Page 32

He thrust his claws into the man’s face. I sucked in a startled gasp, clapping my hands over my mouth. My knees wobbled, yet I remained as unmoving as stone, watching as Mavros sunk his claws into the mage’s skin. And he screamed.

Oh, how he screamed.

How he thrashed.

A dying thing caught in a trap.

I felt no remorse, only unease at the nauseating display. But I watched .

I had to .

Claws peeled back skin, ripped through flesh. His large palm covered the man’s mouth and nose, muffling his cries. Then he pushed and crushed. Bone shattered and eyes bulged. The beast prince shoved through his skull with a sickening, squelching crunch.

The scent of blood hung heavy in the air, mingling with the acrid tang of smoke from the battlefield.

The wind stilled, and the clouds sighed.

An ominous hush blanketed the courtyard.

The Inferni paused their feast, heads raising, chins dripping red, and their glowing eyes found their lord and master standing victorious. Then leaning, falling, collapsing.

He crumpled like a puppet whose strings were cut.

I rushed to him, stumbling as I pushed through the chaos.

I reached him and fell to my knees at his side.

His breathing was shallow, the rise and fall of his chest so faint I barely felt it beneath my trembling fingers.

His blood coated my hands as I pressed them to his wounds, trying to stop the flow.

But it was no use. This was worse than last time.

So much worse.

His eyes fluttered open, still glowing like fire, still burning for me.

“It’s over, sweet creature,” he whispered. “You’re safe now.”

“Mavros,” I whispered, my voice trembling. I ran my hands all over him. He flinched but didn’t pull away. His golden eyes met mine, still harboring a fierceness that made my heart ache.

“I told you I’d be his death. And I told you I’d protect you,” he murmured, his voice hoarse, barely audible. “I was right.”

“Oh, please, this isn’t the time,” I sobbed, tears spilling freely down my cheeks. I took his hand, clutching it to my chest as if that alone could anchor him to this world.

He groaned in pain, his lips parting to speak, but no words came. I sensed the coldness in him—the finality of it, the way life seemed to be seeping away, dragging him under.

“Mavros!” I cried out, panic rising in my chest. His fiery eyes fluttered open, his gaze locking with mine.

He leaned into me, his strength faltering. “I’m... I’m fine. The fight’s over.”

I held him tighter, my chest tight with dread. “Don’t say that. You’re hurt, you fool. You’re bleeding—”

“I’ll be alright.” His voice lacked conviction. “We’ve won. And the mage...” He couldn’t finish the sentence, his strength leaching from him with each passing moment.

“He’s dead free,” I rushed out.

I was free. That was all that mattered to Mavros.

But not what mattered to me. Not then.

The beast’s gaze was distant, unfocused, his energy nearly sapped. His grip weakened, slipping like the last breath of a dying animal. The battle had taken everything from him. It would take everything I had left from me. And I couldn’t do anything to stop it.

A sob escaped me, raw and guttural, as I leaned down, pressing my forehead to his. I whispered into his ear, my voice barely audible, “I love you, Mavros. I love you.”

The words felt like they came from somewhere deep inside me, a place that I had hidden away for so long. Elementals didn’t feel love. But there, on the edge of losing him, I realized that my heart belonged to him. It could only ever be him.

His body quaked again, his golden eyes fluttering as he struggled to stay conscious.

The battle wasn’t truly over until he was safe, until he was whole again.

I moved to support him, guiding him carefully into my lap.

My hands shook as I held him close. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end—not like this.

I whispered, “I refuse to let you go. You’re mine, you foolish beast.”

My heart pounded, the weight of everything pressing down on my chest. Mavros lay motionless, carved from shadow and fire, his dark armor cracked and coated with blood.

His breathing was nearly nonexistent. My hands found his chest, slick with a warmth that should have remained inside him. He was too still .

My beast was dying.

“No,” I whispered, as if the word could command the night. “No, no… please, Mavros, don’t… don’t leave me.”

Something stirred somewhere deep inside me. A pulse. My magic, that strange, sleeping thing within me, curled in fear. And defiance.

A familiar warmth unfurled in my ribs like sunlight breaking through clouds. A soft, ethereal light suddenly filled the surrounding air, bathing us in its glow. At first, I thought it was a trick of my tear-blurred vision, but then I realized…

It was my tears. They were glowing.

It was there. The power I thought I’d lost—my power as a spirit—rushed to the surface. The magic that had been lost within me, forever locked away, was awakening. Not erased, simply hidden. Locked until the mage died and allowed my freedom.

I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling it fill me. Not simply magic. It was light, wind, air, and the breath of storms. It was ancient. Pure. Rising like a phoenix from the ashes bathed in sapphire flames.

