Page 198 of A Flame of the Phoenix

But that wouldn’t matter if his heart wasn’t beating.

He couldn’t lie there in the cold, so she maneuvered him around, crying out with the weight of him but managing to hook her hands under his arms. Faythe sobbed trying to hold him off the snow, only lifting his head to her chest.

“I need him!” Faythe cried. She looked around, but no one was coming.

Atherius gave off a sound like a soft cry of pain that she couldn’t help.

No one could.

Faythe’s forehead leaned to his silver hair as she cried.

She’d failed.

“I can’tlosehim!”

She didn’t know if any Gods were listening, but her head straightened with the rage to defy them all.

Slipping a hand over his chest, Faythe reached for her magick. It glowed brightly, and Faythe searched for him. His soul that washers.He wasn’t getting to leave this world before they’d gotten to claim their bond.

In her distant senses, Atherius beat her wings. Her cries pierced the air, and Faythe felt threads of Phoenix magick entwining with her. Then a touch so barely-there hovered over her hand, and Faythe gasped—then her face crumpled, and she broke a sob.

“I can’t save him,” she wept to Caius.

“We’re right here with you.” Caius crouched with her, his boyish smile so assuring.

Then another hand took hers, adding to the glow of magick that was growing over Reylan.

Faythe was distracted for a moment of shock and joy, but an old wound cleaved open within her.

“Mother?” she breathed.

Lilianna nodded, and Faythe knew this was no dream. It was something precious, and perhaps the last of the Spirit of Lifeinside her that, despite all Faythe had done in condemning the world, was giving her this one last gift.

Behind Lilianna, Agalhor lowered too, placing his hand with theirs, and Faythe never thought she would get the chance in all her lifetime to see this.

Her parents—together. Fresh tears flooded her eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” she said to him.

Agalhor shook his head. “We are so proud of you, my girl.”

Faythe didn’t think she deserved it, but she was so grateful they were here.

Then two more hands eased over hers, and Faythe’s attention was stolen by them.

“Freya,” Faythe said. Then her eyes fell to the other, who she only remembered from a flash of vision. “Kerim.”

Both of them smiled. “It wasn’t your fault back then,” Kerim said. “You might never remember, but it was a privilege to be your friend, Aesira.”

She remembered him on a battlefield, about to be struck down, and Aesira’s arrow could have saved him…but she’d missed.

“He needs you,” Freya said. “You need each other.”

Faythe smiled her gratitude, returning her focus to Reylan. She couldn’t feel his heart when so much life was coursing through the both of them. It was light and binding and promising. Her eyes closed, and Faythe searched through the endless darkness for him. She would keep searching until her last light winked out.

She found him in a dark expanse of time and space. He had his back to her this time, kneeling in a shallow pool of black water while flocks of ravens flew violently around him.

“Reylan.” His name escaped her in a breath.

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