Page 203 of The Gods Order

“No…”

White mist begins to drift from his body and my heart stops.

“No.”

My fingers claw desperately into his feathers as though I can anchor him here through sheer will alone. It’s not working. I feel him fading.

“V!”

The vapor slips through my hands.

“No. Please.” A scream rips free so violently my throat burns. “I wasn’t done.”

The white grows brighter yet, his outline softer, smaller, until I can’t tell where feathers end and light begins.

Another sob tears through my chest.

“I still need you.”

The warmth inside my heart answers. Not with words.

With him. With every lesson.

Every impossible task he convinced me I could survive.

Every quiet moment where he simply stayed or showed up exactly when I needed him to. Every teasing argument shared between him and Seismet.

His light, the light of his body, soul…he drifts toward the sky. My shaking gaze falls to my empty hands.

Blood.

Feathers.

They cling to my fingers.

Creation needs breathing room.

The words don’t echo through my mind.

They settle into my soul and fresh sobs wrack my body.

“I hate this,” I whisper. “I hate this so much.”

My shoulders shake harder and a gut-wrenching cry leaves me.

“But I love you more.”

I close my bloodstained hands around the feathers and my power answers before I even call for it. Warmth spills from my chest, flooding down my arms until brilliant goldish yellow gathers between my trembling palms.

It doesn’t vibrate. It pulses. Like a heartbeat.

Once. Twice. Again.

The light swells, stretching into something too bright to look at, and everything around me falls quiet. The hum from the hot spring buzzes low, the cries surrounding me stop, and the neighs from the Veilataras turn to gentle purrs.

Then it all fades away.

My tears continue to spill freely as I cradle the light against my chest.