As the light leaves Dante’s eyes and his head lolls to the side, I swallow.
I thought I’d feel triumphant, but all I feel is numb. Justus must sense that I’m about to collapse, because his arms come around me, and he crushes me into a hard embrace. “It’s over.”
“Bronwen’s dead, Nonno.”
“I know.”
“And so is Gabriele.”
“I know, but so is Dante, child.”
“One doesn’t equal out the other.”
“No. No life ever replaces another.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “But such is war. May you never live through another. Now go wake your—” He sucks in such a deep breath that I pick my head off his chest, worried he’s about to keel over. Though his eyes are wide, they shimmer like the carved walls surrounding us. “Santo Caldrone.”
I turn and follow his line of sight. There, beside the upturned Lucin throne, lays a body curled in on itself. Folds of glimmering silk spill over the slender form like a wave at sunset.
“It worked,” Justus whispers.
The woman stirs.
Meriam.
She slides her arms beneath her. Where one gives out, the other holds. She props herself up on it, her body trembling, her long hair swishing. And then she twists her head and fastens her bright pink eyes on us.
“Fallon.” My name comes out as a raucous murmur. “Justus.” Her throat bobs with a swallow.
He unhooks his arm from around my waist and takes a step in her direction, but stops to make sure I’m steady on my feet.
I smile and say, “I’m all right,” even though I feel all wrong.
Hopefully, waking my mate, feeling his heartbeats against my cheek and his breath in my hair will make the lie I spoke to reassure my grandfather true.
I limp toward Lore’s giant steel body and study his abdomen until I spot an indent that shouldn’t exist. My hands are covered in so much blood that I wipe them against the wall of ice. It judders beneath my fingertips. I think it may be because my arms are shaking, but then the ice underfoot also trembles. Another avalanche?
Once my hands are clean, I grip Lore’s talon and heave myself up, then climb over to where he was hit with another one of those tiny cannonballs. “Nonno, I’m going to need something long and sharp.”
He digs through his pocket. “I recovered this from where you fell.” He produces the fork my father had twisted into a skewer.
He walks it over to me, then returns to Meriam who whispers something to him. I hear Lore’s name but nothing else over the hectic pounding of my heart and the scrape of the fork against metal.
The very second the pellet is out of him, Lore pools into his shadows. He must sense I lay on top of him because he cushions my body, slowly tipping it until I’m back on my feet.
“Fallon,” he rasps, his hands coming up to my face and clutching it as though it was the most precious thing in the world.It is, mo khrà.Youare.
I swallow. “Oh, Lore.”
Before I can tell him of all the horror that went down in the ice cave, his arms lace around me, dragging my body against his so hard that our armor clinks, and then his lips crash into mine. My tears slide around our mouths, slicken our skin, and salt our tongues. Instead of a truth, it pries emotion from my chest. I sob from relief and grief.
I cry so hard that my lips skid off his. He tucks my head beneath his chin and just holds me. Though my eyes are closed, his are wide open.
I know the moment his gaze touches Bronwen’s head, because his heart misses a beat and his lips burrow deeper into my hair around a muted, “Focá.”
He turns us slowly, as though we were dancing instead of standing in an arena littered with corpses. He must come across Gabriele’s head because his Adam’s apple jostles against my temple again.
“Lorcan?”
His body goes stiff at the sound of his name. And then his leathers creak as he pivots us. I pry my lids up and watch as pink meets gold.
