Esme appears above me like an angel of vengeance, falling to her knees in the bloody snow. “No, Sam, please. . .please, Baby, hold on.”
Her hands tremble as she reaches for me, fear in her pale eyes. Her face is streaked with blood and tears and grief. She’s been through hell, but she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
She presses her palm to my chest, right over my heart. “I can fix this,” she whispers, and there’s something desperate and determined in her voice. “I can fix you. I know I can.”
She pushes down on the worst of my wounds, and I whine in pain.
“Come on!” she shouts as she wipes away stray tears with the back of her hand, leaving smears of blood across her cheek.
“Please,” she begs like a prayer, like she’s addressing every deity that’s ever existed. She tries again, pressing her hand gently over my body this time, her touch careful and reverent.
Nothing happens at first. Then, like dawn breaking after the longest night, I feel it, instant relief as my lungs fill with oxygen. Esme’s hands pour golden light into my body, warm and healing and impossibly bright.
“Thank you,” she whispers, to whom I don’t know. The god Eidryn of Vanir or the god of the Mortal Realm, it’s a mystery. All I do know is that my Angel saved my life, pulled me back from whatever dark place I was sliding toward.
Healing magic knits flesh and bone, threads sinew like the finest cloth. It floods into me, hot and burning, and so gentle it almost doesn’t hurt. It wraps around my shredded insides like a balm, sealing wounds I didn’t even know I had, fixing things that were broken in ways I couldn’t name.
I want to tell her she’s beautiful, that I’m sorry I couldn’t get her to her father, that I failed her when she needed me most. I want to tell her that I love her more than life itself, but there will be time for that later. I’m not dying today, and I plan on reminding her of all of this for the rest of our lives.
My pain fades like a tide going out, my lungs expand and contract in a steady rhythm, and my heartbeat steadies into something strong and sure. I shift without warning, body returning to human form, naked in the snow but alive. Wonderfully, impossibly alive.
Rue’s moves over us. “Well shit, welcome back to the land of the living, Sammie Boy.” He tosses me a half-shredded cloak, and I hear the relief in his voice, despite his casual tone.
I sit up, gasping, still shaking from the aftermath of near-death, wrapping the cloak around my body with hands that won’t quite stop trembling.
Esme grabs my face in both hands, and she doesn’t say anything at first. Just rests her forehead against mine, breathing hard, her tears falling onto my cheeks like warm rain. I can feel her pulse racing, can smell the fear and relief and love radiating off her in waves.
“I’m here, Angel. I’m here,” I try to reassure her as she bites back a sob, my voice rough but steady.
Locke stumbles toward us, blood splattered across his face like war paint, exhaustion written in every line of his body. “The portal’s still open.”
He doesn’t have to say the rest. The words hang in the air between us, heavy with implication.
If we’re going to follow the queen. . .
If we’re going to save the king. . .
If we’re going to finish what we started. . .we have to go now.
Esme turns to me, eyes still wet with unshed tears, voice trembling with exhaustion and determination in equal measure. “Can you run?”
I nod, testing my newly healed muscles, feeling strength flow through me like liquid fire. I’m not ready to face what’s next, but I have to be. For her, for all of us, I have to be.
Together, we rise. The four of us stand on the blood-soaked summit, battered but unbroken. We don’t look back at the carnage we’re leaving behind. We run toward the shimmering portal, and leap through together, just before it closes with a sound like reality tearing. We leave the mountain and the dead behind, plunging into whatever hell awaits us on the other side.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
ESME
The moment my boots hit marble, I know where we are.
The Great Hall stretches before us like a cathedral of shadows and firelight, its vaulted ceilings disappearing into darkness above. Massive columns rise like ancient sentinels, their surfaces carved with intricate fae script that seems to writhe in the flickering torchlight. The stained-glass windows cast fractured rainbows across the polished floor. Court members stand frozen around the perimeter like statues, their elaborate gowns and tailored jackets rigid with terror, their fear so thick I can taste it on my tongue. The silence is absolute, suffocating, broken only by the soft crackle of flames and the distant drip of something I refuse to identify.
At the center of this theatrical nightmare, seated on the Night Court throne with every ounce of stolen grace, is Queen Lucelle. She’s draped across the obsidian seat like she was born to it, her blood red and white gown spilling over the armrests in cascading waves of silk and shadow. Her dark hands rest delicately on the throne’s carved arm rests, fingers adorned with gaudy silver rings. This is nothing but a show for her, every detail calculated. This is her attempt to make a spectacle of our arrival, todemonstrate her power before she destroys us. Well, she won’t have that satisfaction. Not here, not now, not ever.
Kneeling beside her throne, bound in chains that pulses with a sickly green light, is my father. My father, who wanted nothing but the best for me, who I’ve yet to really know, who should be the one sitting on that throne, looks as if he’s ready to take his last breath. His once-proud shoulders are hunched like a broken mountain, his silver hair matted with what looks like dried blood. The chains aren’t just restraining him; they’re draining him, pulling his life force from his body with each pulse of that nauseating light. I can see it in the hollow of his cheeks, the way his hands shake against the marble floor. I refuse to let that happen. This ends today.
I don’t look back to see if Locke, Rue, and Sam are still with me. I feel them like anchors in my soul, Locke’s steady presence at my right shoulder, Sam’s protective warmth at my left, Rue’s sharp energy crackling with barely contained violence behind us. This confrontation, this moment, this is mine. I know they have my back, so I have no fear as I move forward across the polished marble, my footsteps echoing in the oppressive silence.
