His sister. She had come to take him home.
“No, Talon. No.” I pressed my shaking hand to his, my words distorted through my sobs.
“Be safe, Wyn,” He gasped. “Be happy.”
He paused as he wheezed, his breathing stopping before picking back up, my hand shaky against his.
“You’ve done so well, Wynifred. You amaze me.”
I sucked in breath, my voice shaking as the sob released it in an almost inaudible burst.
He smiled. “You know when I first loved you, when I knew?”
I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t try. I just sat and cried.
“When you gave up your magic to save your brother, I had seen the good in you for years, but that’s when I knew.”
I gasped at the knowledge, my sobs racking through me as I tried to get the three words out. The three words that were most important ones I could say, the ones I wanted him to hear before it was too late.
“I love you. I love you, Talon.”
“Clara.”
His voice faded to nothing, his eyes drifting out of focus for the last time, and the heat of his flesh left me as his hand dropped to the ground. The air was silent, my sobs forgotten, the wheezing in my husband’s chest gone.
He was gone.
“No!” I cried, suddenly able to let it all out. I sobbed as I yelled. I clawed at him through the bars, trying to pull him toward me. But his body wouldn’t come. I couldn’t reach him. The bars of the prison that had killed him still kept me from him.
“Talon! No!” I shook the bars, hitting myself against them in vain, willing myself closer, to be strong enough to reach him, but it was useless. I clung to Talon’s hand. I held it to my face, but no life came back into him.
Talon lay lifeless in front of me.
The thought gashed open my heart and poured out the loss and grief that had been sheltered within me. I felt everything, raw and fresh as if for the first time. The loss of Talon and Rosaline burst together in a mixture of sorrow so deep it threatened to incapacitate me.
I didn’t care if someone heard. I didn’t care if they came. I didn’t care if this was the end. I screamed out my pain in a keening moan that ripped open my throat and rattled my vision.
Edmund had taken them away from me. My father had taken them away from me. They had taken everything from me.
Everything.
No. Not everything.
I could already feel the boil of my magic as Talon’s soul left him and his magic released from his body. Free from the omezující stone, his magic found its mate for the last time, the strength of him rumbling through me. A new emotion roared within me, a new power, a new strength.
Talon’s magic.
My sobs stopped as a warmth, the heat as strong as his fever, moved into me. It filled me from my toes to the tips of my fingers. The feeling was so foreign, so forgotten, that my body almost rebelled against it.
I keeled over onto my hands and knees as my stomach heaved. My throat lunged and my body was racked with spasms as I vomited, the vomiting turning to dry heaving, as a steady stream of pain ran through me, my body fighting against the magic, against the pain.
I opened my eyes to a pile of sick on the floor in front of me only to gasp at the small black stone that rested amongst the disgusting mess.
Talon’s last gift to me.
I felt Talon’s magic settle into my blood. Taking its rightful place as my own came back full strength, the rush of it knocking me to the ground, the power that rippled under my skin strong and painful. I hadn’t felt power this strong since Ilyan had bound it inside me. I had almost forgotten how powerful I felt, how powerful I was.
Edmund had made one giant mistake. When he had unbound my memories, he had also unbound my power.
He had unleashed me.
I gasped as the sobs left me. My anger squashed my pain and turned it into something violent. Something that normal people would rebel against, but not me. I was ready for it. I needed it.
“I love you, Talon,” I whispered against the skin of his hand, the last contact I would ever have with my mate, the only closure I could ever hope to see.
Talon’s hand fell to the floor as I stood, my fingers wrapping around the small stone on the floor, clenching the slippery surface in between my gritty fingers. I felt my body heal as I stood, my magic knitting muscles, bones, and skin back together. I felt bruises disappear. I flexed my fingers as my determination took over.
I didn’t care who came.
Let them come.
I opened the doors to each of the cells, the shackles that still bound Sain’s wrists falling to the ground with a clatter as I released him. I watched him stand in my peripheral vision, his feet bringing him straight to Talon.
He kneeled down next to him, closing his eyes, and then he kissed his forehead. Any thought of my doing the same was forgotten as the footsteps that had begun thundering above us came nearer.
“You ready?” I asked, surprised at the deep timbre of confidence that had come back to my voice.