The pain of it sinking in proved worse than the knife, worse than the heart’s extraction. It felt like it was twisting into my actual heart, knitting itself more tightly into the very fabric of my existence, and it was all so much heavier than before.
But despite the weight, I could breathe again. And I could move. I reached a hand up, feeling across my chest. Blood soon covered my fingers, but beneath them, my sewn-together heart was beating steadily. Powerful, insistent beats that thundered with the force of everything I’d endured. Everything I’d survived. A heavy but beautiful burden.
I felt someone lifting me up off the cold ground, and I opened my eyes, expecting to see Lorien or my brother.
Instead, Aleks was there, watching me with an odd look on his face—a soft, wondering look. Like he’d just woken up, and he was trying to decide if he was still dreaming. His hand found mine, interlacing our fingers as he cradled me against him.
I squeezed his hand until I was certain of it: The recognition taking hold in his gaze. Proof of something that ran deeper than the darkest magic, that burned brighter than any curse they could carve into his skin.
“You…you see me.” The words scraped through my cracked, dry lips.
He exhaled a shaky breath. Nodded. “I see you.”
The world went still. Like a gasp held between life and death, with everything waiting to see whether or not we would manage to keep breathing.
That stillness shattered with the violent sound of clashing steel.
Aleks pulled me closer, curving his body protectively around mine as we tried to see what was happening. A wall of shadows had been surrounding us, but now it was beginning to fade, revealing the full extent of the chaos still unfolding in the clearing.
Reinforcements, led by Captain Voss, were emerging from every direction.
The Order members were scattering, some engaging with my soldiers, but most of them converging toward a rippling point at the edge of the gravesite; a portal that hadn’t been there moments before. Rune marks glowed in the air and on the ground around its edges, violet and pulsing.
Aleks stared at that rippling gateway for far too long.
I grabbed his arm, trying to force his attention back to me. But Severin appeared beside the portal in the same moment, hisexpression triumphant, despite the chaos, and Aleks didn’t seem able to look away from him.
“This won’t be the end of their plans,” Aleks said quietly.
He rose to his feet, pulling me up with him. As we helped one another balance, I noticed a mark on his bicep—a scar that hadn’t been there before, I was certain. Upon it glowed an obvious shape, a spiraling sigil hovering just above the skin.
The other runes were barely glowing, even as Severin’s gaze fixed in our direction. But they were clearly still there. Like embers buried in ash, waiting for their moment to burn, to consume.
“…I still feel their pull.” He pressed a hand to his temple, as if struck by a sudden headache. His eyes closed as he tried to steady himself through it. I would have sworn his body swayed toward the portal, like a compass needle drawn to magnetic north.
I held my breath, terror clawing through me.
Then his hand moved down to his chest, right over the spot where the broken shard had sunken in.
His eyes flew open. He managed to turn away from Severin, though he still didn’t look at me as he said, “I’m going to keep fighting them.”
The declaration should have brought relief. It didn’t. There was something in the way his fist clenched as he said it, as if he were trying to hold onto sand slipping through his fingers. Something that told me I knew what he was going to say next, that shattered me before the words had even left his mouth?—
“But I can’t do it here…beside you,” he finished quietly.
The portal shimmered, too bright to ignore, no matter how desperately I wanted to.
“You can’t follow me this time,” he said, taking my hand and finally meeting my gaze again. “You understand that, right?”
I shook my head, but he kept talking anyway.
“Promise me, Nova. Promise me you won’t do anything foolish. Trust that I’ll find you again, when I can.”
The words lodged in my throat.
There was no time to get them out.
A pained cry rang out across the clearing, distracting me. As soon as I looked away from him, Aleks was pulling his hand from mine, striding quickly toward the portal without looking back.
