Page 99 of Evermore (The Never Sky #3)

Before I could respond, a movement at the edge of the garden caught my attention.

Minerva emerged from the shadows, her cane tapping softly against the stone path.

She paused when she saw Quill, her normally severe expression softening as she watched the child dance.

She stood there for several moments before she spotted us, dipped her chin and moved in our direction.

“I guess none of us are sleeping these days,” she said.

“Guess not,” Archer answered, but something in his posture changed, a sudden alertness that I felt more than saw. His hand tensed in mine, and his gaze darted around the garden with newfound intensity.

“What?”

“I don’t know.” His voice had dropped, taking on an edge I rarely heard. “Something feels wrong.”

I followed his gaze, scanning the garden more carefully. The shadows between the hedges seemed deeper somehow, more substantial.

Archer released my hand, already moving forward. “Stay here,” he ordered, his voice no longer that of my friend but of a warrior sensing danger.

“Archer—”

But he was already striding toward Quill, his movements fluid and purposeful. I felt the thrumming of our bond, the burning knot on my shoulder warming in response to his alarm.

Quill looked up as he approached. “Archie! Look at my dance!”

“It’s beautiful, Pencil,” he said, his tone deliberately light though his eyes never stopped scanning the garden. “But it’s late. Let’s get you back inside.”

The shadows behind the nearby statue shifted. Aeris lunged from behind the marble, snatching Quill by the arm. The child’s scream pierced the night as she was yanked backward against the goddess’s chest.

My Remnants exploded outward in a tidal wave of darkness, fueled by primal rage that scorched through my veins like wildfire. They surged across the garden, reaching, clawing as I raced forward.

“Let her go!” The words tore from my throat, raw and desperate.

Minerva was already moving, her frail appearance melting away as she raised her hand. But it was too late, everything was happening too fast.

Boo launched himself at Aeris, tiny teeth bared in fierce protection, but my Remnants wrapped around him like a blanket, holding him back, protecting him as they continued to race forward.

If anything happened to that dog… Quill screamed again, struggling and twisting in the goddess’s grip.

My shadows wrapped around Quill’s stomach, pulling her toward me, but Aeris’s grip on her was iron tight.

Archer was a blur of motion, covering the distance between them in heartbeats. His face transformed by a fury I’d never seen before. With one powerful movement, he tore Quill from Aeris’s grasp, shoving the child safely behind him.

Then the world stopped. In one motion. One fraction of a second.

One devastating breath. Aeris plunged a blade into Archer’s chest with terrible precision.

The sound of metal against bone echoed across the garden, obscene in its finality.

Time fractured. I fractured. Archer stumbled backward, his eyes wide with shock.

Blood bloomed across his white shirt like spilled wine, darkening from crimson to black in the moonlight.

His mouth opened, forming words I couldn’t hear through the roaring in my ears.

“Archer!” My scream seemed to come from somewhere outside of myself.

He fell to his knees, then collapsed backward onto the stone path. His blood spread beneath him, dark and unstoppable. Nothing else mattered. Not Aeris. Not her knife. Not her triumphant smile. Not Minnie as she surged for the evil goddess. Only him. Always him. My light.

I crashed to my knees beside him, pressing my hands over the wound as if I could force his life back inside through sheer will. Blood welled between my fingers, hot and slick and relentless. Too much blood. Far too much.

“No, no, no,” I chanted, a desperate prayer to uncaring gods. “You look at me, Archer Bramwell. Don’t you dare close your eyes. Please, Archer. Please stay with me.”

Quill threw herself down beside us, her small hands frantically patting his face. “Archie! Archie, wake up! You can’t sleep now!”

His eyelids fluttered, finding mine with painful clarity despite the life draining from them. “Paesha,” he whispered, my name a broken sound on bloody lips.

“Don’t…” I begged, pressing harder on the wound. My heart hammered against my ribs, threatening to shatter them. “Save your strength. We’ll get help. We’ll fix this. Just hold on.”

