Page 257

Chapter 50

Slowly, I became aware of a soft touch against my cheek. A brush of fingers along the curve of my jaw and below my lips. A hand smoothing my hair. A voice. Voices. Two stood out the strongest.

“Poppy,” one called.

“Open your eyes, My Queen,” another said—pleaded, really—and I could never deny him.

My eyes fluttered open, locking with ones the color of honey and framed by a thick fringe of lashes. Him. My husband and King. My heartmate. My everything. Blood streaked his face, matted his hair, but his skin was unmarked beneath it, rich and warm. His fingers were warm against the skin below my lips. “Cas.”

Casteel made a rough sound that seemed like a cross between a laugh and a groan, and it came from somewhere deep within him. He lowered his lips to my forehead. “Queen.”

I reached up, touching the side of his jaw. He shuddered as he pressed his lips against my forehead. Slowly, I became aware that my head was cradled in his lap, but it was not his arm that braced my neck, or his hand on my cheek. Casteel’s head lifted, and my gaze drifted to eyes the shade of winter.

Kieran smiled down at me as he dragged his thumb down the side of my cheek. “Nice of you to decide to rejoin us.”

“I don’t…” I swallowed. My mouth felt weird. I reached up—

Kieran caught my wrist. “Before you even ask, yes.”

My breath snagged as I gingerly ran my tongue along the line of my upper teeth. They felt normal until I hit a small, sharp point, drawing blood. I winced.

“Careful,” Casteel murmured. “They’ll take a little bit to get used to.”

Oh, my gods. “I have fangs.”

Kieran nodded. “Cas is going to have to walk you through getting used to them. Not my wheelhouse.”

My gaze swung to Casteel. “What do they look like?”

His lips twitched. “Like…fangs.”

“That tells me nothing.”

“They’re adorable.”

“How can fangs be adorable—wait.” Fangs weren’t the most pressing issue here, nor even the fact that I had finished the Culling. I sat up so quickly, both Casteel and Kieran jerked back so I didn’t collide with them. My gaze swung over the cracked pillars, and Naill—

Naill sat with his back against one, his head tipped up, his eyes closed, but his chest was moving up and down—a chest that had been ripped open. His deep brown skin had lost the ghastly gray pallor of death.

I stared at him, knowing that I’d seen him fall. I’d watched him die. “I…I don’t—”

A cool nose brushed my arm, and my head whipped to the side. Vibrant blue eyes set in white fur streaked with red met mine. A shudder shook my entire body. “Delano…?”

His springy imprint brushed against my thoughts. Poppy.

Crying out, I threw my arms around the wolven. Casteel let out a rough laugh as I buried my face in Delano’s neck. I didn’t know how he was here, and I couldn’t stop shaking as I held him, soaking in the feel of his soft fur between my fingers and against my cheek. Kieran’s hand moved up and down my back, and I realized then that I was crying—sobbing really—as I held Delano in a near chokehold. He allowed it, though, wiggling his body as close to mine as he could get. He was alive.

“Poppy,” Casteel whispered, gently tugging on my shoulders. “The man’s got to breathe.”

Reluctantly, I let go, but Delano didn’t go very far as Casteel folded his arms around my waist from behind. I felt his head rest on my shoulder as Kieran swept away the tears on my cheeks with featherlight touches. I looked—

My heart stopped again when I saw Emil standing, the destroyed armor gone and the ragged tear in his shirt made by the spear I’d seen go into his chest all the more visible. He was…he stood next to Hisa, who sat on a low wall, her hands hanging limply between her knees as she stared at me.

“How?” I asked, my voice ragged. “How are they alive?”

“You,” Kieran said.

My brows pinched. “What?”

“You,” Casteel repeated, pressing his lips to my cheek. “You brought them back. All of them.”

“Look.” Kieran touched my chin, turning my head to the ground below the Temple.

What I saw floored me.

Soldiers milled about, avoiding the cracks in the ground. Some sat like Naill and Hisa. But all bore leftover traces of battle. Shredded armor. Torn clothing. Dried blood.

“You passed out,” Casteel said, his forehead pressed to my temple. “And that’s when they came back. All of them. Even the damn guards.”

“It was both the craziest and,”—Kieran’s voice caught—“and the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“All these little…I don’t know what,” Casteel said, his laugh thick with emotion. “Orbs? Thousands—hundreds of thousands—of them came from the sky. It looked like the stars were falling.”

To speak her name is to bring the stars from the skies…