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He cocked his head. “Name?” His voice was gravelly.

“Yes, you must have had a name once. You do realize you were once elves, who loved and cared for others?” She took a step closer. “So what was your name?”

“Not an elf,” he mumbled, but she saw a spark behind his onyx eyes. He was… thinking. At least it seemed he was considering what she said.

Don’t try to see compassion where there is none, love. They are lost to the abyss.

Everything about them would say so but it was still a question lingering in her mind. Mathekis proved that they could reason and think critically. He didn’t run on pure instinct. He remembered being a beautiful elf once; he even knew his previous name.Can you… change them back? They could still fight for us.

He slid his hand along her throat then to her jaw and tilted her chin upward to his. With his eyes locked onto hers he made sure she understood.I told you before, I can’t. I don’t know how. This curse is beyond my control.

But the goddess of wisdom and knowledge said that in order for the curse to be broken, Hel had to live once again, and the key was his heart… maybe there was another meaning behind it. Or maybe the goddess lied so she’d wake him up. She knew who Layala truly was, and Hel said she’d helped him. The goddess who only bore a set of twins, Hel’s mother and Thane’s father, would have had a motive to help him. Maybe Hel was right and there was no turning them back or ending it.

“Now,” he turned to the waiting horde, “Where is Mathekis?”

“I am here, Lord.” The pale ones parted for their other commander. He pushed through the crowd, shoving one of them over, ramming his shoulder into another. When he stood before Hel and Valeen, he bowed his head.

Of all the pale ones, he was the least monstrous in appearance. Although frightening with the black lips and eyes, he spoke with elegance the others lacked. “They are growing restless, Lord. They want to fight.” He looked over at her with curiosity, almost smiling. It wasn’t an expression she thought he was capable of. He had told her once that she would stand beside the Black Mage, and that she had no reason to fear him. If only she’d known then.

“Don’t worry, the battles will soon come,” Hel said.

A pale one from the left blurted out, “Elves will come here? High King wants some more? I want his head.” The deep chuckles and cackles flitting among them made her skin pebble.

“No, not the elves,” Hel said, without the bite she expected. He spoke to him more like a father to a child. “We will be fighting alongside them against a new enemy. One more formidable and ruthless.”

Murmurs and questions slithered across the sea of pale faces, but this news excited them. They didn’t care who they would fight. They just wanted to slake their bloodlust. “What enemy?” Mathekis asked.

Hel tilted his head in the direction of the tower. “Come. We will talk.”

The tower stoodamongst the jungle of red-leafed trees and dark vines sweeping among the trunks like serpents. But unlikea natural wood, there were no birds calling or fluttering from tree to tree. Only the hum of insects disturbed the quiet. The butterflies that once covered the door to the tower were no longer there, but the jasmine still grew untamed and beautiful, the smell of it drifted toward her. Whereas before it had been a mystery to her, now she knew why he’d put it there, even if he’d done it subconsciously. It had been her favorite flower after Katana died, because it was Katana’s favorite. Jasmine was everywhere in and around her home in House of Night and it was everywhere here. And she hadn’t noticed them before but bushes of deep purple lilies so dark they looked black grew at the base of the tower.

“The sword should be inside,” Mathekis said, striding forward to open the door. “I haven’t touched it and none of the others will have either.”

Up the steep winding steps they went. Torches along the walls lit as Hel approached. The door at the top was left wide open and dangling from its hinges. After Hel and Mathekis had disappeared, Thane had angrily jerked on it, nearly ripping it off. The stone table Hel had spent four hundred years lying on made her uncomfortable.

Four hundred years he’d spent in this room waiting for her to wake him. Four hundred years lost in a plane of existence connected to her. Even if he said he didn’t remember feeling awake until her mate bond to Thane was broken, what if he had? What if he’d spent all that time alone trapped in his own mind? Or had they been there together while they waited for her to be reborn? It was strange to contemplate where one’s soul lingered in between lives. As an immortal, she’d never thought about it.

She watched him scoop up the pieces of Lightbringer and carry them to her. “It’s only broken in one place.”

Two pieces, snapped the moment her life fractured into LayalaandValeen. She couldn’t go back to being Layala or evenValeen, the two had come together. This sword represented her elven side, represented the parents who sacrificed their lives for her, and the world that she needed to shield from her past mistakes.

The weight of the jade handle felt good in her palm. She held it to her chest and closed her eyes, vowing silently to restore what her elven father had made, vowing to fulfill the name she had been given. When she opened her eyes again, Hel was staring at her, the harshness in his face softened and his full lips parted. “Miss Layala Lightbringer,” he said and smiled. “I think you will be their savior after all.”

Valeen stoodin front of an old red brick building with boarded-up windows, broken glass, and a rusted flat metal door handle. A few of the other buildings around it looked run down but just down the street was a bakery, a smithy with smoke rolling out of the chimney and elves walking about. Above the door were two old chains dangling from a metal post that once held a sign. The slabs of old weathered wood across the entrance with crooked nails came apart easily when she began tearing at them.

Hel joined in, pulling them off with his bare hands and gently setting the wood aside. He could have snapped his fingers, and it would all fall away but there was something reverent about hard work, and this place deserved that.

Her father’s old forge was sacred ground now.

The handle squealed and ground as she pushed it down. She shoved her shoulder into the door, and it gave way, billowing up dust, creaking open to a dark room. Light spilled in from behind her, flooding across the brick floor at her feet. It smelled of old ash and soot in here.

A table on the right had an old silver vase at the center. A barrel full of tarnished weapons sat in the corner. She stilled, sweeping her gaze around to the large forge and tongs and other tools hanging near it but they looked in bad shape. This was where her father worked. This was where he created Lightbringer. She could hear the roaring fire, the pinging sound of a hammer hitting metal in her mind and it made her smile.

With a hand over her heart, she took a deep breath.I’m so sorry.She thought of the forget-me-nots she used to bring to the memorial in Briar Hollow and tears prickled.I have not forgotten you.She stepped over to the window and pulled down the wood boards covering them. More sunlight filled the smithy.

Hel sauntered over to a shelf lining the wall, ceiling to floor. He slid his finger over the dust then picked up a dagger with a gold and silver handle. “Why was this place abandoned?”

Valeen made her way over to the stone furnace that had long been extinguished and placed her hand on top of it. “Aunt Evalyn told me that after my father was executed the townsfolk closed it up rather than sell it. Out of respect.” She didn’t remember him, but it felt right being here to reforge Lightbringer. Almost as if his spirit was happy.