“High Realms and Divinity in Heaven,” I call, stunned that we actually made it.
I’m lying on the floor with Cerys in my arms. She covers my face with kisses, her hands on my cheeks. I harden against her body, ready to take her right here, right now, make her mine in a ceremony of gratitude that we’re alive.
“We made it,” she says, smiling happily, her face hovering over mine. Realms, she radiates joy.
I take her wrists in my hands as I sit up. Nazearean slides between us, brushing his body against my stomach and then against Cerys’ thigh as if he can’t decide which one of us he wants to cuddle with first. He’s happy beyond imagination.
“No, Cerys, you made it. None of this would have been possible without you.” She wants to protest but I stop her, taking her face in my hands. “No. That is the truth. You recharged me the first time, then it was your idea for us to go to the Grand Mage’s. Your intuition was stronger and better than the most powerful supernaturals’ magic. You saved the day with the dead, and now with the Firestone. It’s only thanks to you that I’m the King of Flames again.”
I get up to my feet, helping her as well. I hold both her hands in mine, gazing deeply into her eyes, and feeling her in every bone of my body. The connection between us is now complete and unbreakable. She is my fated mate, my heart that now beats outside my body. A chill runs down my back as I realize that the rumors were true—if anything were to happen to her, I would die. As powerful as I am now, more so than I have ever been, I would just fall off my feet and die.
“Cerys,” I whisper. “Thanks to you, I am the King of Fire again. I still have the desire to take over all the worlds, not because I’m a conqueror but because... Well, I told you why. Also, my people might continue their attacks on those who fear and hate them. But know that one central thing changed—I no longer intend to take over the worlds. But you would have to live in the Fire Realm with me, if we go through with what we both desire—the wedding. If you still want to go through with it.”
“Of course I do.”
“Cerys.” I lick my lips. I want her to understand this really well. “The Fire Realm is very similar to Hell. It’s hot, volcanic, and it’s full of creatures that...”
“Creatures like the Undead.”
“There’s more than that. Cerys, there’s something I need to tell you.”
ONE WEEK LATER
Cerys
WILL I BE ABLE TO LIVE with it? With Xerxes having become what he is? He said he realized it the moment he threw me upwards and saved me from the abyss, and I can understand how that revelation happened, but it’s also something that changed his nature forever.
Something that makes him even darker than he was before, not to mention more powerful.
As I stand here in front of the mirror in a castle hidden deep in the forests of Flipside Scotland, trying on the sparkling white dress that I’ll wear at the wedding in only a couple of weeks, I realize just how much I didn’t take into consideration when I said yes.
Yes, I’m madly in love with Xerxes, I’d give up my life for him and, in a way, I am doing it. But after the wedding and a short honeymoon here in the Flipside, we’ll be living in the Fire Realm together, and the Fire Realm is no tropical island to say the least. He said he’d let me visit the Flipside a few times a year and, even though I accepted with a smile, I couldn’t help feeling like Persephone, for whom the realm of my father, Hades, has always been a sort of prison, even though she loved him.
But now, with the danger behind us, more uncomfortable truths come back to haunt me. For example, I still don’t know the whole story behind his armies of Undead. What sort of person must Xerxes have been to have people killed in dark alleyways in order to abuse their bodies, converting them into putrefying fighting machines? He never denied doing it, even though I can’t reconcile that idea even with the man he was when I first met him. Even back then I felt there was a reason behind everything he did, and he didn’t think of himself as evil. He just let the others take him for a villain because it suited them, and he was tired of fighting the label.
Nazarean purrs, drawing my attention. He sits on the stone floor by my side, watching me in the mirror.
“Yes, of course I love him, more than I ever thought it possible to love someone,” I respond. “But I can’t just look away from, you know, the things he does, the things he is.” I stare at the dress, brushing my hands over the folds. I’ve never looked like this before, like a princess. The dress is absolutely beautiful, with a white sparkling corset that showcases my waist and pushes up my breasts like ripe apples, while the lower part is vaporous, the folds flowing like a cascade. My blood rises in anticipation when I think about our wedding night, when I’ll feel him inside of me again, but I struggle to keep focused on the things I want to discuss with Xerxes.
“I should probably make a list,” I tell Nazarean. “I have to know how he makes the Undead. Maybe there’s something about the process that people don’t understand, it can’t possibly be like Lysander and Arielle thought it was.”
“Oh, it’s like that and worse.”
My head snaps in the direction where the voice came from. It’s Marayke the Iron Maiden, of course, leaning against the doorframe. The sight of her strikes me as different than usual. Despite her appearance of strength, with her rusty spiked hair, the golden skin specific to warrior fire fae and the lean body of a fighter, there’s a sadness in her eyes that makes her somehow softer.
I measure her up and down. The woman sure has a sense for fashion despite her warrior vibe. She wears a new armor every time I see her, with different patterns snaking down the metal and mail that embraces her lean, muscular form.
“Marayke, if you’re here to sow discord so that I leave Xerxes, drop it. I don’t agree with many of the things he does, and we might have a lot to work through before we can call ourselves a completely happy couple, but I’m still marrying him. We’re fated mates, and we love each other unconditionally, no matter what happens.”
“You’re not doing him any favors by accepting his love, Cerys,” she says, eyes trained on mine. “You are a weakness to him. Now his enemies will have something on him. Before you, he didn’t have any soft spots, he was invincible.”
“You have a very short memory, Marayke. He came to me to replenish his powers after his core got shattered. We found the Firestone together, we defied death together, and now he’s got his power back and then some. Seems that encountering me has come with some advantage.”
Marayke walks inside and, to my surprise, her brother Kareim follows. He closes the door behind him, and I step back. Nazarean hisses, arching menacingly in front of me.
“What in the cursed realms is going on here?”
“Don’t worry, future queen of the Fire Realm,” Kareim says mockingly. “We’re not here to hurt you. We wouldn’t make it out of this castle alive if we harmed a hair on your head. But we’re here to show you something.” Marayke closes her arms across her chest, leaning with her back and one foot against the wall by the door, while Kareim approaches.
I keep my back straight and a forbidding expression on my face. He approaches me like some kind of two-faced priest with his colorful, shiny robe, and his staff, a tiara on his forehead, showing that he still believes himself to be something special. Half of his face is that of a pretty boy, half that of a demon from the scars Nazarean’s scratches left on his cheek. He stops inches away from me, retribution written all over him, and takes out a crystal globe from under his cloak. He holds it out to me.