The Hallow has its kingly sacrifice.
Power shivers through the walls, a blinding white light shooting through the cracks in the stone and spearing into the heavens. It forces me to slow, but I have to get to him, I have to see him, to try—
And then light erupts.
A wave of force slams me to the ground. Pure power. An enormous shadowy form made of smoke spills from the Hallow. I hear a roar of fury echoing through a voice so deep and guttural that it vibrates through my chest.
And I start crawling.
I will not let him die alone.
I will not let him die for nothing.
All I can see is the little girl curled in a fetal position on the stone, and she needs me.
Angharad smiles, standing in the precise center of the Hallow. The glow of power suffuses her, and when she opens her eyes, they’re an eerie, emotionless black. “Come forth, my lord.”
Hot golden sparks form in the shadow’s enormous head, burning into vicious eyes. The brimstone reek of him almost makes me gag, and sparks shoot from the cloud until I’m crawling over a bed of embers.
Close. So close….
A man steps out of the shadowy beast, naked and shivering. He stumbles to his knees, the muscles in his thighs trembling. Dark hair cascades down his spine in a tangled mane, and when he lifts his face to the ceiling, my heart almost stops at the sight of his horrifically beautiful face.
“My love,” Angharad whispers, going to her knees before him and capturing his face in her hands.
But as those eyes open and I see the burning coals where his pupils should be, I know it’s not the lover she’s tried to bring back from the dead, but the Old One that even the Mother of Night fears.
He blinks, and then those hot coals are gone and his irises are dark enough to steal the light from his pupils. “My love,” he whispers, cradling her face and bringing their mouths together.
“Vi!” Eris screams behind me. “Come back!”
Not without my daughter.
I shove to my feet, gaze locking on Amaya. Shadows coalesce around Thiago’s body, as if whatever lived inside him is finally free. I can’t take them both. I can’t—
But maybe my magic will—
And then the Horned One breaks away from Angharad’s kiss and turns his soul-searing eyes upon me.
He smiles and flings his hand out, diverting the spill of raw power that gushes from the heart of the earth.
A ring of fire explodes out from the Hallow.
I scream, throwing my hands up—
A figure appears in front of me, arms splaying wide, and I see a pale, beautiful face within her hood. Firm arms wrap around me just as the wall of magic hits.
We’re both doused in fuel and set aflame. Nothing could survive this. Not even—
“Just breathe,” the Mother of Night whispers, her body shielding mine from the blast of power. “Breathe, Iskvien. Ride the power. Ride the wave. Let it flow through you.”
Every inch of me feels stretched and broken, as if the magic is incinerating me from within. I scream on and on, the sound torn from a shredded throat.
“You cannot fight it,” she says, pressing my face into my shoulder. “This is ala. It is the energy within woven into a force that will destroy all that cannot contain it. It is the world beneath your feet. It is the heart of Arcaedia unleashed through a crack in the surface. To fight it will destroy you.”
And maybe I want such oblivion.
Maybe I want something to make the pain go away.
“He’s gone,” I sob as I curl into her embrace.
“Yes. He is gone from this world.” A gentle hand slides through my hair, and the impression of her voice softens. “But you are not. And nor is your daughter. You need to live, Iskvien. You need to survive—”
So I can set her free.
“Oh, child.” She laughs sadly. “If you could only see the future that I can see.”
The flow of power finally slows to a trickle.
And I gasp when I see what has happened to her. The right side of her face is burned and bloodied. Little cinders spark in her flesh, and ash breaks away from her, floating to the ground.
That could have been me.
That should have been me.
She protected me.
But now she’s falling, and as she hits the ground, she dissolves into nothing and all I hear is “This one last favor I do for you. Get your daughter. And escape. You must escape, because the Horned One is free, and he will be hungry.”
I scrabble to my hands and knees as her presence winks out.
Thiago’s gone, nothing but a dark smear in the shape of his body remaining on the slate floor. Enormous wings of blackened ash paint the floor around him, but as I watch, a gust of wind sends the ash flying.
I snatch at the ash, but it vanishes between my hands, and suddenly this is all real.
He’s gone.
He’s gone, and I want to scream at the sudden emptiness in my chest—that hole where my heart should be. Where he should be.
But he did not die just to see me collapse. And the Mother of Night did not suffer just to see me fail.
I push to my feet, staring at the vortex of power that streams into the sky.
Amaya.
Amaya is all that matters.
I step between the Hallow stones, and power rips and tears at me. Ride it, the Mother said.
And so I do.
The instant I let the power flood through me, the world changes. It’s no longer a gushing current that strips the flesh from my bones. It’s a song of life, it’s the whisper of winds through the trees, the rumble of the earth, the sound of coursing water raging over jagged rocks. It is everything and nothing. It is life.
Arcaedia.
It feels like the time I bound myself to the land, and for a second I wonder if the fae queens realize that this binding is similar to what
