“Do as she says, Wilder.” Kosac’s tone is a death knell. “Leave. This is your last warning. I’m out of patience.”
“Fuck you,” Wilder shouts, but Kosac only stares.
I cry harder. “You have to go.Please.”
“I won’t leave you.”
My heart splits wide open, but I shake my head. “You must. Let me figure this out from here. I swear, I won’t give up. I’ll find a way back to you.”
He searches my face, and I let him see everything I feel: my love, my regret, my determination.
Then I make myself release his hand, even though it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
It’sagony to keep treading water, yet I can’t stop. The thought of abandoning Leigh in this shadowed world hollows me out until the cold surrounding me is just an afterthought.
“Please don’t do this,” I manage through chattering teeth.
Leigh’s voice trembles. “Wilder, it has to be this way. For now.”
“No.” I swallow water in my reply. This is no time to be altruistic. “Without you, there is nothing for me back there.”
“If you stay, Mictlan will take both of us. I need you to live. Live for me. Go back to our friends, tell our families what happened. Return to your life, live, until I come back to you.”
“I can’t do life without you. I won’t,” I whisper, dripping with desperation.
“Listen to her, Wilder,” Kosac growls, his shadow threateningly large at the water’s edge.
“You should go. I’ll stay…” I say to Leigh, ignoring Kosac. He shouldn’t get a say in our future. “I’ll trade my soul for yours.”
“No.” Leigh chokes on a sob. “If you offer up your soul, I’ll turn around and do the same for you. We’ll trade eternity back and forth, forever lost. That isn’t love. That’s torment.”
She’s right; I can’t throw myself away if I ever want to be with her. Then it hits me—a memory, sudden and blinding: Leigh toldme she bargained with the gods for Aradia’s life by linking their souls.
What if I try that very thing now? She risked the wrath of the gods for her friend. How can I do any less for her? There’s a chance the gods will ignore me, but I have to try. I’m not royal. I’m not anyone special. Still, my heart refuses to give up. Leigh made me a promise. Our love must mean something.
With the last of my strength, I lift my face to the storm-dark sky and shout, “If you can hear me, I’m no prince, no god—maybe no one at all. But Leigh is. You chose her bloodline to rule. If she matters to you, then bind our souls as one. Let us share our fate. Let my strength be hers. Let us return to life. Entwine us together until the very end. And when our time comes, let us go into the light side by side.”
Silence follows, deep and chasm-like. For a moment, all I hear are our splashes and Leigh’s breath. The emptiness presses in. Was that all? Just a hopeless plea flung into the shadowed void.
Then the current shifts as the wind picks up. Warmth blooms beneath us, golden light spiraling up through the icy water. My skin tingles all over, no longer from the frigid air.
Thunder crashes overhead as lightning skips across the sky. The water glimmers faintly with more light—something impossibly alive, impossibly kind, is moving through it now.
Kosac screams on the shore. The Dullahans’ horses whinny.
“No. Stop?—”
Lightning cuts off Kosac’s words. The warmth from before seeps into me, filling every part of me, entwining with my very essence. I feel Leigh differently now. Not just her hand in mine, but her soul weaving through me, a connection deeper than flesh or bone. It’s like a summer breeze whispering inside me, foreign yet intoxicating. It’s as if her soul is filling every empty part of me, as if she were always meant to be here. The suffocating gripof Mictlan fades. The sky brightens gradually, and for a moment, I’m filled with awe.
“It’s over,” a resonating voice says. I look up at the sky and blink repeatedly. Aradia’s spirit is there, surrounded by bright, white light. “Leigh and Wilder may return home; the gods have made their decision. They’ve answered Wilder’s call. As our chosen queen, Leigh will go back to her kingdom, where she will rule with Wilder by her side until the day comes when they both will return to Heaven. So long as nothing happens to Wilder, Leigh will live a long and fruitful life.”
Kosac’s voice comes through, hollow and defeated. “But he is merely a mortal.”
Aradia remains silent. Turning to Leigh, she says, “Your souls are now joined. Unless you turn away from the light, Mictlan will claim neither of you ever again.”
I inhale a shuddering breath. “Leigh, we did it.”
Leigh stares at me, stunned. Then joy explodes across her face. “It’s over.”
