“I love you, kitten. It’s okay. You can let me go.”Sin’s voice is a gentle whisper in my mind.
A faint blue glow appears before me, and I choke on a renewed sob.
There, in front of me, is Sin.
Only I can see the battlefield through him.
He’s a ghost.
His pale blue glow flickers slightly, like it’s struggling to stay whole.
Bile rises in my throat. His soul isn’t whole. He’s broken.
I broke him.
His ghost crouches down, and he cups my cheek, pressing his forehead against mine. I lean into his touch, even though I can’t feel him.
“Don’t blame yourself. If my purpose has only ever been to live long enough to love you, then the Fates have truly blessed me,”he soothes, and I sob harder.
He pulls back, his expression hardening.“You need to keep fighting now, kitten. Fight back, or this will all be for nothing.”
Trembles wrack through my body, as the grief threatens to pull me under.“I can’t – not without you.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right beside you the entire time.”His ghost stands, and even though my legs are shaking, I do the same.
The world around me feels more like a dream as I take in the frozen chaos. Morgana is lying on the edge of the chasm. Her body is propped up against Ragna’s chest as the Beast Realm leader works to patch her wound. Morgana is gasping for air, and tears stream down her face as she stares at Sin’s lifeless body.
A little further down the field, Magnus has an arm wrapped around Damien, and they limp toward us. Damien’s face is smeared with blood, and there’s a wicked-looking gash that extends from his eyebrow to his jaw.
Varian prowls behind them, still in his dragon form, growling at anyone who dares to step closer.
An arm wraps around me, and I turn to see Arianna mirroring my grief. We lean into each other for strength, not saying a word.
“Well, this is quite enough bloodshed,” a calm, and yet no less evil voice says.
I turn to find Need only a few feet away. Leon stands beside her, arms crossed, looking smug.
Her gaze flicks from Sin to somewhere beside us, and her expression is more annoyed than sad. “So much power wasted,” she tuts.
As if on cue, a line of fae soldiers parts, and devastated pink eyes meet mine. Rosie struggles forward, dragging something behind her. Blood is smeared across her face, and more continues to run over her eyes and cheeks.
She looks like she’s bathed in blood. But then, somewhere through dissociated shock, I realize it’s coming from the thing on her head.
It looks like a crown, but it’s so viscerally wrong. It’s made of dark iron, but it’s intertwined with flesh that is still somehow alive. The veins twist around the metal, pulsing as blood continues to flow through them.
My gaze flickers behind her, where Lilanthara and Irena silently follow. Lilanthara is beaming, while Irena still has a vacant expression.
Rosie stumbles a step, and Arianna whimpers, apparating beside her. But Rosie only shakes her head, refusing her help.
She doesn’t stop until she reaches Need, and with a final heave, she tosses whatever she was dragging to the ground for all to see.
It’s a body.
The Fae Queen stares lifelessly up at the sky, and there’s a gaping hole in her chest where her heart once was. Murmurs of ‘the heart crown’ start to rise, and there’s a single thud as every last fae soldier falls to their knees before Rosie.
“What… interesting rituals your people have,” Need notes, her nose wrinkled in obvious distaste as she takes in the blood-coated fairy. “In the interest of preserving what remains of our realms, I would like to call a truce,” she says, now addressing the crowd. “To see so many fall to their death is a tragedy beyond anything our realms have ever seen.”
She pauses her speech to hang her head, looking devastated.
