He pulled back slightly, worried eyes searching my face. “What do you mean?”
I reached for the connection that had bound us together, the bioelectric resonance that had let our scars glow when we touched, that had let us share thoughts and feelings during moments of intense synchronization.
It wasn’t there.
I could feel him physically — the warmth of his body, the pressure of his arms around me. But the electric awareness that had hummed between us for the past two months, the sense of his presence that had been as constant as my own heartbeat — that was gone. It had been burned away along with everything else.
“The grounding,” I said quietly. “It…it burned out my channels. The phoenix abilities, the connection to the network, the….” I swallowed hard but made myself go on. “The bond between us. It’s gone, Ben. I can’t feel it anymore.”
His face went still. I watched him process the information, watched the grief flicker across his features before he forced it down.
“But you’re alive,” he said at last. “You’re here. That’s what matters.”
“Is it?” I asked, and hated the uncertainty in my own voice. “I’m not…I’m not who I was anymore. The fire, the abilities — everything that made me special — ”
“You were special before any of that,” he said fiercely. His hands framed my face, and his gaze held mine with an intensity that had nothing to do with bioelectric fields or dimensional energy. “You were special the day you walked into my life, Sidney Lowell. The rest of it — the scars, the powers, the connection — that was just extra. That was never who I fell in love with.”
I swallowed. “So…who did you fall in love with?”
He smiled, although it looked a little shaky around the edges. “The woman who fixed a hawk’s wing with steady hands and a soothing voice. The woman who would walk into the jaws of a dragon to save the people she loved.” He pressed his forehead against mine. “You’re still that woman, Sidney. You always will be.”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to trust that what we had could survive this loss, this fundamental change in what I was.
But I could also see my mother kneeling beside us, her face streaked with tears, and my grandmother standing behind her with an expression that mixed relief with something that looked almost like grief. They understood what I’d lost, perhaps better than Ben did. They knew what it meant to be a guardian, what it cost to have that connection and then lose it.
“The Dragon,” I said, forcing myself to focus on something besides the ache of absence. “Did it — ”
“It’s gone.” My grandmother’s voice was steady, although I thought I could hear the strain beneath it. “It sank back into the earth after you collapsed. The ground closed over it like it had never been.”
“And the portal? The network?”
“Stabilizing.” This from Brigid Callahan, who had moved closer and was looking down at me with something approaching respect in her storm-colored eyes. “Whatever you did, lass — it worked. The corruption is clearing. The ley lines are healing themselves.”
I closed my eyes and let the relief wash over me. It had worked. The sacrifice had been worth it.
Silver Hollow was safe, and the network would survive. Two thousand people would wake up this morning never knowing how close they’d come to annihilation.
When I opened my eyes again, my father was there, having somehow managed to drag himself close enough to reach for my hand. His face was gray with exhaustion and residual pain, but his dark eyes were bright with something I’d never expected to see there.
Pride.
“You did it,” he said quietly. “You saved them all.”
“We did it,” I corrected him. “All of us. I couldn’t have — ”
“Don’t.” He squeezed my fingers weakly. “Don’t diminish what you accomplished…what you were willing to sacrifice.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was heavy with regret. “I spent seventeen years trying to protect you from a distance, trying to keep you safe without being present. And in the end, you saved yourself. You saved everyone. You didn’t need me at all.”
“That’s not true.” I held his gaze, willing him to understand. “You were part of what I showed the Dragon. Part of the proof that humanity was worth saving. Your sacrifice — the bullet you took for Mom — that mattered. It all mattered.”
For a moment, he was silent, clearly trying to absorb what I’d just told him, and something seemed to change in that moment. I didn’t know if what I was feeling then was forgiveness — we weren’t there yet and might never be fully there — but at least a kind of peace. An acceptance of what we were to each other now, however complicated that might be.
“We should get you back to the house,” my mother said, her tone gentle. “You need rest. Real rest, in a real bed.”
I nodded, although the thought of moving seemed almost impossibly daunting. Every muscle in my body ached, and the absence of my abilities left me feeling hollow, like someone had scooped out an essential part of who I was and left only the shell behind.
But Ben was already helping me to my feet, his arm steady around my waist, and the others were gathering close to support me. My family. My guardians. The people who had fought beside me through the longest night of my life.
As we turned to make our way back through the forest, I glanced over my shoulder at the place where the Dragon had emerged. The cracks in the earth were already sealing, the amber light fading, the ground slowly returning to its normal state. By tomorrow, there would be no sign that anything had happened here at all.