Page 221 of The Spider Queen

I closed my eyes and wished. I wished for Thane to find the strength to defeat Xan. I wished for Thane to go on and live a long life, full of love and prosperity. I wished for him to be surrounded by friends and family, by his children that he’d have with another because it surely wouldn’t be me.

Xan yelled at Thane in a language I didn’t understand. For a moment, I thought it was a magical curse, but then Thane answered in the same tongue. Maybe it was the language of twins; maybe it belonged only to them.

Thane would never defeat Xan alone. Xan had grown too strong during the years of Thane’s imprisonment.

Take what I offer you.

I can’t—

You will. It’s the only way. Let’s end this.

If I do, then you’ll die.

Our connection was full of strife and anguish.

I’m dying anyway, Thane.Let me help you defeat him. I choose to die this way.

I opened the last barrier between us. The wall crumbled like stone, and pure energy flowed through me. I shot it across our mental thread. My essence was liquid gold, hot, volcanic and furious. Like a mountain river in spring, it gushed, unstoppable. I gave Thane everything, gladly and without reserve.

When the last drop of my essence was spent, I felt myself sever from my physical form. I saw my decimated body—a torn stump where my leg had once been, my belly sliced, and all my coiled organs spilling onto the ground like a sack that had fallen open.

I was dead…and yet I wasn’t.

Not only was I fully cognizant, but I also had an aerial view of the battlefield. Dead carcasses of beasts and creatures. Gabriel with his bloodied sword and fluttering wings as he called out commands to other angels. Chained demons with broken horns glaring with angry red eyes at their captors.

And Thane and Xan…

Thane glowed gold. He whirled and carved, anticipating his brother’s every move before Xan could make it. And then Thane became the attacker, swinging his sword like it was a child’s toy.

Xan’s smirk slipped from his face, his arrogance quickly deserting him when he realized his brother had become stronger, had become the better warrior.

All because of me.

All because of my sacrifice.

All because I loved him.

This battle was bigger than both of us. Bigger than our love or the life we were supposed to have together. We had our time. It was too short; it wasn’t enough. I hadn’t learned how to love him the way I wanted to until the last moments we’d had together, when I realized that offering my life for his was the purest form of love I could give.

But none of that mattered. Millions of lives hung in the balance of the battle that raged below me.

Thane’s sword arced.

It whistled through the air and connected with flesh and bone to detach Xan’s head from his neck. His head rolled across the land, eyes still open, and the expression one of surprise etched into his face for eternity. Xan’s body collapsed like a scarecrow with straw legs.

A dragon swooped down, circled Xan, opened its reptilian jaws, and let loose a blast of blue fire. Only when Xan’s body and detached head were doused in flames did the dragon flap its golden-tipped wings and soar into the sky.

Thane bent over, breathing hard. He barely spared his brother’s charred form a glance. When Thane looked at my prostrate body, he dropped his weapon and ran to my side. He fell to his knees to cradle my dead body in his arms.

Thane wept.

He tried to scoop up my intestines and put them back in my stomach, but they kept unraveling and sliding out. Thane carried me to the river. He waded in up to his chest, his head bent to mine as he continued to cry.

My arms listlessly floated in the current, dangling uselessly by my sides.

Thane reached up to brush the matted hair away from my lifeless face. It had already been leeched of color when a few moments ago there had been blood in my cheeks. I’d been alive, and now I was dead.

He traced my lips with his finger, and then he reached down to scoop up a handful of water, cradling it in the palm of his hand. Thane dribbled it across my lips, only the droplets ran across my mouth. He did it again and again, growing more and more desperate with each attempt.