Color flooded into his sister’s pale cheeks. The air began to stir to a fierce level. It whipped at Elf’s hair, spiraling it into tendrils and plastering her burgundy dress against her lithe body.
“You sought to harm my brother?” she finally spoke.
Her features pale, Vine stumbled back. She glanced at Strixa and then Devyl. “What is this?” Her mouth worked soundlessly before she choked out, “How is this?”
He wasn’t sure, except for one thing.…
“You must have buried Elf’s harthfret instead of Mara’s.” Though how it could regenerate her after all these centuries, he had no idea. He’d never heard of such.
It wasn’t possible.
On furious impulse, he’d reclaimed Elf’s harthfret that day when he’d gone into Mara’s nemeton. Like a frenzied beast, he’d dug through the wood and earth until he found it at the base of the tree where she’d planted it.
For years, he’d tried to regenerate her.
Nothing had ever worked. Never had it taken root, and so he’d set it into a signet ring to keep it forever with him.
So aye, he was with Vine in one way only … how the futtocking hell was this possible?
Vine started to leave, but something held her in place.
Elf’s breathing turned ragged as she stalked toward his ex-wife like a vicious predator with cornered prey. “You do not escape here. You do not escape me.” Her voice was no longer the sweet lilt he’d known from his younger sister. It was demonic and fierce. “You wanted war?” Elf blasted her. “By all means, have some!”
Vine screamed as fire consumed her. Holding her hands up, she tried to save herself, but it was useless. The fire spread quick and fast, and engulfed her entirely.
Then Elf turned to him.
Devyl braced himself for her attack, especially when she came running toward him, full speed. But instead of attacking, she threw herself into his arms and held him close, as she’d done when they were young.
“I should have listened to you!” She sobbed in his arms.
Dumbfounded, he held her in an awkward embrace, still not completely convinced this was his sister. It was just the sort of cruel trick Vine specialized in.
Among many others.
Not until Strixa moved closer to them and reached out to touch his arm in a comforting gesture of solidarity did he begin to have some belief that this might not be a massively cruel jape. “Mara stole the harthfret from you. She was working to see if there was some way she could bring your sister back. While I may not think much of you, demonspawn, the Lady Marcelina loves you.”
“This is real then?” His voice trembled.
Strixa nodded. “It would never have worked had Vine not planted Elyzabel here, where Tyr’s blood saturated the fields, and had your sister not died unjustly before her time.”
“Because Tyr’s a god of justice.”
She nodded. “And is part of your family. His blood is her blood. It rejuvenated her. Yet even so, it wouldn’t have been enough had Nibo not come here with his magick.”
Because regenerating the dead was one of his specialties.
And that gave him another thought. “Where’s Mara’s stone?”
Strixa tsked at him and lifted the hand he had on Elf’s shoulder. “She left her heart with you.”
It took him a second to realize that Mara had swapped her stone with Elf’s in his ring. He’d worn the ring for so long, but because it reminded him of his failings, he seldom looked at it.
Until now.
Now he let the warmth of Mara’s life force heat his entire body.
“Elf?” he breathed, kissing the top of her head. “There’s something I must do.”
