Outside the throne room, the sounds of battle faltered.
Then stopped.
The silence was louder than any scream.
Aeron's body sprawled before the Hollow Throne, empty. No magic. No presence. Just meat that had been used and discarded, a shell the Devourer had worn like a coat and now abandoned. Not a single breath of air escaped his lungs.
The throne itself sat dark and inert. No pulse. No hunger. It was no longer a cursed object, just a simple seat.
I swayed.
The throne room tilted. I began to fall over in the pool of my own blood. I closed my eyes accepting the cost that I would now have to pay.
Arms caught me.
Daemon.
"I've got you." His voice cracked. "I've got you, Seris."
His labored body was struggling to hold us up. He sat down, still holding me in his arms.
I tried to answer. Tried to tell him we'd won, that it was over, that the curse would finally end now that its source had been banished.
But my tongue wouldn't work. My vision grayed. The pain I'd pushed aside returned. My missing hand, the blood loss, the absolute exhaustion of channeling power that should have killed me was a debt that I would now have to pay.
"Stay with me." His shadows wrapped around the wound. Not to hurt. Toheal.They moved with intention I'd never seen before. They were gentle and precise, sealing torn vessels and shattered bone. "Don't you dare leave me now."
Zephyr took a knee next to Daemon and started working, trying to heal me from otherworldly injuries.
Behind him, Zephyr and Kane stood silent. No more enemies to fight. No more battle to win. Just the aftermath.
Lyralei had been right. The choice had always been mine.
Build or burn.
I'd chosen both. Burned away what needed to end. Built toward something that might survive.
My mother would have been proud. Or horrified. Possibly both.
The thought made me want to laugh, but I couldn't find the strength.
Daemon's face blurred. His voice became distant, words losing meaning even as I felt the desperate love in them.
Darkness rose like tide.
This time, I didn't fight it. I let it pull me under, trusting that if I was meant to wake up, I would.
That we’d finally be free.
The last thing I felt was Daemon's heartbeat against my cheek. Still beating. Still alive.
Then nothing.
CHAPTER 30
SERIS
Darkness greeted me first when I awoke, my eyelids too heavy to lift.
