Page 149 of Mother of Death and Dawn

I became acutely aware of my heartbeat, rapid in panic. My breath, ragged and gurgling.

The line between life and death blurred, like twilight on the horizon line. I could reach out and touch death, it was so close.I have longed for you,it whispered,for an age.

But in this moment of clarity, something else came to me, too. A power was churning and roiling in the world below this one, my thread of connection to that deepest well slowly igniting to a screaming rope of fire.

In that magic, I had strength.

I could let myself die here. I could finally let my lost lover take me away, as I had prayed for it to do for hundreds of years.

Or… I could live.

With blurring vision, I looked up over Iajqa’s sinewy shoulder to the battle beyond. What had been chaotic minutes ago had now devolved into nightmarish slaughter. Ela’Dar’s warriors were overwhelmed. The Aran queen’s creatures were too numerous for them, combined with the sheer number of human soldiers. They needed me.

I thought of Caduan’s reaching hand. He had offered me a choice—offered me power, and with that power came the desire to act on behalf of something more.

I turned away from death. I grasped power.

I looked deep within myself, reached into the magic that now seemed so close to the surface, and I unleashed it. Iajqa let out a shrill shriek, her skull suddenly spilling with light, the gold eyes melting from her face. She dropped me as her ruined body began to dissolve.

I was already running.

CHAPTERFIFTY-FOUR

TISAANAH

The magic was too fast, too much, to control by myself. The realization that this would kill me didn’t come in a single moment, but in a slow solidification of truth.

When I saw Max, I wanted to weep, wanted to tell him,What are you doing here, you fool, you’re supposed to be free and safe somewhere far away from here?

And yet, my traitorous heart was happy.

When Max took my hands, he didn’t need to say a word. I knew exactly what we were doing. I opened my mind and my body to his magic, and he yielded to mine. I almost gasped when he let me into his mind. It was so different from before—walls replaced with claw-gouged passages, as if he had ripped them out with sheer force. They were tender and bleeding, like wounds.

Well… they were wounds, weren’t they?

Only one wall remained. It was the thickest, the most imposing. His fingers squeezed mine. His fear shivered through me as if it was my own.

We would dismantle this one together.

* * *

I stand before the door.Max is beside me. He takes my hand. It trembles slightly.

He cannot bring himself to open this door. He has torn out all the rest. But this one he cannot face alone.

I open it for him.

We step through it together. I stand beside him as the memory floods through it. We watch as a younger version of himself falls victim to terrible power he cannot control. We watch him, one by one, slaughter his family.

We end in the cottage in the woods, over the burning body of a twelve-year-old girl.

We end with Max on his hands and knees, weeping.

Max clutches my hand and does not let go.

* * *

I openedmy eyes to meet his. They were looking at me the way they always had—it was the gaze of someone who knew every word of our story.

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