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She’d have her child and her mate and her kingdom.
It was more than enough.
A tear slid down her cheek as she lifted the scrap of paper and read the words without hesitation.
She expected a flash of pain as the magic ripped from her body. But it was slower than that. It started as a tingle, and for a moment she thought it hadn’t worked. Panic flooded her. It had to work. The witch had promised it would work. Excalibur had been pressed to the wicked witch’s throat; she couldn’t have lied—
Tingling—no, no, no. She was slipping into the void—
But the tingling didn’t pull her apart.
It burned.
Up through her fingers, her limbs, right to that shining core of magic inside of her. She felt it stripping away, an unholy fire that consumed everything in its path. It was consuming her. She was burning from the inside out, the very center of her being, her glorious magic eaten alive by the witch’s spell.
She cried out, screaming—but there was no one to hear her. She didn’t try to hold it in. Let her screams, her pain, merge with those of her mate and her subjects below on the battlefield.
Her magic was gone. She felt it, the hollowness inside of her. The power that had saved her, again and again. Now sacrificed, to save those she loved.
It would only be a matter of time now, she told herself. Without the void, no more of them would come. No more minds shattered, bodies stolen, and turned into dark, mutilated beasts. It might take hours or days, but eventually, they would all be beaten.
Annwyn would be safe. Accolon would be safe. Her child would be safe.
The pain ebbed, blending with the demands of childbirth. It would not be days or hours for her. The child was coming in the center of that bloody battlefield. All she could do was hope—that when she rose from her childbed, her mate and kingdom would stand victorious. Free of the darkness.
As Nimue gave herself over to the primal drive to create and bring life, the final words of the prophecy echoed in her mind—
Together they must stand, to defeat what once thought dead. Together they must give, if any shall live to the end.
1
VEYKA
This must be what death feels like.
I’d always imagined it would be the absence of feeling, the darkening of the thoughts that lurked in the back of my mind. But I was wrong. Death wasn’t gentle at all.
It was like being ripped from my body. I could feel the beat of my heart in my ears. Except I wasn’t in my body. My blood flowed all around me.
Me, except not. What was I?
I wasn’t in my body. I was everywhere. My heart, my blood, my skin… was that my soul I saw, spinning in swirls of silver and blue?
Death was painful and exquisite. Like waking in the morning and stretching until every limb tingled.
Then I slammed into the ground.
My legs crumbled beneath me, my knees landing in the dirt.
Not dirt, I realized. Sand.
My hands landed in it as I fell forward, sinking into the wet muck. I tried to push myself up but slid instead, the wet sand coating my forearms. I clenched the muscles in my abdomen, pulling myself back up without the help of my hands.
Where was I? This wasn’t the goldstone palace, this wasn’t even Annwyn—
Yes, it is.
Ahead of me, still and undisturbed despite my floundering, was a seemingly endless expanse of cerulean water.
