Page 186 of Crown of Darkness
But now she’s falling, and as she hits the ground, she dissolves into nothing and all I hear is “This one last favor I do for you. Get your daughter. And escape. You must escape, because the Horned One is free, and he will be hungry.”
I scrabble to my hands and knees as her presence winks out.
Thiago’s gone, nothing but a dark smear in the shape of his body remaining on the slate floor. Enormous wings of blackened ash paint the floor around him, but as I watch, a gust of wind sends the ash flying.
I snatch at the ash, but it vanishes between my hands, and suddenly this is all real.
He’s gone.
He’s gone, and I want to scream at the sudden emptiness in my chest—that hole where my heart should be. Where he should be.
But he did not die just to see me collapse. And the Mother of Night did not suffer just to see me fail.
I push to my feet, staring at the vortex of power that streams into the sky.
Amaya.
Amaya is all that matters.
I step between the Hallow stones, and power rips and tears at me.Ride it, the Mother said.
And so I do.
The instant I let the power flood through me, the world changes. It’s no longer a gushing current that strips the flesh from my bones. It’s a song of life, it’s the whisper of winds through the trees, the rumble of the earth, the sound of coursing water raging over jagged rocks. It is everything and nothing. It is life.
Arcaedia.
It feels like the time I bound myself to the land, and for a second I wonder if the fae queens realize that this binding is similar to what the Old Ones do with their Hallows.
Did we absorb their custom?
Or did we steal it?
For the first time in my life, I tune into the other side of my nature, and my blood allows me to go to her.
Amaya huddles on the floor, sobbing into her hands. Chains manacle her narrow wrists, but I set hands to them and I can see every single little molecule that comprises the iron. It burns a little—my fae blood is strong enough to flinch at the feel of it—but I simply break them apart in my hands.
“Amaya.”
She looks up, and the sight of her eyes is another stab through the heart.
I have this, I remind myself.I have this last little gift from him.
“Who are you?” she cries, trying to shield her face.
“I’m your mother.” The whisper is torn from my lips. Her hair’s so soft, and my eyes drink in every little aspect of that face. “I’m here to rescue you. We came for you because we love you.” There’s doubt in her eyes, and I drag her against me with with my uninsured arm, wrapping her in a hug that I need just as much as she does. “I love you. And I have finally found you. And I will never let you go.Never.”
My daughter.
Mydaughter.
And if I don’t dare look at that shadowy smear on the stone, then perhaps I can pretend my heart hasn’t broken in two.
He’s gone.
But I barely have time for tears.
Because we aren’t safe yet, and if there is one thing my husband would want— Would have wanted from me, it is for his daughter to be safe.
