my sheath, slashed the sharp blade across both palms, then pressed them to his cold, dead flesh. “Give him back to me.” My voice bent and warped, and all around us, the entire forest went still, sentinels to a rebirth of another kind.
I had power.
Power I’d used to shape this world into a paradise.
I threw my head back, keeping my hands firmly pressed to Zor’s chest, and slipped the tether off my magic. Unlike before, it didn’t burst out from me like a wave; heat trickled down my arms and sank deep into Zor.
After being powerless for so long, I hadrealpower.
Power I could use for my own ends, not someone else’s.
“Anaria, this is madness,you cannot do this.” Raz’s own dark magic tried to snatch me away, only to be rebuffed by the whirl of wild, unbroken power shimmering in the air around us.
I can do this. I will do this.
Take everything I have, I thought, maybe screamed aloud.Take it all, just bring him back.
There was a cost for immortal favors, and white-hot agony streaked down my side, as hot as lightning, as deep as the pit of the Great Beyond. My breath exploded out of me, and I toppled sideways into the twisted roots as Zorander Vayle took his first mighty breath.
Raziel turned me over gently, checked my pulse, looked at my eyes, then raised the dress high enough to get a good look at my still-burning side.
