“I’d been summoned to Felhold to discuss the celebration and talks of unity.”He drew a slow breath.“I fled Daemar’s courtonce I learned of his true plans for the Order. I warned the Lightborn, abandoned the Shadowbloods and went into hiding—because I loved your mother, and I knew Daemar would use that against me. And he did. Eventually, he found me, and he promised he’d spare her if I would help him rid the world of magic. He didn’t know she carried another life within her. And your mother never knew about the deal. I let her believe terrible things to protect her.”
Caramyn’s chest tightened. She’d always believed the same. Always thought her father was a coward who’d left them to fend for themselves. And now he was standing before her in this dream-like state, a High Shadowblood who gave up the last of his power—and his reputation—just to save her.
“At the very moment your mother crossed the witch’s threshold, I stood here before Daemar, raising the Veil and binding its power to the dying life within her womb—unbeknownst to all but me.”
“It made me a traitor to so many, but a savior to you. And when Daemar tried to kill me—as I knew he would once the Veil was formed—I denied him the satisfaction.” His gaze sharpened. “I drove the sword through myself, trapping my soul within it so I could remain on this side of the Veil. So that one day, only when someone worthy of shouldering the darkness alongside you freed me, I could ensure the transfer of the last of my power to you in its fullness, when I knew that you wouldn't have to bear it alone. And when I was sure that you were ready to receive it.”
“What…what does this mean?”
“It means, my child, that you are the first and only Shadowborn, and the sole heir of a power capable of commanding both Light and Shadow. That is why Sinevia seeks your magic. Because none has ever been strong enough to raise an immortal army—until you, Caramyn Shadowborn.”
The weight of it all pressed down on her. “What happens now?” she whispered through a lump in her throat, the pain beneath her ribs becoming more difficult to ignore. “What am I supposed to do? Will you help me learn what I am?”
A sadness touched his smile.
“I cannot. Not from here.”He glanced toward the Veil, its presence humming softly.“The Blade—my anchor to this realm—is broken, as it was always meant to be. The Veil is but a bridge between the living and the dead. I will pass beyond it, to the Realm of Souls, where all of us eventually must find our rest.”He met her gaze one final time.“My purpose here is fulfilled. And now yours has just begun.”
Morveth’s apparition vanished as quickly as it came, leaving each word to echo in her mind as she fought to understand it all. And as her father’s voice fell away, and power flooded her, weaving itself through her veins until, for a heartbeat, she felt them, then glimpsed—for a mere fraction of a moment—the shadowed tips of wings unfolding from her back.
All at once, the world crashed back into her.
The snow and cold air bit into her skin. The smoke-filled air burned her lungs. Wild amber flames consumed the edge of the glade, roaring through the branches as they burned through the forest. Asterious—his terrified eyes on hers, looking down at her, holding her in his arms.
And then the pain hit. White-hot and nauseating, radiating from her abdomen in violent waves. She looked down, breath hitching, and saw the dark ruby stain soaked through her clothes. Her shaking hand, when she pressed it to her stomach, came away slick and red. Too much blood. Far too much.
And then she remembered, all at once, in brutal fragments—the way Sinevia had charged toward her just as she’d lifted the Shadowblood sword. The way she’d plunged that cold dagger into Caramyn’s body just as she brought down the Blade onto her. And the way she’d vanished when it shattered into pieces at her touch.
And now she lay here, bleeding out beneath a burning smog overtaking her Woods, her body slack across the Blackwynd Prince’s lap as he pleaded with her not to die.
But his voice was somewhere she could not answer. And she was already drifting away from the sound of him, falling into the void of the Veil, where darkness and light waited as one.
62
Two Favors in One
Asterious
As his senses flooded back, the visions in his mind slipped away like ghosts, leaving him to face a reality just as horrifying—a burning forest, a broken blade, and his mate lifeless on the snow, an ominous tear forming in the Veil before them.
Nothing mattered. Not the smoke stinging his nostrils with each inhale of the smog and cinders. Not the wildfire, not the bloodied melting snow, not the blackened trees that seemed to bow to their dying queen. Nothing mattered but her.
If she was gone, let him die with her. Let him be damned to be a prowling mindless beast for all eternity. It would be far more merciful than a lifetime spent without his mate.
Sinevia had taken her from him and left him here to watch her fade. And with her had vanished a shard of the Blade—a sign that she was not defeated, but gone by choice with a relic she’d no doubt taken for dark purposes far more sinister than he could imagine.
He dropped to his knees and gathered her into his arms. There was no gasp of breath, no hint of life to be found in her limp body, and even as hellfire illuminated the forest around them, the entire world fell dark to Asterious.
“No,” he whispered, a lump burning in his throat. “Cara, please...”
She clung to him with a feeble touch. Those dusky violet eyes fluttered shut over an emotion he could not decipher beyond pain and fear. His chest hollowed as he held her, watching a thin line of blood trickle from her mouth.
“No!”
Shadows snaked around them like vipers ready to strike, hissing and wailing their mournful song. As her life flickered, so did the cracks forming in the Veil, as though her fading soul was splitting it open. And now as it rippled with the weakening of her heartbeats, the arms of the Veil reached out, Shadows surrounding her like a mantle, coming for her, as if clawing at some desperate attempt to save itself by reclaiming her.
“You can’t take her!” His desperate shouts turned to cries, through blinding tears that he could not swallow back. “You can’t take her! You can’t! You can’t…”
He buried his face into her neck, nestling into her hair as though he could revive her with the anguish in his cries. And there he felt the faintest slip of breath graze his ear.
