“You’re strong, you’re amazing, and most importantly…” Aren whispers, holding my head in her hands. “Remember what you said? When we’re together, you don’t need to breathe.”
She takes my face in her hands and covers my mouth with hers, breathing into me.
Breathingforme.
Her sweet life force surges within me, mingling with the Whisting trapped under my skin, bursting through the vice grip on my lungs—and releasing me from Namreth’s hold.
I kiss her back, and the storm raging inside of me settles. It goes completely quiet. My world shrinks to the feel of her soft lips on mine, her warm hands on my cold face, her breath on my cheek. Her breath curls gently across my skin, flowing into me, through me.
The darkness recedes. Her face, an inch from mine, is the only thing I see. Gods, she truly is the most beautiful woman in the world. Nothing else matters, nothing else but her.
The Rings call, surging just under the surface of my skin, and I command them to remain calm.
The Rings may have chosen me, but they don’t control me. Not anymore.
At last, I understand how to manage their power. There are two of them and two of us, a matched pair. Together, and only together, we control them.
Lips still on Aren’s, I call a narrow but powerful cone of wind. It crashes down on Namreth with a force that could level a mountain. With the intensity that once turned the peaks of old Albion into valleys, I strike at the mad king. I don’t have to open my eyes to see it. The Rings within me see it, as if I’m watching from atop one of the golden chandeliers.
Namreth wields a piece of this great power, but I can block him with the full force of the Whisting. He fights against it, drawing even more of his dark power, summoning the ancient and forbidden magics he has studied all these years. But every gale and storm he conjures falters beneath the strength of the Rings I wield.
Namreth is pricked a thousand times by sharp glass and steel and wood; the whirlwind around him turns red with droplets of his own blood. The winds howl louder than his screams.
He has nothing and no one to help him.
He’s alone…and because he is alone, he is weak.
From the rafters, the Whisting looks down on myself and Aren as we cling to each other, still kissing. It’s like watching a dream, as the Rings rise from my back through my tattered, bloody shirt. It’s been decades since I’ve seen them, and they look different to my adult eyes. They glow and hum, made of magic itself, rising above our heads, gold and silver, thrumming with power. The two linked rings grow larger and larger, hovering at the center of the storm, power rolling from them like thunder.
They twist to lie one atop the other, hovering above Namreth, then fall, dropping over his head and past his shoulders, encircling him.
The Rings glow bright, tightening around Namreth’s arms and torso. He thrashes against them, teeth gritted. Then his eyes dart to Aren’s mouth on mine, the breath we share, and I can see in his face that he knows. He knows that together, Aren and I can control my power. We’ve won.
He tenses, body rigid with pain, trembling and jerking. And just like that, it’s over.
His body falls limp and motionless to the floor.
The Rings have taken his power from him.
Aren’s lips are still on mine, but I’m no longer just watching from above. I see through the Rings, and beyond them. I’m the storm and the wind and the sea and the earth. And I feel everything. The wind ebbing, the rain stopping, and Aren in my arms.
With a tearing pain, the scar on my back burns like I’ve been branded. The familiar sensation of the Whisting humming just under the surface returns. But then the Rings fall into my palm, warm and solid and familiar. One gold and one silver. And like water poured into a bucket, I come back to myself. I’m once again just a man. A man who is alive and holding his love.
Aren pulls away and regards me with tears in her eyes, and all I can do is stare. She survived. I survived—because of her.
Namreth moans. He’s alive, but the Rings have stripped his power. Instead of an intimidating, youthful king, he’s a frail old man, with thinning gray hair, his face deeply etched with a lifetime of bitterness. His head lolls at a painful angle as he stares at us from the floor, his mouth open in shock. With one last rasping breath, the wretched bastard finally dies.
The battle is over.
The king is dead.
Everything is quiet and still, as if the world itself has forgotten how to breathe.
From the rubble lining the chamber, faces appear, people covered in dust. They almost look as if they’re part of the wreckage—bleeding, their clothes shredded.
The enormous golden hall is ruined. Namreth’s throne is nothing but dust. There isn’t a table standing or a column that isn’t cracked and halfway collapsed. Light shines down through gaps in the ceiling. There are people who need help, and there will be time to help them.
For now, I care only for Aren. Pulling her close again, I revel in her warmth and close my eyes. She wraps her arms around me and whispers, “Brave idiot.”
