“I saw it,” I said softly. “In my dreams. I know what you did.”
He flinched. His eyes closed as if the memory physically hurt.
“But this—” I pressed my forehead to his, voice shaking, “—this was your choice. Not Kratos’s. Yours.”
His breath trembled. “There was no other choice. The moment I saw Ubel’s attack?—”
“I know, my love,” I whispered, kissing his forehead.
“—I thought only that it couldn’t hit you. Not inthislife. Notanylife.”
My chest caved with a sob.
His hand lifted weakly, tracing the side of my jaw with a touch that felt like it belonged to centuries. “You were my queen then… and you’re my queen now. But this time… I loved you the right way.”
“You can’t leave me,” I breathed. “You just broke the curse. We just?—”
“That’s why I can leave.” His thumb brushed my lip, a trembling, tender touch. “You’re free now. No more dying young. No more heartbreak. No more fighting just to live a life with your Faction.” His pupils flickered—a flash of gold from Kratos, a swirl of shadow from Trent. “I don’t get a second chance,” he whispered. “This was my second chance.”
“No,” I said fiercely. “No, you stay with me. We can fix this. We?—
He coughed—dark blood staining his lips. “Reverie… I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I’ve done too much.”
“But you earned it,” I cried.
His eyes softened in a way that gutted me. “You were always the bravest of us,” he murmured. “Even more than Ambrose and the others…even more than the men in this life.”
“Please stay with me. I love you.” I buried my face in his neck, inhaling the scent that had called to me as much as it had repelled me.
“I’ll love you for eternity, and I’m glad…” he murmured, fading fast. “That in the end… I died doing one… thing… right.”
His fingers slipped from mine.
The shadows around him dissolved.
The Ancestors’ light sank into the stone.
And the man who had once destroyed me—who had once betrayed me—who had once doomed a queen—an entire race of people—died while saving the woman I had become.
I bent over him, shoulders shaking, the silence thick and suffocating.
Rue dragged himself over to me and put his arm around me in comfort.
And that’s when I sensed it—a ripple—a change in the air behind me. The cold that only comes from hatred.
Selene’s snarl sliced through the grief. “Get away from him.”
I turned just as Ubel ripped himself free of Tanya’s restraints, eyes glowing with murderous zeal. “She’s weakened!” Ubel barked. “Finish it now—while her power is still settling!”
Selene’s face twisted with feral rage. “He chose her,” she spat, voice breaking. “Hechoseher over us. Overme.”
She raised a hand, pointing her ability straight at my back. Ubel raised a second attack, white lightning coiling like a spear in his fists.
Both powers aimed to end me.
Right above Trent’s body—the man I loved in a past life and would never get the chance to love in this one.
I lifted my head, something ancient and furious rising behind my grief—something that didn’t feel entirely like me.
