A cold breeze punched through the hazy air, thick with dragon smoke now. I knew what was coming this time. He pulled Garrick and me into that pocket realm, the bit of darkness where our consciousness manifested our bodies but our physical forms remained behind.
I did not care what version of me this was. I launched myself into his arms.
“Syleris!”
I wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed against his chest. Garrick was there, right behind me. He gripped Syleris’ forearm, resting his head atop mine as my bondeds exchanged a hasty kiss.
“We have only seconds,” Syleris said. He pulled back enough to get a view of my face.
“Koryn, you are now the head witch of the Midnight Coven,” he said. The weight I’d felt between my shoulders settled even deeper. I’d known. Hoped it wasn’t true. But that power that left Maura… it was now in me.
Syleris lifted his gaze up to Garrick. “I am sorry I could not save your sister from her fate. Koryn will need every possible ally.”
“Dragons—all of this has been about fighting the dragons,” I interrupted. “Auri—she said that the reason Garrick and I were taken from the gate was Isanara. I thought it was because she made me powerful. But it was because she is a dragon. The talismans were not protection from the fae; they were protection from the dragons.”
Syleris nodded but added more. “Not just the dragons. But the gods.”
My stomach flipped. “You are a god.”
“I amyourgod.” He looked at both of us as he said it. “I belong to you. But the others… they will sacrifice every living thing on Velora in their battle with the dragons, just for the chance to reign over the ashes.”
Gods… dragons… I had not been thinking on this scale. I’d been sick with worry over Maura and the fae king, when the real enemies… I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
Syleris cupped my face between his hands. The blue striations in his black eyes pulsed and gleamed. How many of these tiny details were Garrick and I the first to know? Would this be the last time we would see them? Is that what he was trying to tell us?
I covered his hands with mine in a grip stronger than I’d ever commanded before.
Syleris did not flinch. “Your power never faded, Koryn, because I did not want it to. You are bound to me because you are different from all others. I created the witches to be the saviors of Velora, but they were poisoned by the power I gifted them. Everyone except you.”
“Me.” I shook my head. It was too much. To think, to believe, to shoulder.
“I have no right to ask it of you. I know that. But Velora needs you, Koryn.” The Dark God shuddered. His entire body—strong,resolute, unflappable—shook with the weight of emotion as he confessed. “I never expected to love you. Either of you.”
My heart surged within my chest as the three of us crashed together.
For one exquisite moment, I was lost in their embrace. Syleris’ mouth was on mine, and Garrick held our three joined hands tightly against my chest. I was safe here, with the men I loved. But then that moment ended.
Syleris eased himself away. His last words were for Garrick.
“Protect her,” he commanded.
“Always.”
The darkness whipped us away and deposited us back in the hellscape of Velora after the curse. In the seconds we’d been away, our bodies remained unscathed. Isanara’s twitching tail told me she’d stood guard over us, even though she still refused to speak to me.
But another figure had appeared.
He stood atop a pile of discarded debris, looming over the crowd trapped in the valley. There were only so many ways through the mountains, and there were just too many of them to all make their way out at once. All around us, sections of the tree line burned, further hemming the crowd in.
The King of the Fae looked over the heads of the humans and fae running for their lives, and smiled. Margeaux stood at his side.
He lifted a single hand.
“Listen!” He could not compel them all… but with his magic freshly infused by the lifting of the curse, he managed to halt the two dozen bodies nearest him in an instant. It was enough to send a ripple through the crowd. They did stop, and they did listen.
“It is she! The wicked witch of Velora! She is the one who destroyed the talismans I created—the ones that would havekept the dragons away forever! It is she who lifted the curse and brought them back!”
Me. The hand he’d lifted was now pointing at me.
