"Then you'll have loved completely," I say finally. "And that's more than most people get in any lifetime."
He's quiet for a long time, his thumb tracing gentle patterns across my cheek. Through our bond, I feel his anguish warring with growing acceptance.
"You're certain?"
"I'm certain."
Another silence. Then, so quietly I almost miss it: "When?"
"Tomorrow. Before the damage becomes irreversible." I reach up to cover his hand with mine. "One night to be gods together, then a lifetime to be something more honest."
As we hold each other in the darkness, our daughter sleeping peacefully nearby, I feel the weight of my choice settling intomy bones. Tomorrow I'll give up immortality, divine power, the enhancement that makes me extraordinary. I'll trade centuries for decades, goddess-level abilities for human limitations.
But I'll also give five thousand Fae their futures back. I'll restore hope to a court that trusted their king to protect them. And I'll prove that love earned through sacrifice is stronger than love taken through conquest.
Some choices define not just what we do, but who we are.
And I would rather be the woman who chose love with wisdom than the one who accepted love at any cost.
Tomorrow, I'll learn what mortality feels like again. Tonight, I'm going to hold my daughter and my mate and memorize every perfect moment of being divine.
Because some gifts are meant to be given away.
CHAPTER 30
THORIAN
The ritual begins at midnight,when the boundary between mortal and divine grows thin.
Maya stands at the center of the ancient grove where fertility magic first took root in my lands, our daughter sleeping peacefully in Lady Elvinia's arms nearby. The sacred circle pulses with accumulated power from eight centuries of my rule, and tonight, all of that magic will flow through my mate's willing sacrifice.
She looks like a goddess preparing for her own execution.
"Are you certain?" I ask for the hundredth time since dawn, though I already know her answer. Maya has spent the day saying goodbye to the divine power that saved her life—testing her abilities one final time, coaxing impossible blooms from winter soil, channeling fertility magic that will die with the setting sun.
"I'm certain." Her voice carries no doubt, only the quiet strength that made me fall in love with a stubborn human scientist who refused to submit without question. "This is the right choice, Thorian. The only choice."
I want to argue. Want to demand she reconsider, that we find another way, that she choose personal happiness overthe greater good just this once. But watching her face in the moonlight—seeing the peaceful certainty of someone who knows exactly what her sacrifice will accomplish—I understand that arguing would be cruelty.
Maya has found her answer in the same scientific approach she brings to everything. She's weighed the variables, calculated the outcomes, and reached the only conclusion her brilliant mind can accept.
Five thousand lives restored to fertility in exchange for one goddess returning to mortality.
The mathematics are undeniable, even if they're breaking my ancient heart.
"How do we begin?" she asks, though Lady Elvinia has explained the process three times today.
"You place your hands on the heartstone," I say, gesturing to the obsidian pillar that anchors my court's magical foundation. "Channel every drop of divine power you possess into the stone. When the last of your enhancement flows into the grove's foundation, it will restore fertility to every Fae in my territory."
"And then?"
"And then you return to what you were meant to be." The words still carry weight, but less catastrophe than I'd feared. "You'll keep the immortal lifespan that comes from our bond, but lose the divine power that nearly killed you. You'll have perhaps as much magic as any other queen—enough to tend gardens, encourage growth, but nothing like the impossible force you're channeling now."
She nods as if this is just another experimental procedure, not the voluntary death of everything that saved her life. "Will it hurt?"
"I don't know." The honesty sits heavy between us. "No one has ever chosen divine sacrifice before. Most who achieve goddess-level power cling to it until death claims them."
"But not me."