I opened my eyes, and the world seemed to bend.

His name was a cry caught in my throat, a sob devouring itself.

I cradled his face in my palms, aching with the intimacy of it. “I love you,” I repeated, and it tore me open to say it like this. “I love you. Do not leave me in this world alone. Do not go where I cannot be with you.”

My tears overflowed. A burst dam; a raging waterfall.

Not tears, not truly. Drops of light. Silver, luminous, shimmering with something older than the cursed form I wore. The magic I thought I lost with the breeze that once lived in my bones poured out. Not lost, only buried—like a seed waiting to awaken.

Where the tears touched him, his wounds knit closed.

I gasped, a sob of wild hope.

The glow grew stronger. Light bled from me like pale sunlight on a winter morning. I held him closer, let the tears fall freely now, baptizing his skin, willing the magic to remember him, to love him as I did.

A pale sapphire light erupted from my chest, cascading outward in blinding waves. It swirled around me like a radiant storm, bathing everything in a glow that made the Inferni flinch from its intensity.

Mavros’s breathing steadied as I watched the blood slowing, the wounds closing.

Magic surged through me like a torrent, flooding my veins with a power I had sorely missed.

The witch had stripped me of my former identity, but she hadn’t taken my magic.

She had merely disguised it, buried it deep within me.

I wasn’t just a woman now. I was still the last sylph—the last of my kind.

As his body healed beneath my touch, my heart swelled with a new understanding. I wasn’t just a victim of some curse. I was powerful. The power to heal, to protect, to fight. It was all still inside me, waiting for this moment.

Bone mended. Flesh sewed together. Fire returned to his dim gaze.

His heart raced beneath my fingers. Alive .

“Mavros,” I breathed. My voice cracked. “Come back to me.”

His expression softened, the lines of pain fading as his lashes fluttered.

A groan spilled from his lips, and his eyes met mine.

He blinked slowly, dazed, as if he still walked on the knife’s edge between life and death.

My tears still shimmered in his fur. My magic hummed beneath his skin, vibrated through his bones, and reactivated his strength to live.

“Astoria...” His voice was weak, his breath still shallow, but his eyes locked onto mine, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, there was something resembling peace in them.

“Don’t leave me,” I whispered again, my voice barely more than a breath. But this time, there was no desperation in it. Just raw, undeniable love.

He smiled. A tired but unmistakable thing. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Tears flowed freely, mingling with the faint remnants of magic that lingered in the air. I could feel the last of the healing magic flow through my fingertips, leaving me trembling with exhaustion. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except him.

“You healed me,” he said at last. “You saved me.”

“No,” I said, tracing the curve of his bottom lip with reverent fingers. “I only reminded the world you were mine, and it could not take you.”

He smiled, and oh, how it undid me.

“I owe you everything,” Mavros murmured.

“No, you foolish beast,” I said. “I would do it a thousand times over if it meant you’d stay with me.”

He looked at me then, really looked at me.

His eyes searched mine, and I saw something in them—something that had always been there.

Something pure, something real. We were quiet then.

The kind of silence that didn’t feel heavy, but bright.

Between us was the hush of something sacred. Something ancient. Something true.

“I love you,” I said again, and this time, it was a confession laced with every ache I had carried since meeting Aradia, since the first stolen fruit in his garden, and the first night he made me feel .

A warm grin spread across his face, and his hand lifted to brush a strand of hair behind my ear. “I love you, too,” he murmured. “With everything I am, Astoria.”

I believed him with every fiber of my being.

It shook the bones of the realm beneath us.

The world felt still, as though time had stopped around us.

There were no Inferni feasting, no corpses festering in the courtyard, no wizard bones crumbling to ash behind us.

Just the two of us holding tight to our bond and the promise of being together, no matter what.

“You have your freedom, sweet creature. You can have a happy ending in spite of the curse,” Mavros said, his voice filled with resolve. He cupped my cheek, and for a brief moment, I saw something in him. A flicker of possessive devotion. “I’ll make sure of it. If it’s the last thing I do.”

I should have smiled. Should have wept with joy.

But all I could do was look at him, memorize him, touch his face like he was made of embers and nightmares and every dark thing I should have feared—because he was.

I would forever grieve what I lost, my former identity, my world, the sky.

I was the last of my kind. Air spirits were lost to the world. And I had to live with that pain.

Yet I loved him despite all of it, and I would submit myself to his cursed embrace.

I leaned closer, resting my forehead on his, and in that quiet, I said the only truth I knew for sure. “I’ve found my freedom, and my happy ending, Mavros. Right here. With you.”