Page 47

47

DANTE

M y body feels like it's been dragged through fire and stitched back together with barbed wire and prayers. Every muscle aches. My ribs are bruised, maybe broken. My magic still flickers low, guttering in my chest like an old flame refusing to die out.

But I’m alive.

I’m fucking alive.

And she’s here.

Liora.

Kneeling beside me, her fingers tangled in my shirt, forehead pressed to my shoulder like she can anchor herself through skin and bone.

Her glow’s dimmed—but not gone. She still hums with that strange, wild light that only belongs to her. That light that once scared the shit out of me and now feels like coming home.

I shift, groaning.

She lifts her head, those violet eyes meeting mine—tired, rimmed red, but god, still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

“Did... we win?”

“Yeah. We did. You dumbass.”

He blinks up at me. “Good. Told you I wasn’t leaving.”

She lets out a broken laugh, one hand slapping my chest like she wants to yell at me and hold me all at once. “You idiot. You almost died. ”

“Yeah, but I didn’t,” I say, wincing as I try to sit up. “Because of you.”

She bites her lip, and for a second, I think she might cry again. But she doesn’t. She leans in instead—careful, soft—and presses her lips to mine. It’s not desperate. Not fierce.

It’s grateful.

Like we both just remembered we still have time.

The battlefield is quieter now.

Still not peaceful—there’s no such thing after something like this—but still.

The sky’s shifting from that strange twilight to actual morning. The rift’s gone. The Veil’s whole. Seraphiel is… dust. Powerless. Erased.

And the ruins around us—this broken patch of ancient forest that sits just beyond the edge of the city like some myth that got forgotten—are scorched and cratered and reeking of ash and magic.

Bodies lie scattered. Some of his. Some of ours.

The air still crackles. But it’s over.

It’s finally fucking over.

“You destroyed him,” I murmur, dragging a hand down my face. “Like, really destroyed him.”

She nods once, slow. “It wasn’t just me.”

I glance at her. “It wasn’t not you either.”

Her expression flickers. Guilt. Grief. Maybe awe.

“He tried to use me,” she says quietly. “To twist what I am. To make me something I hate.”

I reach for her hand, interlace our fingers.

“You’re not that,” I say. “You never were.”

We sit there for a long time. Not saying much. Just breathing. Watching the sun climb over the tree line like it forgot how to rise.

Eventually, I pull myself up onto shaky legs. She helps. Doesn’t say anything when I curse under my breath and nearly fall.

“PEACE’ll want a debrief,” I say after a while, squinting toward the horizon. “They probably already know.”

Liora’s brow furrows. “Think they’ll come down on us?”

“No,” I say. “If they were gonna interfere, they would’ve done it already. This place is just off the grid enough—half buried in old runes, forgotten ley lines, barely shows up on maps. Tamsin knew that. She probably told them to stand down.”

“And the mundanes?” she asks.

“They’ll feel it,” I say. “The shift. The pressure drop. Maybe the sky looked weird. Maybe they dreamt of stars falling. But they won’t remember. Not in a way that matters.”

“Good,” she says. “They’ve been through enough.”

“Yeah,” I agree, squeezing her hand. “We all have.”

We walk slowly through what’s left of the field.

The shifters are gathering their dead. The witches are rebuilding wards. A few fae kneel beside what’s left of a collapsed monument, whispering old blessings.

Mara nods when she sees us. No smile. Just quiet relief.

The warlocks are already gone. Fitting.

The vampires? Hard to say. They’re probably watching from the shadows, waiting to see what kind of world we’re building now.

“You did it,” I murmur as we pause near what used to be the center of the battlefield.

“No,” Liora says. “ We did. Without you, I never would have been able to do this. I needed you. I needed love.”

She smiles and leans her head against my shoulder. I put my hand on the back of her head and hold her close, and let myself believe in something that has nothing to do with prophecy or bloodlines or fate.

I believe in us.