A single wave of his hand sent a ripple through the air. The realm bent to him, and Leanora and Zaicha disappeared, swallowed by light and shadow, and carried to a far corner of the astral realm untouched by this unraveling.
Then he was in front of me, his hands closed over mine. His touch was cold and unbearably gentle. My magic still burned at my palms, the force of it rattling through the dying realm.
For a heartbeat, the realm quieted. The space where their presence pressed against mine emptied, and with it the understanding I hadn’t let myself name.
I wasn’t ending this battle. He was staying behind to guard what I would’ve destroyed.
“You can let go, Finley,” he said. “I will finish it.”
Tears spilled hot against my cheeks.
My magic resisted. Not violently but desperately.
“I will rebuild,” he said. “And when I do, I will come back for you.”
The words should’ve comforted me. Instead, they landed like distance measured in lifetimes.
“Not as a god but as the father you always deserved. Until then, the world will be safe from them.”
The crossing screeched as its structures folded. Skies collapsed. Starlight burned away. But beyond this fracture, I still sensed the vast expanse of the astral realm, still intact.
He turned to Alastor, and his shadows twisted through the air until a small glowing sphere appeared. The Orb of Sacrifice. “Take it,” Eiran whispered amid the destruction. “Ask the living book how to free Blaise. Free them all.”
Alastor took the orb and cradled it to his chest. “I swear it.”
Chasms widened, the heart of the crossing imploding.
Brenton’s arms came around me as the last of Eiran’s magic flooded around us, cocooning us in darkness.
Eiran’s final whisper brushed against my mind.“Live, Finley. That is all I ask.”
“I’m sorry . . . Father,”I replied.
But he was gone, and the bond I’d only just allowed myself to feel answered with silence.
The threshold folded in on itself. The last thing I saw was Alastor clutching the orb, tears carving down his face as the light devoured everything.
Chapter
Forty-Five
BRENTON
The crossingof astral realm fell with a hollowing silence.
Magic still heated my palms and beneath my skin as an echo of what we’d done. What we’d destroyed. The air in Respandora tasted too clean after the smoke and ruin. Finley trembled against me, her thoughts a storm that bled through our bond. Relief. Disbelief. Sorrow. All tangled in one furious pulse.
We won. But it didn’t feel like a victory.
But something in the air had shifted. I felt it as soon as we were back in our realm. For the first time in a year, the magic that lived beneath my skin, the vibration of fae magic, felt steady. Not frayed or gasping. I lifted my hand and let my smoke magic rise. It came obediently, without hesitation or a sense of urgency. It curled through my fingers. No flicker. No fight. Just the calm, steady pulse it had always been.
Finley felt it too. She let out a small, startled sound. Threads of her magic brushed against mine through the bond. Stronger than before. Whole. We both knew what it meant, and some of the tension that had lived within our bond eased. Zaicha’s pull on the orb was truly gone.
Fae magic had finally returned home.
But Eiran was gone. The god whose magic lived inside her. The one who’d left her as a youngling to fend for herself. Who, when it’d mattered most, finally trained her, tested her, and taught her how to become her magic. He’d met the destruction in his realm by his own choice. And just as he’d promised, he’d rebuild. He’d find his way back to her again.
I hoped wherever he was in the other corners of the astral realm, he could still watch over her.
