Such a heavy thing, death. Weighted with sorrow and tragedy, with love and relief.
My vision goes dark as it strains my bones—shreds through my nerves, through my skin, and billows out from me like a black cloud. And wherever it lands, the Strayed fall.
Clenching my jaw so hard my teeth clack, I force my feet to keep moving through the pain. My throat is on fire as my power streams from me in deadly waves, my muscles locking, threatening to seize. But I keep moving. It’s a familiar agony, one that’s followed me every moment of the day since I shoved a hook through the Aeternalis’ heart. Since I sliced it through his stomach and watched his blood splash over my feet. Watched as every bit of life left the eyes of the man I loved so deeply, the man who stole my innocence and twisted it for his own pleasures.
Strayed fall dead around me, their corpses rotted to the point of unrecognition. An outward manifestation of what exists in their souls and mine.
I blink wildly, attempting to focus enough to find Sam through the chaos. Black creeps in from every side of my vision, and I claw my way through it toward where I feel waves of soothing relief radiating a few feet to the left. I hold onto the familiar feeling of my friend, allowing it to draw me to him, beckoning a peace I’ll never be lucky enough to feel more than temporarily.
By the time I reach Sam, each breath feels as though my lungs are laced with nails, and I’m swaying wildly on my feet. The Silva Lucai open rank around me, and I nearly weep in gratitude as I stumble behind their shields. I thread my power back toward me, if only for a moment, to keep from being consumed entirely. From losing myself so fully to the feel of death, I no longer remember what it is to live.
Curling forward, I brace my hands on my knees and attempt to gulp down enough oxygen to soothe the ice burning in my veins. Swallowing down the bile filling my mouth, as my deathslithers over my skin, flays open my flesh, leaving me open and raw. Flaming arrows fly over our heads. Some find their mark in the trunk of the Nyawa, silvery sap streaming from the wounds in the bark like blood.
I stagger through the warriors to where Sam and Tiernan have found Adira.
Tiernan glances at me quickly, his alarm at my sallow appearance clear, but he makes no comment. Sam has eyes only for the princess. She stands behind a line of her warriors, mud and gore alike splattered over her face, her usual bare skin wrapped in leather armor similar to mine. Her spine is unnaturally straight, her eyes churning like a terrifying squall over the sea. She doesn’t look at Sam, nor me wheezing beside him.
As I follow Adira’s line of vision, horror twines low in my stomach.
The Princess of the Wilds is using her power.
Though she stands beside us, she is behind enemy lines. Climbing into the heads of the Strayed, miring herself in the swamp of their madness. Churning their thoughts until they only belong to her.
A facet of her power I’ve only ever seen her use once before. Centuries ago, when Pan threatened this very same tree in a fit of jealousy over Adira’s territory. She’s never told me, even years later, what the cost had been—the cost of breaking another’s mind so thoroughly, it can never be repaired. I only know it was so great, Adira didn't speak to anyone for months after the incident.
That she’s using it now means things are just as desperate as they feel.
Sam must realize it, too. He places his hands on either side of Adira’s face, the only skin on her body left bare by her armor. I’ve not seen Sam touch her in over fifty years, since the schismborne of hurt and love gaped opened between them. His fingers caress her cheek, turning her away from where she watches a Strayed writhe on the ground, tugging ruthlessly at their hair.
Anyone else would balk beneath the weight of Adira’s otherworldly stare, but Sam only meets it calmly, soothing his hands over her cheeks. He doesn’t shy away from her fearsome power, though she could fracture his mind with hardly a thought.
“Come back to me,” he whispers, just loud enough to be heard over the din of battle. Adira doesn’t respond as another Strayed drops to his knees, blood welling beneath his nails as he claws at his own eyes. The Strayed’s ability to feel pain drained away along with the magic the Aeternalis stole, but the screams that come from the ones affected by Adira shred through the air, like somehow, she’s reawakened their agony.
“Niko and I are here,” Sam says. “You don’t have to bury yourself in the horror alone.”
His fingers move over her cheek and jaw, in gentle, deliberate stokes. “You don’t carry the weight alone anymore. I’m here.We’rehere.”
Time moves painstakingly slow, as the battle rages around us. A Strayed gored by a Silva Lucai spear rises, only to begin screaming once more, clutching at their head like they can dislodge the madness Adira has planted there. Fire rages through the canopy, as more and more of the bridges that connect the Grove Dwellers come crashing to the ground. My own skull pounds, and my mouth goes dry as the rot of death floods my veins.
“Come back to me, Addy.” Sam’s words are barely audible, but something in them—the acceptance, the love, the worry—causes Adira’s gaze to finally snap to his. Her irises rage and churn, a cataclysm of unearthly origins. One that recognizes no humanity: no love, no friendship, no tenderness. Only power.
“Addy,” he pleads softly. A terrifying moment passes, and I ready myself to jump between them. To keep her from planting insanity inside Sam. But then, Adira blinks. Once. Then again.
The storm in her eyes clears, the raging power dissipating like it was never there, and she collapses against Sam’s chest. He tucks her against him, wrapping her small body in his arms. And Adira allows it—a moment to be still, to be loved despite the horrible magnitude of her magic. Her fingers clutch at his chest, holding on even as the world burns around them.
I turn away from the tenderness, as bile rises in my throat along with the acidic burn of jealousy. How must it feel to be wanted despite the deepest horrors you contain? To be loved no matter the circumstance, with no requirement or expectation? With no limit?
My death spirals from me anew, as I try to swallow down my regret. Willa is the only person in three centuries who saw into the rotted chasm my magic has carved through my heart without faltering. The only person who saw what I am, and still allowed me to strip her of her armor, piece by piece, until she was entirely bared before me.
And instead of reveling in it, I’d wielded what I found in her as a weapon; sliced her open with her own securities and left her to bleed out alone.
I can’t even regret it. Not when I’ve seen what this battlefield looks like; not when my brother is lurking at the edges, directing each piece like a game of chess. Because as horrific as this is, it isn’t Dawson’s final move. It’s a test of our limits, a strategic push of my long-held boundaries.
He’s determining whether I’ll put Willa at the center of our fight to spare myself the pain.
My big brother has never understood my heart—never understood the things that drive its beat, that shatter it completely. It will be his downfall. I’ll make sure of it.
Adira pulls away from Sam. Dark smudges stain the skin beneath her eyes, and though she appears exhausted and wan as she meets my gaze, I know instinctively the sadness lining her face isn’t for herself. It’s for me—my thoughts, my pain, my sacrifices.
