The thought fills me with relief so profound it nearly brings tears to my eyes. Yes. Home. That's where I need to be.
I follow the sound of trickling water to a small stream at the edge of the clearing. As I kneel to cup water in my hands, something crinkles in my pocket—something that wasn't there before.
My blood runs cold.
I reach in slowly, fingers closing around a folded piece of parchment. When did this get here? I didn't have any paper when I left the palace.
With trembling hands, I unfold it.
The handwriting is spidery and old-fashioned, written in fading ink:
My dear child,
By the time you read this, it will be too late. The elixir I slipped into your cider at the inn is already working through your blood. In a few hours, the bond will sever completely.
I know you will be angry. I know you will feel betrayed. But I did this to save you, child. The shadow poison takes what it loves—always. You would have died like she did, like all the others before her. Slowly. Painfully. Your child dying with you.
I have seen this pattern too many times. Watched too many Omegas wither away, their Alphas helpless to stop it. The curse cannot be broken. The only mercy is separation.
You will hate me now. But when you hold your living child in your arms, when you grow old and grey instead of dying young and afraid, you will understand.
I saved you from her fate.
Forgive me.
—Mother Wren
The parchment falls from my numb fingers.
No.
No, no, no?—
"NO!" The scream tears from my throat, echoing through the forest. "NO!"
She poisoned me. At the inn. Hours ago. The cider that tasted so sweet, that warmed me from the inside out—it wasn't just cider.
It was the elixir.
I was already dying and I didn't even know it.
"You had no right!" I scream at the empty forest, at Mother Wren wherever she is. "NO RIGHT!"
Rage floods through me, hot and vicious. My light magic explodes outward in uncontrolled bursts, scorching the moss around me, sending birds fleeing from the trees in panic.
I chose. I CHOSE to go back. I chose to fight for us, for him, for our family. And she took that choice away from me.
"I was going back!" My voice breaks on a sob. "I was going to tell him about the baby. We were going to face this together. We were?—"
A strange warmth spreads through my chest. Not the comforting warmth of the bond, but something else. Something foreign and wrong.
No. Not yet. Please, not yet.
I reach desperately for the bond, for Malakai's presence. It's still there—faint, but there. I can still feel him. He's searching for me, I can feel his panic, his desperation?—
"Malakai," I gasp, pressing my hand to my chest. "Malakai, I'm coming back. I'm coming?—"
The warmth turns to heat. Then to fire.