But we both knew it was a lie. The blade had pierced his heart. His heart. The one that loved so hard it hurt. The one so pure, the world didn’t deserve it. No one did. And no healer could undo this damage. No power could mend what was broken.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth when he tried to smile. “Not how… I planned to spend… my night.”

A laugh that was half sob escaped me. “Only you would joke now, you impossible man.”

Quill clutched his hand, her tears falling onto his face like rain. “You can’t go! You promised we’d bake a cake tomorrow! You said—” Her voice broke. “You said you’d dance with me at the summer ball! I have a blue dress that matches your eyes. I have a blue dress.”

Archer’s gaze shifted to her, infinite tenderness replacing the pain in his eyes for a moment. “Rain check… on that dance… Pencil.”

“No! No rain checks!” Quill’s voice rose to a wail. “You need to stay! We need you! I need you. You’re mine. And I’m yours. You said, Archie. You said!”

I felt the familiar sting behind my eyes, the lump in my throat. The burn of unrelenting heartache. “I’ll fall, Toes. I’ll fall if you’re not here to catch me. Gods. Please.”

“I’ll be so good,” Quill promised. “I’ll never use my magic again and I’ll take my baths and I’ll make sure Boo never steals anything from the kitchen.

I’ll go to bed when I’m supposed to and I’ll never sass back again.

I’ll do that for you, okay. Okay?” Those giant eyes of hers, full of tears flashed to me. “Why isn’t he answering?”

He lifted a trembling hand to touch her cheek, but the strength was already leaving him. His fingers barely grazed her skin before falling back to the ground.

I couldn’t breathe. My throat closed around words that wouldn’t matter, pleas that wouldn’t be answered. The tears burning down my face felt like acid, etching permanent tracks of grief into my skin. This would be the loss that ended me.

“Please,” I whispered, bending close to his ear. “Please don’t leave us. Not you. I can’t lose you.”

His eyes found mine again, clouding with tears of his own. “You’ll be okay,” he whispered. “Both of you. You’re stronger… than you know.”

“I don’t want to be strong,” I sobbed, resting my forehead against his. “I want you to live.”

The Treeis mark on my shoulder burned cold, a terrible emptiness spreading from it as our bond began to fray. I could feel him slipping away, the connection between us weakening with each labored breath.

Quill must have felt it too. Her small body convulsed with sobs as she threw herself across his chest. “Please, Archie! Please don’t go!

I need to tell you… I need to tell you how much I love you!

I need you to hear it in your heart, okay?

Can you hear how much I love you? Can you feel it? I’ll show you forever, okay. Everyday.”

“He knows, baby,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “He knows how much you love him.” I looked down at Archer, his face growing paler with each passing second. “And gods, he loves you back. So hard and so unwavering.”

A faint smile touched his lips. “That part… was easy,” he breathed.

He coughed, more blood staining his lips. His hand found mine, squeezing with the last of his strength.

“Listen,” he whispered, his voice fading to almost nothing. “Not your fault. Never… your fault. Tell Thorne… protect you both. Like me.”

“Tell him yourself,” I begged, clinging to his rapidly cooling fingers.

But his eyes were already losing focus, the vibrant blue dimming like stars fading at dawn. “So stubborn,” he murmured, the ghost of a smile touching his lips. “Always loved… that about you…”

His chest rose once more, then fell still. The Treeis mark flared with icy fire, then went numb, as if a piece of my soul had been carved away.

Quill’s scream shattered the night, a sound so raw and primal it smothered everything.

Her power flooded around us in waves of pure anguish, withering every living thing in the garden.

Roses crumbled to dust. Trees bent and twisted as if in physical pain.

The air grew heavy with sorrow, pressing down like a physical weight.

I yanked her away from Archer’s body, pulling her into my arms as we collapsed together on the cold stone. I rocked her back and forth, our tears mingling as we mourned the loss of our bond, the loss of the best of us, the loss of the greatest good either of us would ever know in our lives.

Her small body shook with grief too enormous for her frame to contain.

The sky darkened above us as clouds gathered, responding to her power as it blanketed the world in sorrow.

