The hem of Fraleigh’s robes whispered along the floor. Her cerulean aura was gone and her features had softened. She looked exactly like the teenager I had seen in her memories.
The air shifted as she approached, getting heavier and heavier around my shoulders. The bargain in my blood sang.
He had accepted.
I swallowed, the muscles in my neck pulsing without the weight of the collar. The bargain dissipated out of my skin, satisfied.
A life for a life given in love.
Derrick’s hands disappeared under the curtain of Fraleigh’s black hair.
“Ipse Dixit,” he murmured. Fraleigh gasped as the collar released. “It means, ‘it is what I say it is…’”
He stood in front of me, the ring of gold open toward me like gilded jaws ready to clamp down on my neck.
“…and I say it is over.”
Snap.
My heart froze. I could not breathe. Derrick held the two broken pieces of the golden collar in his hands for just a moment before throwing them to the floor with a clatter.
Twelve generations of power was now in pieces at my feet.
Derrick’s entire body shook. I was frozen in place as my eyes darted from the broken collar to Fraleigh. Her hands rubbed her bare neck as her eyes watered.
Derrick’s hand shakily unclasped his steel breastplate as I stood speechless. My bargain was satisfied, but how? The collar did not go on. I was supposed to sacrifice my life for Riyan’s—that was the deal.
Derrick’s armor clattered to the floor along with his cape. He lifted his face and his beautiful blue eyes stole the breath from my lungs. A ghost of a smile traced his lips. The door between his eyes opened and three notes from a harp sang softly in my mind.
Midnight was always there for me, he had said. He kept me safe from Alastar.
My Derrick was back.
Fire sparked in my feet as I raced for him. I crashed into his chest, throwing my arms around his shaking body.
White light passed from my skin into his. My magic warmed his muscles until it banished the bruises forming under his skin. My thread of infinity wrapped around each of his fractured ribs and pulled them back together.
His body was healed, but I still soared across the magical tether into his mind and found Midnight himself standing amongst the smoldering ruins of a paper castle. He was covered in blood and his shining eyes flicked down Alastar’s corpse—torn in half down the middle.
His love was pure enough to finally slay Alastar.
“It is over,” Midnight said with a shaking laugh. “It is over.”
“It is over,” I heard against my hair.
I pulled out of Derrick’s mind and looked up at his colorless face. Slowly, Derrick dropped to his knees.
His eyes glistened as he looked up at me. “They need power. I have none anymore. None.” His trembling hands rose to his head. “And since there is no one alive more powerful than you, Serafina Helia…”
He lifted the crown of Lycaster from his brow and presented it to me.
My hands floated forward and took the crown from his hands. The crown of Lycaster was mine. After all this time…it wasmine.
I could not believe it. I had the power of my magic, Riyan at my side, and the entire Dukedom at my disposal.
I had everything I ever wanted.
But the crown was cold against my fingertips. No power emanated from it. No promises of glory came from its spiked peaks.
