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“Just do it,duyops.”Bastian barks.
And so, I arrive at my home in a demon’s clothes, without my Grace, and with my soul-bond dead in my demon mate’s arms.
“Dove! We weren’t expecting—Oh my Flames, Dove!”
The healer who healed me as best as she could after my accident rushes to me, ignoring the reason I’m here. I keep my eyes down.
Seeing her with no glamour with human, mortal, eyes would drive me mad.
The harmonic chanting of the healing choirs, so familiar, so comforting while I recuperated, still resounds in the vast expanse of the ward. But now they don’t, they’re only a fraction as rich. The harmonies are lessened, notes aren’t as crisp.
I can’t hear the magic in it.
I sidestep her and point to Gael. “I have his essence. Please, Noriya. Bring him back to me.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but Dove, what happened? Your wings…”
“Noriya, just bring him back to me. Please.”
“Right, put him in a pod.”
Bastian lays Gael in a healing pod. I can’t see it hum to life or feel the vibration of its molecular repair cycle anymore.
I hand Noriya the vial and keep my eyes glued to it as she takes it to Gael and begins chanting.
Chonk hops into the pod, standing on Gael’s thigh. He sprouts two tentacles and uses them to pull back the thin gash in Gael’s chest.
“Please,” I whisper to myself.
Bastian steps closer to me and puts an arm around my shoulders. He’s careful. He doesn’t even brush my ruined stumps.
But I still scream as furious pain shoots from my shoulders, down my back, and to my legs when his forearm brushes the joint of my ravaged wings.
He snatches his hand away. “Baby, I’m so sorry!”
I can’t say anything. I can only wait for the pain to subside and watch Noriya do her job.
Slowly, the silver smoke rises from the vial, and the searing pain in my bones lessens, receding just as slowly.
As Gael’s essence floats upward in the bottle, I grip Bastian’s arm with both hands, shaking, waiting, hoping.
Once it’s out entirely, I squeeze Bastian even harder. This may not work. The essence must choose to return to the vessel, or the æther will absorb it, destroying everything that wasGael. Only his magic will remain, integrated into Celestian æther.
“Please.”
The smoky essence stretches into a thin line, one end rising to the sky, the other pulling toward his body.
“Please, Gael. Come back to me.” I didn’t get him back just to lose him again. That can’t be how we end. I won’t accept it.
Quivering in the air, the essence snaps back into a cloudy shape and travels upward.
“NO!” I fall to my knees, screaming. “GAEL, NO!”
It’s already over the pod lights, halfway to the ceiling.
Chonk’s body glows, vibrating with power, and Noriya’s chants grow to wailing shrieks as the essence floats higher and higher.
It’s as high as the choral loft.
