Page 44

WRATH

Talon Rothschild was placed on a carrier with vines secured to the wooden frame and transported from the battle to the infirmary, where the healers would care for him through the night. Lily went with them, her eyes still wet as she walked at his side.

I kept my distance to give her space to grieve her father’s incapacitation.

Right now, she was broken, and the shards of her broken heart had landed in the soil.

Her tears would water those seeds, and then revenge would grow from the vines.

Even if the Barbarians never challenged the Southern Isles directly, I knew the Death Queen would punish them for what they’d done.

The others who remained helped those who had been injured. The dead were left to rot because the fires the Barbarians had lit continued to incinerate the trees and fill the dark sky with smoke.

My eyes moved to the Great Tree, protected during the battle by many elves who gave their lives to defend it. The outline of the door was faded but still visible from where I stood. A stage had been built around the trunk, as if they had performances or speeches in this meadow.

I blinked—and then she was there.

With bright-red hair and a distinct glow around her aura, she shone like the sun when it was highest in the sky, when the days were long and the nights were short.

Her green eyes were brilliant like freshly forged steel and just as sharp as a new weapon.

“You may be invisible to the world, but you’re never invisible to me.

We’ve never met, but I know who you are by the darkness you possess, Wrath, God of the Underworld, successor to Bahamut.

This is the land of the living, and the bringer of death has no place here. ”

No one was aware of the conversation that took place, not when they could not see or hear either of us.

Her hair flowed in a wind that didn’t exist. Her eyes burned hotter than the flames that were reflected in her gaze.

She inhaled a breath and gently let it out, and suddenly, a wind swept through the forest and extinguished the fire that torched the trees.

“I have no ill will toward you or your forest. I have another purpose.”

“Yes, Lily Lena Rothschild. She came to these woods as a soldier and a princess, but she will leave as the Death Queen. Word will spread like wildfire that catches on the air. The world will know of her power just the way the world knew of the Death King before. Just as the innocence of a child dies upon adulthood, her soul will spoil.”

“I grant her these gifts freely. Her soul will remain untouched.”

“Freely?” Her eyes narrowed. “Is that word in your vocabulary?”

“It is for Lily.”

The suspicion slowly faded. “So you granted her the power to win this battle and save Riviana Star simply because you wanted her to win.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered it as if it were. “Yes.”

Silence heavier than winter mist settled between us. The wind through her hair waned slightly, and the luminance in her eyes brightened.

“And I wanted her to live.” If she died, she would travel to the Realm of Caelum with her ancestors. We would be parted forever, and losing my only joy was too much to bear. I felt the sun on my face in the underworld simply because of her presence in my heart.

The silence was deafening, Riviana’s shrewd mind working to dissect the little information I’d given her.

“In all the years of my eternal servitude to the afterlife, I’ve never encountered a love such as this.

” Her hair suddenly lightened in color, almost turning the color of copper.

“A servant to the Covenant, a man with a hollow heart, to love a mortal with a soul that will pass into my realm when her time comes.”

“My heart is not hollow. It is full…and the reason I came to be in that horrible place.”

She studied me. “You sold your soul for a price. What was that price?”

Despite the centuries that had passed, the wound was still raw.

Sometimes I questioned whether I’d made the right decision.

I hadn’t wanted Anya to die, but my sons were the ones who truly paid the price for my decision.

How different would their lives have been otherwise?

If they hadn’t had to carry the baggage I left as their inheritance. “My wife was sick…”

“And you sold your soul to spare her.”

“A sickness destroyed her lungs, a sickness that wouldn’t have affected me if I’d been there.”

She gave a slight nod. “One man can’t be responsible for everyone else.”

“But a husband should be responsible for his wife—and I failed her.” And I’d failed my boys too. They would have had both parents if I’d just been there to care for Tiberius.

“You are very different from your predecessor.”

“I was forced into this position. I take no delight in it. When victims seek my services, most of the time, I try to dissuade them.”

“Most of the time?”

“Some of them are evil…and deserve what comes to them.”

The world continued on around us, the living mourning the dead, oblivious to the two gods who spoke in their vicinity.

Now, smoke replaced the flames, billowing up to the sky and being carried away on the air.

Riviana stood before me, her anger toward me significantly diminished the longer we spoke.

“I’m sure the Covenant will come to regret their decision. ”

“My debt has been paid, and I’ve asked to be released…

but they refuse.” I needed to accept there was no escape from this existence, that I would do this job forevermore because eternity had no end or no beginning.

But every time I looked at Lily, it just became harder.

Harder not to imagine another chance at life.

Harder not to imagine being her husband and the father of her children… living in that villa near the oak tree.

Riviana said nothing to that for a while. “Do you regret it?”

“My wife was married to my brother in less than a year. She believed I was leaving her for someone else so easily. It makes me wonder if there were feelings between them all along.”

“I hope that wasn’t the case.”

“I let my sons believe I didn’t love them. I regret that every single day of my life.” It had been an impossible decision to make, and perhaps I had chosen wrong.

“Bahamut was vile. The memory of him still makes my skin crawl.”

“He got what he deserved in the end…thanks to Talon Rothschild.” I resented his freedom and the full life he lived, but I still respected him for the man and king he was. I didn’t just try to spare his life for Lily’s sake—but because I wanted him to live.

“Talon Rothschild is a good man. And I think you are as well, Callum Riverside.”

My eyes hardened on her face. “No one has called me that in a long time.”

“That’s who you truly are. Who you’ve always been. Perhaps it’s time that Lily knows it too.”