For a heartbeat, I almost pity him. He has hunted, killed, and crossed worlds for what he’s lost, as I have. He loves Meranor as I love Amara. His devotion is a mirror of my own obsession, warped and festering. We are two sides of the same broken coin. Two selfish fools clinging to the same dream, and there’s no reasoning with Anethesis, just as there’s no reasoning with me. I know deep down, one of us will not survive this.
“One last time,” I say, breath burning in my chest. “Let her go.”
He lifts his other hand, his fingers curl, and the air around us stirs. Leaves lift from the ground, caught in a whirl of power that gathers in his palm.
“Amara’s death will not be in vain,” he says softly, ignoring my threats. “I want you to remember that when you die, Daedalus. All of Meranor will know of Amara’s sacrifice. For all eternity, they will weep her name.”
The whirl at Anethesis’s fingertips grows, slow at first, a small twist of air that hums against my skin. Inch by inch it widens, gathering speed until the clearing itself trembles. My cloak lashes my legs, my hair whips across my eyes. The funnel stretches skyward, cutting through the canopy until it punches a hole clean through the trees. Harsh white moonlight pours through, spilling across the grove like a wound torn open.
The wind surges in every direction, shoving the long grass flat, tearing at the vines that drape the trees. Lavender blossoms rip free, spinning into the air in a rush of purple and silver and then, one by one, the flowers above Amara’s resting place rise. First the petals, delicate as breath, then the stalks, then the roots, until the very soil itself lifts in trembling layers.
My heart hammers. Beneath the roar, I see the thin golden threads weaving through the dirt, stretching between us, but they’re fraying. Fractured. What was once unbreakable iron is now splintered and fading. My mark. My bite. The link between our souls. I reach for it, desperate, but her heartbeat beneath the earth is faint.
It’s too soon. If she wakes now, she’ll die.
“Anethesis!” I roar.
Smoke coils around my arm as Death Singer manifests in my grip, its blade gleaming like a captured star. I hurl myself into the wind, muscles burning as I fight the storm’s pull. Each step is agony, each breath, a war against the air.
Anethesis only smiles. With one scarred hand, he lifts Mirael off her feet as easily as if she weighed nothing and flings her into the raging vortex.
Her scream splits the night.
She spirals upward, swallowed by the cyclone, her body flung higher and higher until she’s a blur amid the storm of debris. Then, as the wind shifts, she drops, arms flailing, hair streaming, a mortal comet plummeting toward the earth.
I look to Anethesis. He watches me through the chaos, his face calm, almost serene. Another layer of earth tears free, dirt and roots ripped away.
Do I let Mirael fall?
Do I trade her life to end Anethesis? To save Amara?
I’m sorry, Mirael.
A blur of motion cuts through the storm.
Zyphoro.
She bursts into the clearing like vengeance itself, wings cracking the air like thunder. Her hair is wild, her runes blazing. She climbs through the vortex with impossible speed and snatches Mirael from the air, just before she hits the ground.
Relief barely has time to register before I move. My wings explode from my back, black smoke spiraling outward, swallowing moonlight whole. I drive forward, hard, fast, colliding with Anethesis with all the force of a boulder. The impact cracks the world open.
We slam into a tree at the clearing’s edge. The ancient trunk splinters under the force, groaning as bark and branches rain down.
The cyclone dies with a shuddering sigh, collapsing into silence as soil and blossoms fall like ash from the sky.
We hit the ground in a tangle of limbs. I’m on him before he can rise, my knee in his chest, Death Singer raised high. Smoke curls along its edge, hungry, alive.
“Now is the time?” Emranth hisses from the pit of my mind. “Yes, yes. Fae blood is sweetest. This one is old. Aged like wine.”
But I couldn’t care less about the demon’s hunger.
Anethesis stares up at me, his one cloudy eye wide. The color long gone, but deep beneath that milky surface there’s a flicker. Fear. That small, trembling glimmer when the soul finally sees death coming for it. And Iamdeath.
“You’re no better than them,” he spits, his fingers, ringed with scars, scratching at my wrists, desperate, trembling. “A killer of Fae. You butcher your own kind, Daedalus. The last of us left!”
My jaw tightens. I bring both hands to Death Singer’s hilt, and the blade hums with my fury. The runes across my chest ignite, flaring violet-bright. “Perhaps that’s what this world needs,” I mutter, and there is a clarity threaded through the words. “The time of the Fae is over, Anethesis. Let the humans have their turn. Letherlead them.”
The sword trembles in my hands, the tip pressing closer to his throat. Emranth growls, a low, guttural plea for blood, but I don’t need the encouragement. This is for everything Anethesis has done. For that night in Pariseth when my world changed forever. For the Grove. For Amara.
