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At long last, Thea wielded her ultimate weapon. Amid the howling darkness, she stood tall with her sisters. Fate had robbed them of a shared history, of the chance to know one another as Delmirian heirs, but it had not stopped them uniting. It had not stopped them forging their bonds anew.

She was struck by an image of the three Furies: Iseldra, Morwynn and Valdara, standing side by side as the Embervales did now.

As Thea’s lightning sang within, ready to be unleashed upon the world of shadow, so too did Wren’s and Anya’s. In a blinding flash, their magic linked together. It was like different notes from the same song intertwining, each sister’s magic subtly different but forging together in harmony.

Thunder cracked through the sky, echoing off the stone, causing the ground beneath Thea’s boots to tremble, loose rock coming away from the fortress walls. Magic flowed through her veins, and she felt its likeness thrumming from her sisters either side of her as they conjured tempests from within, and summoned those beyond the borders of Thezmarr. Above, the clouds opened up and a downpour began, rain pelting the world in hard, sideways sheets. Around them, the wind picked up, tearing at their hair and clothes, gaining momentum as each sister dug deep for that well of power.

‘Now,’ Anya murmured, just loud enough for Thea and Wren to hear.

Their hands shot out, and the tempest broke.

More thunder erupted as lightning crackled at their fingertips.

To Thea, the rest of the battle had faded away – there were only the reapers, who seemed to lick their lips at the taste of the Delmirians’ power. But they did not scare Thea, not with her sisters at her sides and her lightning blasting through the air towards the monsters, illuminating the darkness with blinding brilliance. The rain pelted her skin, but she revelled in its song, its scent, washing away the creatures’ acrid stench as she flung her hands out, directing her lightning straight at the host of reapers.

Their screams filled the air.

Thea and her sisters summoned a vortex of wind, the gale sweeping away an onslaught of shadows that came for them.

With a determined shout, Thea filled the rain with a current of energy and blasted the first line of reapers. Their bodies went flying from the wall, hitting the stone below with a crack, the Warswords lunging for them to finish them off.

Anya was drawing all three storm wielders’ power together, and it was unlike anything Thea had ever experienced. The storm roiled in her chest, joining forces with her sisters’, the chaos intensifying as more clouds rolled in and thunder roared above them.

Together, they shot bolts of lightning straight for the next line of reapers, the crackling energy searing their shadows and making them writhe in agony. The force of it was intoxicating; the raw power of nature combined with the magic surging through her entire being. Thea felt it in every fingertip, every toe, deep in her bones. Rain came down in a torrent and she tasted it on her lips before she unleashed another colossal fork of lightning, bringing it down from the black sky above and striking another reaper with her unrelenting fury. Sparks flew, and even in the downpour, Thezmarr caught alight, fire blazing to life on the walls.

Enraptured, she watched as the storm swallowed lashes of shadow, as the reapers on the perimeter retreated —

A clouded blue gaze bored into hers and she didn’t have time to cry out, to take so much as a breath before the monster lunged for her.

Caught up in the frenzy of their joint storm, Thea faltered.

Not even all the Furies-given strength in the midrealms could have stopped the blow. A punch of obsidian, straight to the chest, sent her flying. Thea was ripped from the link between her and her sisters, the abrupt, searing pain of it stealing the air from her lungs, her eyes streaming tears. Limbs flailing, she was brutally thrown skyward, up onto a parapet. She hit the stones hard, the back of her head colliding with the rubble of the ruined fortress wall. She felt the trickle of blood almost instantly, at the nape of her neck and down her spine beneath her armour.

With pain blooming all over, her magic seemed to choke. She reached for it, hoping she might cauterise her wounds as she’d done in the Great Rite, but something forced her power down.

Dazed, she tried to get to her feet, but something pinned her back into the rubble —

A reaper.

The jagged tips of its talons hovered across the skin just over her heart.

And time slowed.

This is it, Thea realised. This is how I die.

She had waited twenty-seven years for this moment, and as promised, Fate had come for her. There was no Aveum springwater to save her this time, no tricks up her sleeve. Only storms and darkness.

Thea tasted blood on her tongue. She fought to get enough air into her lungs, the reaper’s talons piercing deeper —

And then the pressure was gone.

The monster was thrown back from her, cords of lightning wrapping around its throat and dragging it across the ruined courtyard.

The scent of rosewood and leather enveloped Thea, and suddenly Wilder was at her side.

She met his silver gaze sadly, hating the devastation she found there. ‘If this is it…’ she croaked, blood leaking from the corner of her mouth. ‘Then know that I loved you fiercely. Every second was worth it. You were worth it —’

Thea choked on a sob as all that she would miss flashed before her. Her life with Wilder: chasing after her Tverrian stallion with him through the rolling hills, passionate nights by the campfire, I love you whispered in the quiet breaths between the rest. She would never see Wren become a master alchemist, nor Cal become a Warsword. She wouldn’t have another sour mead with Kipp, nor a —