Sawyn’s hand dropped and I stared at her lifeless body, her flash of dark magic draining the last of her life force. Her lifeless eyes looked to the ceiling, her hateful smile going slack.
The sounds warped around me, the air bending and twisting before my eyes, and I heard distant muffled screams. My brow dropped heavy over my eyes as I tried to take a deep breath. My legs went out from under me and my knees cracked onto the stone, and that’s when I smelled it—burning flesh. I stared down at the singed hole in my tunic, my mind trying to make sense of it. I couldn’t feel anything, not my fingers, nor the hole in my chest where Sawyn’s lighting struck.
Someone screamed my name and suddenly Grae was in front of me, his eyes wide with horror. I couldn’t feel his hands as they clutched my cheeks. His panicked gaze roved my body. My name was on his lips, but I couldn’t hear it.
“My sweet Calla,” a warm voice whispered into my mind, a voice so familiar.
My eyes flitted from Grae’s panicked face, over his shoulder to where Vellia stood. She wore her sage-green dress and matching kerchief around her silver hair. The air warped and billowed around her as if she floated on an invisible wind.
“Vellia.” My mouth formed the words, but no sound escaped.
Grae looked to where the faery stood, his expression cracking from panic to utter despair.
“I’ve come to grant your wish, my love,” Vellia said with a soft smile.
I tried to suck in a breath. My chest shuddered as my numb trembling fingers swiped the tears from Grae’s cheeks. I licked my lips, trying to summon the will to speak.
“These people, our people,” I whispered to him, “need you.”
“No.” His eyes pleaded with me.
A wet rattle escaped my throat as I looked to Vellia. “I wish to sever this mating bond so that Grae may live without me. Save him.”
“No!” Grae sobbed, gripping my face tighter. “Calla, no, don’t. I can’t go on without you. Please, no.”
“May our people be led into a better future,” I prayed. “May they know peace. May the humans of Olmdere thrive.”
“Don’t leave me.” He pressed his wet lips to mine. “Please.”
“I love you,” I whispered onto his lips, feeling the inevitability of this choice, the peace of my decision.
Vellia’s voice filled me as golden light swirled around us and that cold numbness within me morphed to warmth.
“That was the right wish, my love,” she whispered.
People gasped as warm, brilliant sunlight flooded through me. I kept my lips on Grae’s, the perfect end, as I let that sunlight consume me and felt myself fade away.
Forty-One
Golden light flashed behind my eyelids and I squinted them open. Calloused fingers stroked my temple, brushing my hair off my face. I peered up into Grae’s soft eyes, bright daylight circling his head like a halo.
“Hello, little fox.”
“This must be the sweetest dream,” I murmured, my lips pulling into a smile.
All at once, it came flooding back to me, and I bolted upright. My head swirled as Grae caught my shoulders and guided me back onto the silk pillow. The soft mattress hugged my curves. The room smelled clean and floral, like lemon and honeysuckle, a cool summer’s breeze wafting in through an open window.
“Easy,” Grae said.
“I’m alive.” My brows pinched together. “I’m alive?”
His hand smoothed down the sleeve of my chemise, emotions choking his voice as he whispered, “You’re alive. You’re safe.”
“I don’t understand. Vellia . . . my dying wish . . .” My eyes darted across the ceiling as though the answers were written in the rafters.
I touched the center of my chest, where Sawyn’s magic speared straight through me. Unbuttoning my chemise to my belly, I gasped. The blackened hole was now smooth skin the color of molten ore. The scars radiated out in rivers of gold from the center of my chest like a bursting sun.
“How?” I trailed a finger over them, expecting them to be cold and smooth, but they only felt like skin, and I wondered if they were golden all the way into my bones.
“Your wish. May our people be led into a better future. May they know peace.” Grae’s voice wobbled and he lowered onto his elbow, stroking a hand down my cheek as pain raked through his expression. The same look that I saw as I felt my soul leaving my body as he watched me die.
“I heard Vellia’s voice,” I whispered, threading my arm around his side and pulling his torso against me. “She said it was the right wish.”
“It’s you, Calla.” Grae lay down, gathering me against his hard chest. “You are the one who will lead the people to a better future. The only way it could be fulfilled was if you lived.”
Mouth agape, I shook my head, and I wondered if that tricky faery had twisted the truth of my wish out of her love for me. Was I truly the key to Olmdere’s future? “I made that wish for you—”
His lips silenced me with a kiss. I pulled him tighter, filled with the assurance that I was indeed alive again as his mouth enveloped mine.
Grae’s lips skimmed across my jaw and up to my ear. “And in doing so, made it for all of us.”
I swallowed the burning knot in my throat. “Gods, that’s too much for anyone to bear. I—” His lips met mine again and I laughed. “Are you going to kiss me every time I worry?”
“If it works.” He grinned, breathing in my hair just as he had done that day back in Allesdale.
“A bonfire after a rainstorm,” I whispered.
“What?”
“That’s what you smell like to me.” I traced one of his dimples and down the curve of his jaw. “I never told you.”
I sighed, taking in the room. Gauzy curtains billowed on the summer’s breeze. Beyond the open windows, the dark lake swirled. The turquoise river that rushed through the city battled with the dark water, creating whorls of blue and black as if the lake itself was fighting off the dark magic in its murky waters. I wondered if, now that the ostekke was dead, the lake would turn clear once more.
“We’re in the castle still,” I murmured, surveying the red velvet curtains and golden chandeliers.
“We’re in your castle,” Grae corrected.
“Briar?” I bolted upright again. “Where is she? Is she okay?”
“Gods, you’re going to be the death of me,” Grae growled, catching me as I leapt to my feet and my legs crumpled under me. “Could you please rest for one day? You just died!”
“But I’m not dead, am I? I need to see her.” I wobbled on shaking feet over to the upholstered chair.
“See who?” Maez asked.
My head whipped to the side to see Briar and Maez entering from the arched anteroom.
I ran to my sister, but she was faster, racing to me and sweeping me up into her arms. She squeezed me so tightly she might’ve cracked a rib, but I didn’t care. She was awake.
“You saved me, Cal,” Briar said. Her voice strained and I realized I was squeezing her just as tightly. I eased my grip on her and she laughed. “Or should I say, Your Majesty?”