Beside me, she shifted, her back straight, eyes wide, and breath caught in her throat. Alastor’s steady words faltered when he noticed.
“I have an idea,” she said. The words tumbled from her mouth, a spark of the wildfire I loved, surfacing.
Alastor tilted his head, his shadows gliding across the water.
She brushed a loose strand of her hair back but dropped her hand before she reached the jagged end. “We keep waiting for her to attack. Keep preparing for when she says it’s time.” Her mouth curved. Not exactly a smile, but something fiercer, more feral. “What if we stop waiting? What if we draw her out? Make her fight on our terms.”
Alastor’s gaze flicked between us. “Where do you intend on leading her?”
“The astral realm,” she said without hesitation. “Eiran wants her back, but not on her terms. On his. He can summon her, and we’ll already be there waiting.”
The weight of her confidence wrapped around me. Steady and inevitable.
“We need her to bring the orb with her.” Alastor brought up his hand and tapped his fingertips on his chin. “It must be destroyed.”
“The orb kills whoever destroys it,” I said quietly, remembering my first interaction with Alastor. How pale and weak he’d been after Leanora had almost bled his magic dry.
“There’s a volcano in Vistos,” he said, his voice slipping into that smooth, unnerving calm he wore like armor. “If we drop it in there, it should destroy it without killing us.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Should?”
His grin was sharp and wicked and far too pleased for someone talking about a possibly fatal plan. “We’ll know if it works.”
From the way Finley’s pulse thumped through our bond, burning bright and unshakable, I knew she wasn’t afraid. She was claiming.
She was done running from what she was. As she’d told me earlier, she was taking her magic back and not letting it take from her.
I believed her then. And sitting here with that wildfire buzzing between us, I believed her even more.
She wasn’t simply ready for this fight. She was the fight.
Chapter
Forty-One
FINLEY
Eiran’snext pull hit harder, sudden and unforgiving. But this time, we didn’t let him take anything from us.
My magic strained against Brenton’s, but our threads held. Flexing but never snapping.
Alastor’s voice guided us, each inhale dragging control back in, each exhale stitching us tighter together.
When the last pull loosened, I opened my eyes. Eiran’s were already on me. He didn’t speak, but he knew. He always knew.
At first, his ability to read my mind felt like a violation. But somewhere between our training and talks, I’d come to see him for who he was and respect him.
He was still a god. Still an enigma wrapped in shadows, but maybe he could also be something like a father. Not like the one who raised me, but one who actually saw me. In the short time I’d known him, he’d already proven to be more attentive.
“I want to talk to you,” I told him.
Already expecting my words, he simply inclined his head in a subtle invitation.
“I have a plan,” I said, excited nerves building inside me. But it was a good plan. One that could actually work. One that had towork. “You said you wanted Zaicha back here, but on your terms. What if those terms were also ours?” My voice held stronger with each word. “Summon her with Brenton and me waiting. With you there, we can defeat her.”
Something that looked like pain crossed his features. “She is my daughter.” His words fell heavy in my chest. “I will summon her as you ask. I can help you subdue her, but I will not harm her. And I will not permit you to harm her.”
“Finley is also under your protection,” Brenton said, a statement of fact and not a question.
