Page 55

The world remakes itself as I cradle Kiaran’s lifeless body in my arms.

The Morrigan’s prison dissolves, peeling away layer by layer to reveal what’s left of my homeland—a pitiful shard of rock jutting up from the abyss where Aithinne’s camp used to be.

But as I watch, the earth reforms.

Boulders grind and scrape. Soil swirls up from the depths. Slender saplings sprout from the debris, unfurling emerald leaves that dance in a sudden, soughing breeze. It’s as if an invisible hand is painting the landscape, each brushstroke deliberate and deft.

Sunlight lances through a gap in the clouds, setting the forest aflame in shades of amber and gold. The air tastes sweet—petrichor and pine, damp earth and green, growing things.

The scents of home.

Any other time, I would stop to savour it. Would tip my face to the sky and drink deep, let the wild stitch me back together.

But I can’t. I can’t feel anything but the weight of Kiaran’s body.

I’ve lost too much. Given too much. What’s left of me is a ruin barely held together.

Distantly, I register footsteps. I force my eyes open, blinking against the wash of sunlight.

Aithinne kneels beside me. Fresh tears cut through the grime coating her cheeks. She reaches out to smooth Kiaran’s hair from his brow.

“You just had to play the hero, didn’t you? After everything, you stubborn bastard. You should have let me die.”

“You’re right,” Sorcha says, the words brutal. Intended to hurt. “He should have.”

I look up to find her looming over us, fists clenched. Her eyes glitter with unshed tears and a fury that borders on madness.

She rounds on Lena. “Why am I still alive if he’s dead? Why am I still breathing? He and I were supposed to die together .”

Lena meets her glare without so much as a flinch. “Kadamach’s sacrifice superseded your vow. It’s ancient magic, more potent than any mark given under obligation.”

Sorcha snarls. For a moment, I’m certain she’s going to lunge for Lena’s throat, to rip and tear until the world drowns in red. “That’s not good enough,” she spits. “It should have been me, it should have—”

“It’s done,” Lena says, gentle but implacable. Something like sympathy softens her severe features as she turns to me. “You need to give the Seelie Queen your magic. Before it kills you.”

She’s right. I can feel the Cailleach’s power writhing behind my sternum. Seeking a stronger vessel.

“Here.” Lena extends a hand to me. “Don’t let his death be for nothing.”

I force myself to reach for her. As soon as our hands touch, the spell shivers to life inside me. It twists through muscle and bone, threading through my veins.

For the first time since the Cailleach carved her magic into my soul, it doesn’t hurt. There’s no resistance, no barrier to shatter. The power flows from me in a rush that leaves me hollow. Scoured clean and aching, but light. As if I’ve been released from an invisible cage, a tether cut.

Aithinne shudders as the magic sinks hooks into her, a soft sound catching in her throat. For a moment, she’s lit from within, power shimmering beneath her skin.

When she opens her eyes, they’re silver.

But—

“You didn’t take all of it,” I say. “I can still feel it inside me.”

“I left you enough to replace what you sacrificed. The powers you had as a Falconer. So you can protect yourself.” Aithinne reaches out to touch my shoulder. “Thank you,” she whispers. “For saving me. For trying to save him, even though—”

I shake my head. “Don’t. Just— don’t .”

A small, shattered noise claws out of me. I hold back the next. And the next. If I let myself break now, I won’t be able to piece myself back together.

I have to hold on. Just a little longer.

“You know sacrifice better than most,” Aithinne says, very softly.

Gentle as a bruise. “You’ve bled and broken and paid in all the currencies that matter.

So let me give something to you. I’ll use one of Lena’s spells to turn back time.

Unravel reality until it’s like none of this ever happened.

Until the others wake up in their beds, happy and whole. ”

I swallow. “Will it hurt you?”

She pats my shoulder. “Yes. Enough to punish me so I never feel compelled to do it again. But I’ll do it this once, for you—and for them.”

Catherine, Gavin, Daniel—they never asked for any of this. Never agreed to be dragged into fae politics and ancient grudges. They deserved better than to be murdered by a death goddess and die choking on their own blood in a hell realm.

I shut my eyes. A tear slips free before I can stop it, tracking a scalding path down the curve of my cheek. “And there’s no way to bring Kiaran and Derrick back?”

Lena sighs. “They both died by willing sacrifice,” she says. “With full knowledge of what it would mean. To restore them, a life has to be returned in kind. Fae magic is funny that way.”

I look down at Kiaran. It would be so easy to give him mine. To—

“No,” Sorcha snarls. I’d almost forgotten she was there.

“Absolutely not.” She stalks forward, shoving past Aithinne.

“Don’t you dare throw your life away for the dead male who sacrificed himself for you.

He wasn’t yours in the first place. I’ll drag him back to me,” Sorcha continues relentlessly.

“I’ll call in every favour, make any bargain.

Because he deserves better than to have you mewling over his corpse. ” Her voice splinters. “He was mine .”

I want to be angry. I want to feel something, anything but this void yawning open inside my ribcage. But I can only dredge up exhaustion and pity.

“Sorcha,” Lena says, soft but warning.

For a heartbeat, Sorcha just stares at the other female, chest heaving. I watch the fight drain out of her. “I know,” she whispers. “I know.”

I stare at Kiaran’s face, my vision blurring as I trace his features.

I want to memorise him. To sear every line and angle into my mind until I can call him up whenever I need to.

Whenever the world goes dark and cold, and I can’t remember what it was like to be held.

To be loved so fiercely it stopped my heart.

I’m going to have to let you go. Just like I let Derrick go.

It feels like dying all over again.

“Do it,” I say to Aithinne. “Turn it back. Take his body home to the Si?th-bhru?th.”

Aithinne nods and reaches for Lena’s hand. I feel the first threads of magic whispering through the air. The promise of restoration.

“You don’t have to be a Falconer again if you don’t want to,” Aithinne adds. “You could be free of all this. Retire. Let me handle any rogues or trouble.”

I swallow around the knot in my throat. “No. I need—”

I need something that feels like him. Something blood-drenched and brutal to keep the grief from cracking me open.

“I’ll do what I’ve always done.”

As if nothing had changed.

“Then I’ll send word to you,” Aithinne says. “And Aileana? Keep living, even when every breath hurts. That’s what he’d want you to do.”

I shut my eyes against the sting of tears and nod.

Aithinne’s fingers find my temples. She speaks words in her lilting tongue, the syllables falling soft as a lark song.

Lena’s voice joins with hers, a descant to Aithinne’s melody, power thrumming in every note.

I don’t feel the world shift around me. Don’t register the way time reverses like a spool of thread winding back on itself. There’s only the slow drum of my heart, the rush of my blood in my ears. The ache behind my ribs where my heart used to be.

Then, silence. A held breath, waiting for the exhale.

I open my eyes. Blink. Blink again.

I’m sitting on the floor of my townhouse, legs folded beneath me, and everything is exactly as it was before the city fell. The heavy drapes, the thick carpets. The delicate watercolours on the walls, all pastel blooms and washed-out sunlight.

I push to my feet and cross to the window on unsteady legs. Press my forehead to the cool glass and watch the world go by, the streets of Edinburgh teeming with life. With mundane humanity.

I don’t know how long I stay like that. Long enough for the shadows to lengthen, for the gaslights to flicker to life outside the window. Long enough for the world to keep turning, heedless of the woman whose soul is slowly bleeding out in the townhouse in Charlotte Square.

Every breath aches, but I force myself to uncurl. To wipe my face.

To put one foot in front of the other.