Kael gave a single nod.
Alarik returned it.
They were not allies.
Not friends.
But they had the same reason to fight now.
The same woman to protect.
The same war to win.
Alarik turned his gaze back toward Maris, still standing like a flame that refused to bow to the wind. The bone crown gleamed at her brow. The sword of gods strapped to her back.
He stepped toward her, not too close. But close enough for his voice to reach her ears.
Soft. Sure.
“I failed Elenwe,” he said. “But I won’t fail you.”
Maris turned to look at him.
And for a moment, he saw it in her eyes that same grief, that same terror, but layered beneath it was something else.
Belief.
And that, more than anything, might just save them.
Chapter seventy-one
When the Gods Fell
-Maris-
Only a minute had passed.
But it stretched like an eternity across the battlefield, raw and gaping in the silence that followed Eiren’s cruelty.
Astrielle’s face.
Elenwe’s emptiness.
Thauren’s tears.
Kael’s rage.
Alarik’s burning grief.
And Eiren,
Smiling.
Like this was entertainment.
Likeshe’d already won.
Maris’s hand curled into a fist at her side. Her breath was slow. Measured. Controlled only by will, because if she let go, if she unleashed what clawed at her ribs, this entire valley would crack in two.
