Page 114 of Death Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Eve saw it. She moved again, stepping between Tegan and Dagna, hellfire flaring. “Try it.”

Dagna’s smile never faltered. “You can’t burn everything, Eve.”

Eve’s eyes narrowed. “Watch me.”

Drathar laughed, and the sound rolled through the cave like a curse. He lifted his hand again, and more shells surged forward, crowding the entrance.

For a moment, everything became simultaneous.

Faith firing and swearing and grinning like she lived for this.

Nishi barking orders, blade flashing, her hunters holding the line outside.

Aurora lunging and ripping and shifting back and forth between human and wolf in quick blurs.

Greyson straining to keep our escape open.

Eve burning what she could while protecting Tegan with her body.

Dagna casting and casting, trying to disrupt Tegan’s grip on the relic.

Drathar pulling threads, driving spirits into shells like he was stuffing rage into meat.

And me, stuck in the middle, feeling useless as my necromancy slid off the dead like oil.

Tegan’s voice cut through it, intense and focused. “I can destroy it.”

Dagna’s eyes flashed. “No you can’t.”

Tegan’s mouth tightened. “Yes. I can.”

The relic pulsed hard, almost desperate. The gold veins lit bright, and for half a heartbeat it felt like the thing was begging Tegan not to do it.

Tegan’s expression stayed cold. “You shouldn’t have activated it.”

She lowered the relic to the cave floor, set it inside the salt circle she’d scraped into the dirt with her boot, then placed both palms on either side.

Her magic rose.

Not loud, not showy. Dense. Grounded. Like stone deciding to move.

The symbols on the relic flared and spun. The air thickened. The cave walls hummed with pressure.

Dagna hissed something under her breath and threw a spell straight at Tegan’s hands.

Eve intercepted it with hellfire, burning the spell out of the air like it was paper.

Dagna’s smile finally cracked. “You stubborn witch.”

Tegan’s eyes stayed on the relic. “Thank you.”

She pushed.

The relic resisted.

I felt it in my ribs, a tension that tugged at the egg bond and made my lungs tighten. The baby reacted, a pulse of fear and heat. My vision wavered.

Then the relic’s pulse stuttered.