Page 137 of Queen of Thorns
Caelynn
I’m in utter shockas we stand before the portal to the fae realm.
The Night Bringer and Night Terror are gone. Rev is alive. And we get to go home—together.
“It’s real,” Rev whispers in my ear.
I embrace Raven one last time and thank her profusely. Her eyes are not sad in the slightest, though. “You gave me a lot of hope, Cae. I don’t think you realize all the ways you helped me.”
“But I also hurt you. And put you at risk and—”
She waves me off. “It’s okay. All of it. I’m going to be happy now.”
I pull her into my arms one last time. Then, we wait another few minutes while Blane says goodbye to his friends too. They talked about him staying, but then I brought up how he’ll technically be next in line for his throne and we’d like to have another good ruler in the fae world.
I still don’t know much about Blane, but his loyalty to his friends and our cause gives me hope that he can live up to Raven’s kind words about him.
Ty and Kari give us hugs too, mostly to give us encouragement. I still can’t conceive that my monster is gone. He’s alive, and maybe the slight possibility that one day he could get free will haunt me some days. But I will take each day of happiness as I live it. And I suspect, I will have many.
Destroying all of the portals to the human world will take some time—we’ll have to destroy them one by one. But it won’t be too difficult of a task. And once it’s done, the fae realm will be forever barred from the human realm.
“No one can ever recreate them?” Kari asks as we prepare to blast this portal to bits.
“Not once both sides are destroyed,” Blane answers. “And Aurora will take care of the human side.”
Kari nods.
“I have the knowledge and power required to reunite the realms,” the spell book tells me. “You will have to guard me well, once your time is through.”
I frown.Once my time is through.
“In a few hundred years,” he clarifies.
“We’ll talk more about this later,” I tell the book. It’s... an interesting thought. But one we can discuss in time. Right now, I can barely manage to wrap my mind around winning this battle and saying goodbye to Raven forever.
I sniff and smile at Raven, whose hand is linked tightly with the Twisted fae female willingly leaving behind her own world for Raven. Maybe she too finally has a real place to belong. Raven waves happily.
I say one last goodbye to the world of my banishment. The world of my mourning. And the girl who gave me hope that I am worthy of love.
“Take care of her,” I tell Aurora. Her smile tells me she intends to do exactly that. Then, I step through the portal hand in hand with the mate I actually get to keep.