Through the haze of our shared agony, I vaguely heard Minerva shouting in the distance.

Her voice penetrated the fog of grief, insistent and commanding.

Quill looked up, her tear-stained face transforming as sadness ignited into something else. Something furious and ancient. Raw and vicious. Because sadness is only the root from which anger grows.

I stood, gently setting Quill aside. My legs felt foreign beneath me, as if they belonged to someone else. Someone who could still walk in a world where Archer no longer existed.

“I know it hurts, Quilly. And you can feel those feelings. Every one of them. Fuck the world that would tell you to be less. Feel less. You feel exactly everything you need to feel. Let the world burn, my girl. But give me a second to breathe, okay? And then I’ll come right back and I will stand beside you in the darkness. Just like Archie would.”

She nodded, eyes sliding back to his slain body. I commanded the Remnants to slide back to her. To drop that pup in her lap and hope for a few brief moments she could breathe. Because I had something, someone, to take care of.

Minerva had Aeris pinned to the garden wall with magic. The goddess’s feet dangled above the ground as an invisible force held her by the throat. Aeris clawed at the air, her perfect face contorted with rage and fear.

Wordlessly, Minerva extended her arm, offering me a sword.

But not just any blade. Levanya’s. A weapon of power.

I took it, the weight familiar in my hand, as if it had always been meant for me.

It only made the ache in my heart deepen.

I didn’t want anything to fit me perfectly anymore.

Because that was his role and he was gone.

“Please,” Aeris gasped as I approached, her eyes wide with sudden terror. “Daughter—you don’t understand?—”

“I understand perfectly,” I said, my voice hollow, empty of everything but grief and rage. “You took him from us. But good news mother, now you won’t have to worry about the Fates punishment for killing a mortal king.”

“Who do you think sent me?—”

I drove the blade through her heart before she could finish, twisting it with a savagery I hadn’t known I possessed.

I yanked it back and shoved it forward as I yelled, trying to release whatever had died inside of me when he took that last breath.

It didn’t work. Blood spilled down the front of her dress, glowing faintly in the darkness.

I yanked the sword back and struck again. And again as Aeris screamed.

“Paesha,” Minerva said.

I ignored her, dragging my shadows forward to lift Aeris’s drooping face until she looked at me.

“You will fucking watch as I take from you, as you’ve always taken from me.

It wasn’t enough that you left me, was it?

You had to take him too. You fucking monster.

That was my family. He was everything you never were.

That man helped teach me what family means and it sure as hell never looked like this.

In all the eons to come, in all the stories they tell of gods and their fall, your name will be nothing but a footnote in my legend—the goddess so worthless even her own daughter forgot her name.

You took everything from me,” I hissed, tears streaming down my face as rage consumed me.

“Now I take everything from you. Not merely your life, but your legacy. Your memory. Your divinity. It’s mine now, and I’ll use it to build a world where no child ever feels as abandoned as you made me feel.

And I’ll do it in his fucking name. The only one that ever mattered. ”

I watched her die. I watched her take her final breath and hoped like hell it would soothe something, anything in my soul.

But it didn’t. It only made me hate her more.

She’d died too fucking fast. She hadn’t hurt enough.

Her power rushed into me, a torrent of raw energy that seared through my veins like liquid fire.

The transformation from demigod to goddess crashed over me in waves of unbearable intensity.

My body was barely able to contain the vastness of what I was becoming.

Nor the anguish of what I was leaving behind.

But the power meant nothing. Less than nothing.

What use was godhood in a world without my best friend?

I turned back to where Archer lay, still and silent under the weeping sky.

Quill had curled against his side, her small hand clutching his, as if she could will warmth back into those fingers through sheer determination.

Rain fell, gentle at first, then in heavy sheets that soaked us all, washing Archer’s blood from the stones but not from my hands. Never from my hands.

I fell to my knees, covered in his blood, soaked and broken. And then I crawled to them, shrouded in rage and wrath and fear and sadness, a goddess and queen born from loss, baptized in the blood of the man I couldn’t save.