Chapter
Fifteen
Idodge one of the falling stars, defending myself with shadows as the floor falls right out from under me. I crash into the room below with a smack, dust and debris hitting me in the face as I roll over. The shaking finally stops; the stars have settled into fiery rocks that fill the broken space. I’m not sure where we even are, but so much of the throne room and castle is gone, all I can focus on is the fresh air and stream of moonlight I spot to my left. I shakily stand up, ignoring the cuts on my legs that are bleeding as I hobble forward and into the clearing outside. It’s a balcony, huge and spacious, and filled with knocked-over plants. The king is on it, his crown lopsided, and he has cuts on him, but he is alive…and he still has Maia. He holds her up by her hair, and she is out of it. “STOP!” I scream. I’m seconds away when he plunges the knife straight into her neck and pushes her body away, letting her fall right onto the stone.
There is a choice: to help Maia or to go after the king. Revenge is all I have wanted, but…this is Severi’s sister. The decision has already been made as I try to reach for his sister, only for my Nexus to force a shift. My Nexus tightens the snakearound my arm as I reach for Maia. “Stop and kill the king. She is barely alive, Gwen.”
“Sometimes family comes first, and we are not alone.” I look back and I know, I just know, my mates have this. They will not let the king escape. “We can trust our mates.”
I grab Maia the second my Nexus agrees, and using the power I took from Georgina, I press my hand onto her neck and begin to heal her. Blood trickles back into her neck slowly, drop by drop, but I feel her heartbeat under my palm as my hands glow a brilliant white.
“Stop him!” Finn shouts from somewhere ahead, and the dust begins to clear. I look up just in time to see a portal, and it must be opened by the king. He is about to run through it when time pauses. Softly, slowly, almost gently. The world just stops. The flames from the falling stars freeze mid-air, and the dust becomes still. Everything pauses, and I look over to see Severi to the left, his arm held up, turning his hand. He is turning back time. The king struggles as he is forced back a few steps and the portal snaps shut once more.
Severi walks over to him, looks at me, and I nod, telling him I have his sister and to go ahead. His words ring clear through the air. “I will never take the throne after your death; you took nearly all the good and kindness from me as a child. I am healing with my mate, and every bit of me that is good is saved for her, not for the people. I will make sure whoever takes the throne erases all memory of you, and all that will be left are scary tales around a fire that no one believes. You will be forgotten, your bloodline over, and I will continue healing with my new family. You didn’t break me and you didn’t break her…but you will pay—painfully—for ever daring to try.”
“We made them Gods,” my Nexus says quietly, watching as Severi slowly starts time again. “And now they will take revenge for us. My mates died…but yours will not.”
No, they will not. Tears fall from my eyes as I watch the king of the Vian being overpowered. He might be a king…but they are Gods now. My mates surround the king like a pack, and he is their prey. He explodes with violent magic—fire, streams of water, electricity, all of it straight towards my mates, but Onyx defends and nothing gets close. The king transforms into a wolf, and Severi turns time back to stop him. The king has too many powers, one after one, but it is nothing to my mates. I watch in something close to shock. My mates are relentless, and they are making him wear himself out. They fight like Gods. Severi, every time the king’s about to gain ground, rewinds time, stops him, until my mates get closer and closer. Until the king has sweat pouring down his face, his crown nearly falling off his head, and he is cornered. “Stop!” he screams at Severi. “This is an unfair fight. I am your father!”
“Something you taught me, father,” Severi murmurs, “is unfair doesn’t matter. It only matters who is alive in the end.”
“You should never have touched our mate,” Onyx warns, the first one to get close enough. I make sure to use every inch of my power left to ward the broken room, to make sure no one can come and help the king. “Now you’re going to pay for it.”
He puts his hand into the king’s chest and rips out his heart, just as the king once did to him. The next hour is brutal, but my Nexus is impressed, and she loves it. The king screams as my mates quite literally rip him apart until there’s nothing but blood and body parts scattered across the floor. Finnegan sets it all on fire when they are done, and finally, his life orb floats into the air. The orb from his life is different. The orb is rotten—probably the only word I can think of for it. It looks rotten, mould covering it, broken and fractured, so many powers glowing, but something is so wrong about it. No one touches the orb. We all just watch as it shatters more and shakes, until it cracks and smashes to pieces, into nothing but dust.
