My lungs filled with the sweetest air, infused with winter berries and all that was her. My chest thrummed with an undeniable warmth, one carrying infinite acceptance.
Home.
Life surged open inside me, unbound and hopeful, healing the wound on my collarbone.
I was undone by the magnitude of it.
That she was mine, and I was hers.
Absolute.
Eternal.
For all the days I breathed, and every silence after.
Her beautiful energy poured into me, her Infernus and Glory threading through my shadows in a locking caress. Any drain I’d felt vanished. She remade me.
Our pain softened, reduced to a whisper as it was shared between us.
Then I sank to my knees, gasping as my chest split open.
Lucille
The stunned confusion on my father’s face was priceless. She didn’tknow whether to be joyous or furious as blood pooled from my chest, saturating the ground.
This was how she would’ve opened the gates.
But with the Unmaking Rune, I controlled the intention of the blade.
I could become Queen of Hell.
But that wouldn’t release Aspen.
Nor would it open the gates.
My birth had unbalanced this world. There was only one way to set it right.
As the power of the land transferred to me in glowing light, my father frowned. He lifted his hands to his face, and they slowly dissolved to ash. Then his arms, legs, and torso.
The last to dissolve were his eyes.
But I swore, before they whisked away on a rotten breeze, I saw pride.
And I knew I’d see my father again.
I slumped back against the ground, pain a living, breathing thing inside every inch of me.
Aspen raged nearby, and he wasn’t alone.
In the distance, I heard another.
Darkness bled into the sky, his shadows on a vengeful hunt.
He was coming for me.
Aspen slammed to his knees beside me, and the rest of my squad circled us as a flaming dome erupted overhead.
“Lucy?” he begged, his eyes darted from my face, to my white hair, to the dagger sticking out of my chest. “We need to get you to Sam.”
