“NO!”
The word ripped itself out of me, more scream than voice, more grief than sound. Shadows burst from my body, a violent storm, slamming into him with the fury of every god that had ever abandoned me.
He laughed—laughed—as Amara’s blood splattered across the ground. His smile was wild, gleaming through the dark, the sound of his joy a blade I could not pull free.
I fell to my knees beside her, catching her before she hit the earth. Her body folded into my arms, limp, warm for a moment longer. Her head rested against my chest; her hair wet with blood, and when I brushed it from her face, my hand came away red.
“Amara,” I whispered, choking. My fingers pressed against the wound, useless, desperate. “Stay with me. Please, stay?—”
Her eyes were glassy. Her lips parted in a soundless breath that never came.
She was gone.
The night went still.
Something inside me broke. I felt it—the shatter of a soul too full of sorrow to hold itself together. The shadows poured out of me like blood, writhing across the ground, howling in my voice.
I screamed until my throat tore, until I tasted iron and salt. I screamed until the sound became something not human. Tears burned my face, hot, relentless, falling into her hair, into her open mouth, into the dirt that would soon claim her.
The world blurred. The stars above flickered and dimmed.
And I understood, in that hollow, infinite silence, that I had nothing left to give this world.
No mercy. No forgiveness. Only destruction.
I pressed her closer, my forehead against hers, cradling her face in my blood-stained hands. Her breath was gone, yet I could still feel her there, as faint as the echo of a heartbeat. “I love you, Amara,” I whispered, voice breaking. “I always have. I always will. If the gods deny me your touch, I will defy them. I will tear through every veil, walk through every shadow, cross every hell until I find you again.”
I bent low and pressed my lips to hers. They were cold, but they still tasted of life—salt and sorrow, memory and promise.
The world fell silent around us. Even the shadows stilled, as though the earth itself bowed to the vow between us.
“I’ll find you again,” I murmured against her mouth, closing my eyes. “In this life, or the next. Not even death will keep you from me.”
I laid her gently upon the ground, brushing a strand of hair from her bloodied cheek. Then I turned.
Salvatore stood there—the monster who had taken her from me.
“You took her from me,” I rasped, my voice cracking like fractured glass. My hands trembled, my whole body shivering under the weight of what burned inside me. “You took Amara away from me… so hear me now.”
I rose, my arms shaking, rage and despair twisting through every word. “I’ll make sure you never, ever find your mother. You’ll never know her. You’ll never find her book, because I hid it. I buried it so deep that even the shadows will starve before they find it. You killed Amara… so Marianna will rot forever in her prison.”
For the first time, Salvatore’s grin faltered. Fury flared across his face; the shadows writhing beneath his skin convulsed in outrage.
He spat, his voice venomous. “Then I will make your life a living hell. Every step you take, every breath you draw, I will haunt you. And Iwillfind my mother’s book. No matter what you’ve done to it… I will find it.”
And then he was gone, swallowed by shadow, leaving only his curse echoing through the stillness.
I fell to my knees beside Amara’s body, clutching her close. A sound broke from me, raw and inhuman, grief turned to ruin. Her blood smeared across my hands, my chest, my mouth.
My vision blurred until I could barely see her face. The tears fell fast, splattering warm against her skin, mingling with the blood at her throat. I pressed my hand there, desperate to stop the flow, and saw it—silver streaks glinting against my fingers, catching the moonlight as they slid down onto her chest.
The shadows stirred around me, whispering, hissing in wonder?—
“True love.
“Only true love awakens silver tears. For a Shadow Lord feels nothing—nothing but the one they love beyond death.”
The whispers pressed closer, curling in my ears like temptation.
