A heartbeat later, Vita came to life, her force thrumming through me, sweeping away the pain, but not the fury.
I scrambled upright and ran at him. He laughed, gripped Elysian tighter, and tried to raise her. She moved.
An inch.
Two.
Then she froze. He wasn’t the Witch King’s heir. He didn’t have the right to draw her.
That realization hit him hard, and he screamed—a sound filled with denial and fury. He released her hilt and reached, with both hands, for the gray’s energy.
“No!” I yelled and lunged for him.
I reached him the same time as the energy he’d called into his body. It tore through him, tore through me, through flesh and muscle and bone, until once again it felt as if every fiber of my being were being stretched beyond capacity and would surely shatter into a million tiny pieces. But just before the dissolution of all that we were and all that we could be actually happened, the triad reacted, and the shattering ceased. Then Vita pulsed, and energy flowed back into my limbs. She was drawing on Max’s strength through my grip on him. Draining him to save me.
I couldn’t let him die here, even if I’d brought him here to do exactly that. But that was before I’d felt the purity of this place—the utter perfection of its energy—through every inch of my being. Mo had been right—his death would forever stain the gray.
I took a deep breath, then plunged Vita into his neck, severing an artery—a wound that wouldn’t immediately kill him, though he would eventually bleed out unless helped—to strengthen the connection between him, her, and me. As warmth pulsed over the hand holding the knife, I reached for Elysian with the other. The minute my fingers wrapped around her hilt, I pushed us all away from the gray and back into the old farmhouse.
We tumbled to the flagstones in a tangled mess of arms and legs. There was a roar, a rumble of sound, and I became aware of movement, of anger, and magic. Something—someone—pounded at the door, and the oily wave of magic was weakening.
But not quickly enough.
Nowhere near quickly enough.
I pushed free from Max’s weight, then rose onto my knees and swung Elysian in an arc over my head. Steel clashed with steel, the sheer force of the blow reverberating down my arms. Light flared down her fuller and peeled away the shadows, revealing thin, pale gray-skinned men with gaunt features and pointed ears.
Dark elves. Ten of them. Max really hadn’t been taking any chances.
Movement, behind me. I swept Elysian around and up. Caught the edge of a blade and knocked it away. Reached for the earth, felt her fire respond. It burned through me as the gray’s energy had only moments before, but I didn’t immediately release it, instead channeling it into the blade and then beyond. Elves screamed as others attacked, forcing me to throw myself down and away. I heard a crash as the door was flung open and saw booted feet run in, accompanied by the unholy screaming of a blade. Luc, wielding Hecate, in the room and wiping out the remaining dark elves in a furious, bloody whirlwind of death.
I hauled the fire back into the blade, back into the earth, then crawled across to Max. He was, unsurprisingly given the wound I’d inflicted, dead. Shock and surprise had forever been etched onto his now skeletal features.
My gaze went past him.
Saw Mo.
No longer surrounded by that dark web of magic.
No longer breathing.
Fuck it, no.
I wasn’t going to lose her. Not now. Not after everything we’d been through.
I pulled Vita from my brother’s neck, then crawled over to Mo and cradled her head in my lap. After tearing open her shirt, I placed a hand under her breast, over her heart, then thrust Vita into the flagstones, gripping her tightly as I made a connection between the earth, me, and Mo. Power surged—the earth’s, mine, Vita’s—hitting Mo with such force that her spine arched. The red mist of pain descended, and my eyes bled, but I didn’t break the connection and I didn’t give up. I kept the energy flowing, willing her to breathe, to live.
Time slowed to a crawl, even though my heart raced and a blur of motion and noise surrounded me. I paid it no heed, watching Mo intently, willing her chest to rise, her heart to beat under my fingers.
For far too long, neither did.
Then, with a body-shaking gasp, her eyes snapped open. She sucked in several great gulps of air before her gaze came to mine. Pride shone. Pride and relief.
“My darling girl,” she murmured, her voice hoarse and wracked with pain. “You did it.”
“Yes,” I whispered as bloody tears fell. “I did.”
Was the price I’d paid a fair one?
In the end, the answer would always be yes. At least in the cold light of day.
But in the deep silence of the night, when darkness and regret came out to play? When the heated echo of my twin’s blood once again pulsed across my hand and I saw again the shock and reproach in his eyes?
I suspected it was a question that would haunt me for many years to come.
Epilogue
From the highest point on top of King Island, the scope of the damage done to Ainslyn was very evident. While the business sector and the new port had come through the attack relatively unscathed, the residential and business areas surrounding the old town wall had basically been decimated. Max might have died unceremoniously on the floor of an old farmhouse, but his forces had taken a while to get the memo.
Or perhaps it had been my brother’s last gift to us. A final fuck-you.
I raised my gaze. Dusk was settling in, and the sky was the color of blood. Memories stirred, and tears stung my eyes. I took a deep breath and blinked them away. Despite the doubts I’d had in that old farmhouse, I only had to look at Ainslyn to know the price had indeed been worth it, no matter what the night’s demons might otherwise whisper. It would take months to clean up the mess in the outer sections of the city and years to rebuild. And while in the end there’d only been a dozen or so deaths here, London had suffered a far greater toll. The grand old city would never be the same, though that in part was not only due to the destruction of her many iconic buildings, but because the High Witch Council had officially been granted sitting rights in the House of Lords. For the first time in centuries, witches would have a hand in the laws governing the land they’d lived in—and at one time ruled—for thousands of centuries.
“You okay?”
The soft question rose from the darkness behind me, and I smiled. “I will be. Eventually.”
“Well, that’s a definite improvement.”
“What is?” I turned and loosely wrapped my arms around Luc’s neck. The ragged scar that ran from his left temple to the edge of his mouth was the only visible sign of just how close he’d come to death when Max’s lightning had struck that grove of trees.
He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer to his big, warm body. “I mean you not automatically saying you’re ‘just fine.’”
I laughed. “Expect a return to form sooner rather than later.”
“I’d be disappointed if there wasn’t.”
“And disappointing you is not something I ever plan to do.”
My voice held a smoky edge, and a smile crinkled the corners of his lovely eyes. “Oh, I don’t expect you ever will.”