I throw myself over my father’s body, covering him.
But then Altair stops, staring at something behind me.
A wyvern soars overhead, and I duck my head against my father’s chest as it collides into King Altair, forcing him back. A portaled darkness widens on the lawns, and Commander Soto flies through. The druid army and more wyverns come through behind him, forcing the seraphs to retreat. I exchange one more look with Altair before he lifts his sword to the sky, blinding-white light blaring all around him. Then the remaining seraphs vanish, abandoning the fight, taking Darkstone with them.
I barely care. I turn to my father and demand the Empress to rise from my deck to heal him. Blood taints his lips, and he cups my cheek as I force my energy to rally, my other hand pressed hard against the bleeding, but there’s so much of it. My power presses against his wound, but nothing seems to change. Tears roll down my cheeks, a darkness gnawing at the back of my mind that I ignore.
“Dad, stay with me,” I insist, the skin unwilling to knit, like paper beneath water.
“Baby girl,” he breathes.
I’m forced to look into his dark golden eyes, warm as a hearth. They were the first eyes I ever saw, and as I blink away my blinding tears, I can’t shake away the thought that mine will be the last he ever sees.
“I’m so sorry.”
“You didn’t have a choice,” I sob, my jaw trembling. “Just don’t leave me. I can’t say goodbye. Don’t make me. Hold on. P-Please. I came all this way. We’re so close to being a family again …”
“You can’t do anything, honey. Our vows will make sure of that.” He coughs blood, but I refuse to accept it. The image ofthat fucking cup returns to me, laying forgotten on my bedsheets back at the Forge. He says, “Druid magic cannot save a seraph.”
But he can’t be right. I search for help, but everyone is too far from us, and my gaze won’t stray from his long. He wears the smile he wore on his happiest days, and there’s no fear there. If anything … he looks more at peace than I’ve seen him, his warm hand still resting against my cheek. I clench my eyes shut, forcing more magic through anyway. I’ll bleed myself dry if it stops this. Except it doesn’t matter how much magic I pour through, it’s like it falls into a void. Exhaustion weighs heavily, and my skin smokes from the effort. I’ll burn myself to cinders if that’s what it takes.
Then I hit a barrier.
I open my eyes, and his other hand rests across my cards.No.I realize he did it intentionally, to prevent me burning out in order to save him. But that would’ve been my choice,mine. Why did he take that from me?
“No. No, Dad. What … what did you do?”
“You are what I’m proudest of,” he says.
I lean my cheek into his hand, teeth gritted as I sob openly now, shoulders racking against the heartache.
“I love you … Ruru.”
His hand drops, eyes fluttering before shifting to the night sky above.
Starlight guides him into the afterlife’s endless seas.
Silence cleaves a void in the world. Like an arrow piercing straight through a target, there’s a gap left in its absence. His eyes don’t move to mine, and it doesn’t matter that he cannot hear it, my voice still shreds under my grief as I cling to the stranger’s clothes my father’s wrapped in. I run my trembling hands through the feathers braced against his back, but theybegin to disappear, and his body entropies into what it was when he was taken.
A changeling is not a true immortal.
And all mortals must die.
Suddenly others surround us. An Empress Arcana bearing the royal sigils kneels, but it’s too late. All they can do is close my father’s eyes for the last time. Arms wrap around me, and I cannot pull away. I’m turned and clenched against Draven’s chest.
I shake. And scream. Then I break.
Epilogue
TOMORROW
THE DRUIDS DO NOTmourn in black, that is left for honor and national pride. Instead, they grieve in red, a stark reminder of the preciousness of life. There are not many of us to send my father into the after, or Felix, and I’m the only member of my family in attendance.
The seraphs hunted down my mother’s quarters, stealing her away while the rest of us were distracted, killing the more than twenty guards Draven assigned to her. He’s apologized profusely for not putting more with her, for letting Kasper get the better of him, for the Forge and the palace being attacked to start with.
There are whispers of more traitors in our midst, and of Nevaeh’s gathering army. War is nearly inevitable now. The druids have accused the seraphs of attacking on sovereign soil, while the seraphs accused us of harboring a criminal of war. Though I’m unsure when the fighting will break out, there’s one thing for certain. If my mother creates a cure to the Curse, Altair will use it as leverage until the elves and druids join his cause to destroy all mortals.
And it’s my fault for leading him to her.
