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I love you, exactly as you are,I thought, hoping she heard the words I could not say out loud.I choose you every time.
Ealhswip’s fire formed before her hands as she stopped over my body.
Something resembling a smile lifted her torn cheek. A tongue flittered across broken lips, savoring her kill.
Slowly, she bent down, as if she had final words for me as well.
I played dead until she was so close the fire around her singed my skin, remaining still when she nudged my foot, testing if I was conscious. As she started to speak, sure I was no threat, I kicked out her legs and wrapped my arms around her burning shape.
A mage’s final curse was saved for death.
The first,I had used to punish people for a child who never died.
On the roof in Lowtown with Alexei at my side, I had voiced the second to speed the rain.
The same curse I’d once uttered for my child shaped in my mind. I put everything I was into it a second time, all the trust and hope and beauty Vanya had shown me, the grief and anger and love I never showed, and let it go.May those who hurt mine, be hurt in kind.
Pain screamed but my fuzzy mind could ignore it as I squeezed, praying I was not repeating the past.
She might be unnatural, impossible to injure, and incredibly strong, but she was also an old woman weighing less than a third of me.
I rolled us to the side, closed my eyes, and let the brilliant emerald laced with quicksilver embrace us. For the first time, she screamed in fear.
The glow became a green sky over a barren land, illuminated by silver stars and moon.
The woman in my arms dug claw-like nails into my throat.
As my vision darkened, my arms loosened, and she pushed away.
I clumsily grabbed at her, missed, and crawled to my feet, following in her wake.
I expected her to attack or run. Instead, she stopped, staring through the settling dust.
People—young and old, light and dark, Talian and foreign—surrounded us. Soldiers in antiquated bone armor stood shoulder to shoulder with children, the youngest carried on backs and in arms.
They separated for the woman whose face had haunted my nightmares and prayers.
Ealhswip hissed like a snake.
Lumi smiled.
“Your creatures ran away before the wrath of those you wronged. The Gate’s healing.” Tempest’s twin looked over her shoulder. “What shall we do with her?”
Too many voices to understand called out over each other for death—whatever that meant on this side—and torture.
“You think you can stand against me? This has been my realm since the Goddess forsook it.”
Men and women strode to the front, fire, wind, and water spinning around them.
Lumi nodded. “Alone, perhaps not. But with all the murdered mages of Tal at my side?”
The wind lifted Ealhswip from the ground with power I could never have summoned, while fire ate her remaining flesh and blood was torn through her skin.
Lumi watched together with the other dead before turning to me.
“You were willing to sacrifice yourself to bring her here.”
It was not a question, but her disbelief was clear.
