“Some gift,” I spat.
“Careful.” The warmth darkened. Thunder rumbled through each syllable, shaking the marrow in my bones.
“I blessed you, not so that you could serve your own needs and that of one Draconis, but to serve others and the world around you.”
“Serve, you say. My whole life, all I have done is serve. Peasants. Royals. Dragons. Even fate itself. When all I desired was freedom.”
“And now?” the goddess asked, her voice quieter, but no less commanding.
“Now.” I glanced at Thorne’s broken body, tears swimming in my vision. “What’s the point of freedom if I’m cursed to live it alone? I’d chain myself to the devil if it meant my mate would survive.”
“Then do your duty and heal the tree,” she said in a firm, yet patient manner.
Hope speared my chest. Fragile. Desperate. “If I do this, you’ll restore him?”
“Heal the tree.” The glowing light floated higher, the sphere shrinking.
“Wait,” I called out. “I don’t know how.”
“Yes, you do.” The voice grew faint, and the ball dimmed until it vanished.
Something ancient inside me stirred in answer. It whispered that she was right, that I did know. It also warned that if I didthis, there was no coming back. Hathor’s sacred tree was wounded down to its core. Healing it would demand every part of me.
One glance at my mate and my decision was easy. Really, wasn’t that all I’d ever wanted? The right to choose my own fate?
Runa and the others rose to their feet. I sensed their eyes on me but dared not look at them. My focus was only on Thorne.
Kneeling next to him, I dipped my head, brushing my lips against his. Heart breaking, I whispered, “You better be worth it.”
Before I could lose my nerve, I lurched to my feet and strode to the tree, every step an act of defiance and surrender. The tugging inside of me became a dragging tumble, then a landslide that pushed me closer.
My palms pressed to the wounded bark, and the world exhaled.
A violent pull yanked at my center, as though invisible threads were being torn free of my soul. I gasped, and my spine arched, my body trembling against the surge.
The sacred seed at my throat flared, bursting with light. It melted into my flesh, sinking into my heart, and suddenly my veins were rivers, carrying pieces of me into the fractured trunk.
Memories bled into the magic. Speck’s smile, Yaga’s voice, Thorne’s laughter, the warmth of his lips on mine. Each one ripped away, swallowed by the arbor as it demanded more. The tree wasn’t just healing—it wasdevouring.
Much as The Dark One had.
Even in that absolute moment of divinity, the similarities were not lost on me. The divide between right and wrong was a narrow one.
The pull grew stronger. The line between me and the arbor dissolved until I couldn’t tell where I ended and the ancient rootsbegan. A scream wrenched from my throat, raw and ragged, but I didn’t let go. I couldn’t.
And then—
Somethinganswered.
Not Hathor, not the goddess, but the tree. A heartbeat thrummed beneath my palms, ancient and immense, beating in time with mine. The rhythm consumed me until all that I was poured into its wounded soul.
Light shattered behind my eyes. Bronze leaves flared above me like burning stars.
And I fell, not away from myself, but into something vast, luminous—
Eternal.
Chapter Thirty-Four