The world goes silent. We’ve won. It’s over. Severi runs over to me, touching Maia’s arm. “Is she?—”
“I’m okay.” A small, shaking voice comes from Maia. She looks up at me. “Thank you.” Severi holds up one finger, signalling for us to wait, and walks away. I help Maia sit up and I sit at her side, shaky and tired, but who cares? We won. It’s over. Finnegan sits next to me, while Hollis and Rhodes lean against a wall. Alek and Onyx watch me with relieved smiles. I just rest for a long minute, hardly able to believe that we did it and Maia isn’t dead. It’s a small miracle. Severi picks something up from the rubble. A crown of red. It’s the only thing solid left of the king.
Finnegan links his hand with mine. “Stars, huh?”
“I always thought it would be me that killed him, and the stars were more of a feeling.” I shrug. “It worked. Ish.”
“Ish.” He laughs, and several others do. He squeezes my hand. “It was always meant to be us. You gave too much to end this and all we have ever wanted to do is protect you.”
Severi looks down, ash and dust floating around him as he rips the necklace that my sister gave him off and throws it onto the ground. He pauses and I watch as he picks up the crown and carries it over to his sister, setting it onto her lap. “Put the crown on. Go out there and tell the Vian to give up, and you will have an allegiance with the Nexus. Tell them the king is dead, that you have taken the crown, that the prince has abdicated the throne and wants nothing to do with it. The world needs a new queen, and hopefully one a great deal better than our father.”
She looks up at Severi, her lips parted in shock. “I’m not like him. I was never like him. I’m not a ruler, what about Issan?”
Severi shakes his head. “Issan wants to be with his mate, and his mate is family to mine. We both do not wish to rule…it’s all yours. Do what you wish with it. Just make it better, huh?”
She nods, climbing to her feet. Severi hugs her tightly, just once, and we all watch as she walks out of the throne room to put an end to the war.
Chapter
Sixteen
FIVE MONTHS LATER
Iput my hand out of the window of the car, letting the breeze flow through my fingertips as I try to work out exactly where we are. It’s cold, and we have been driving for hours, but I’m crap at noticing the signs as we drove, as my mates kept me busy. I’m sure they distracted me on purpose. About fifteen minutes ago, they put a blindfold on me, and now I can’t see a thing. For a second, I thought it was some kind of new sexual thing, but nope. Finn squeezes my hand from where he sits next to me, and I sigh, resting my head on his shoulder.
The last five months have been…ours. I didn’t know what it would be like after the war, but it has become our own strange sense of normal. My aunt has sent aid to every city around the world, sending Nexus and Vian with powers to help fix the cities I destroyed with Georgina. It will take time, a lot of time, but humanity will recover, or at least that’s what my aunt thinks. We have grown closer in the last few months, and I am glad to have her in my life.
Annie and Issan officially had their mating ceremony a month ago, and it was beautiful. She wore a white dress that made her look like a princess, and I threatened to kill Issan ifhe hurt her. All in all, a perfect wedding. Onyx walked her down the path to the temple, and I know that meant everything to him. Annie loves the fact that Onyx is her brother, even if she doesn’t want to talk to us about who her father is when he was an awful man. She just loves Onyx and how I’m now technically her sister-in-law. Severi even danced at the wedding with me. It was the best.
“Feyre has been a lot better since her memory was wiped,” Finnegan murmurs to me. Feyre…it has been difficult, and I know Finn is trying to make me feel better about the fact that I’m a massive trigger for her. I haven’t seen her in months because she hasn’t been ready, and I don’t want to be the reason she goes back on all the work she has done to get better. It still stings that the only family Finn has doesn’t want to be around me. Finnegan squeezes my hand, and he just knows. “Time will help, and she does ask how you are. She loves you too.” I nod, glad for once he can’t see my eyes. The therapists and doctors are really happy with her progress. It might take time—it’s been five months since the war ended now—but Morriganis City is the best place for her to be. So full of life and people who are doing all they can to help fix this world, too.
Queen Maia of the Vian…well, she is impressive. That woman was born to be a queen and to rule the Vian. They listen to her, and she has begun by making a peace treaty with my aunt and welcoming Nexus into the city. There are now laws, and what is left of the guards are now tasked with upholding the new laws, which include no killing Nexus. That the only way for a Vian to gain power is if the Nexus wants to give it up, and they must not kill to do so. It’s complicated, but Maia seems to be a badass at handling the situation.