Page 98 of Shadowkissed

“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. “Wedid. 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 inus.

48

LIORA

It’s strange, the silence after a storm. Not the kind that comes from calm. The kind that buzzes withwhat now?

The rift is sealed. The earth is stitched—scorched, cracked, but still turning beneath our feet. The sky doesn’t bleed anymore. The Veil has settled.

But the world is watching. And I can feel their eyes like wind against my skin.

Not enemies anymore. Not exactly. But not allies either.

They look at me and see what Seraphiel nearly made me.

They look at Dante and see what hechose—me, every broken, cursed, blazing part of me.

They don’t speak it aloud. No one dares.

But I see it in the glances, the hesitations, the edge in their voices when they say my name like it might bite back.

Liora.

Balance-breaker. Starborn. The girl who nearly unraveled the world and then saved it.

The cursed. The unclaimed.

Until now.

It happenson the fourth day after the battle, when the realm councils call a gathering in the remnants of the old ruins, right where the Veil frayed open and nearly split the world in two.

The earth here still pulses faintly, magic buried deep in the roots, like it remembers.

Everyone already knows.

They’ve seen the way he looks at me—like I’m gravity and fire all wrapped in one. The way I find him in a room without even trying. How I ache for him even when we’re inches apart.

They watched him bleed for me.

They watched meburn the worldto save him.

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