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My heart pounded so loudly that I was convinced even in the ice she could hear it.
I hated her. Truly, desperately.
Maybe I should’ve left her here. But who would I be then? The wolf who had her own choices taken away again and again, to turn around and do that to someone else?
At last she spoke.
“I could choose to trap you here with me.” Her words were clearer than any of the others, likely because she hadn’t been driven entirely mad yet by the realm.
“You could,” Cole agreed. “You could continue to harm those who have done nothing to you, if that is all you wish to be. Despite the current setting, you hold all the power. Power you have abused time and time again. Or you could make a choice based on what you want, not what you wish for others to not have. You spent all those lifetimes trapped in a fake realm. You have your choice of any of them now, even ours. What will you pick?”
Silence reigned for a long moment.
“I will choose…” She trailed off, and I didn’t so much as breathe until she spoke again. “I choose to find a new path. Into the nothingness, the land beyond the stars, whatever you wish to call it. I have had enough of the realms I have seen so far.”
“Very well.”
The death magic erupted around us. Darkness flooded the scene, blinding me. When it cleared a second later, the ice was empty.
We had won.
Chapter XXXVIII
Tartarus let us gowithout a word.
We had truly won.
The return was a blur. Phaidros brought us out, and warned the doors to the pits were sealed even to him now. The cycle had broken. No more would souls face eternal torture at the end of their lives. Phaidros did not take us directly back to the underworld. Instead, he brought us back to the land of the living.
Though ages seemed to have passed in Tartarus, the night was just winding down, shifters lingering around Pack Point.
“My father granted you a final boon, for besting him three times.” He gave me a reproachful look. “I’d advise against trying for a fourth.”
“A boon?”
He pointed as a figure emerged in the crowd, popping into existence. At the sight of the familiar broad shoulders, my knees shook.
Hector.
“The other souls who chose to reincarnate will have to wait and be reincarnated anew. But for this one… he is restored to the form he was in, except, of course, he is now alive.”
The soldier didn’t spot me. Instead, he marched purposefully to Daphne. My best friend, sensing the change, broke away from Xander and ran to him. Something lightened in my chest for the first time inages.We had really done it.
Cole took a step forward to bring us over to them, but I grabbed his hand and shook my head. Later. The two split away from the party, no doubt with a lot to catch up on. I turned to thank Phaidros for what he had done—somehow I doubted the pits had decided to grant this specific gift all on their own—but true to form, the demon was already gone.
“Let’s go home,” Cole said softly.
Home. The place I had longed for all my life. “I’d like nothing better.”
Though the party in the living realm was wrapping up, the ball in the underworld was still going strong. The room was filled to the brim, the mountain of food freshly replenished. Cole was more than ready to drag me away into an empty hallway and celebrate in our own right, but Hecate got to us first.
“Soteria.”
The enchantress was in a deep blue dress, the same color as a starless sky. Her raven black hair was pinned back, loose waves falling through, her cheekbones prominent. Her violet eyes were narrowed in accusation.
“Hecate,” I greeted.
“Is it at allpossibleyou have something to do with the several hundred thousand souls that have just arrived in our kingdom?” The enchantress’s eye was actually twitching.
