We all cried and felt sorry for one another. We whispered words of comfort to each other. We embraced the pain and allowed it to flow through us, to liberate us from the pressure that had been gathering. Strangely, I could breathe a little easier now. Crying did help.

“Mom?”

My son’s voice came through like a faint crackle. So faint, in fact, that I had barely noticed it. For a moment, I didn’t even realize he was calling out to me.

“Mom, are you there?”

I sucked in a breath. It was Taeral, I could hear him clearly in my head. Oh, such music to my ears!

Quickly but politely, I pulled myself away from the group, my eyes wide and scratchy. The others watched me carefully, while I felt a smile tug at the corners of my mouth. My lips were cracked, and they stung a little as they stretched, but I didn’t care.

“Taeral?” I called out. Our Telluris link was activated. I could feel my baby deep in my soul, pulling the invisible string that connected our hearts. All of a sudden, the world was no longer as grim or as defective as I’d seen it. It was slightly better, because my son was back in the picture. “Honey, what happened? Are you okay?”

Looking around, everyone’s breaths had been cut off. They were all quiet, their gazes fixed on me as I waited for a reply.

“Mom, we did it. We stopped it,” Taeral said.

And just like that, I slid down the emotional spectrum, from grief and despair to an indescribable sense of relief, having finally received the confirmation that my Taeral and his friends had prevailed. My heart swelled, threatening to break out of my ribcage, and a different kind of tears trickled down my cheeks. Tears of joy and pride.

“You saved us,” I whispered. “You saved us…”

“We…” Taeral paused for a moment. “The fae, Mom… We didn’t get to Death in time.”

“Tae, my darling. You saved billions. Entire worlds. Please, do not sell yourself short. Not after everything you’ve been through,” I replied.

“Mom, there’s more,” he said.

I stared at Sofia and Derek, though blankly, with no particular purpose. They were the most solid figures in my field of vision. “What is it?” I asked, my voice dropping.

“It wasn’t Death who used Thieron to stop the ritual. It was me,” he said. “And I stopped it for good, this time. It will never happen again. I guess, in a sense, I broke the cycle.”

My mind went blank. The information was so foreign, so shocking, that I didn’t even understand it at first. It didn’t click. I was missing something, for sure.

“Honey, you need to explain that to me, bit by bit,” I said at last.

“I will, soon. I promise.”

“Where are you?”

“On Aledras. I’ll see you in a bit, Mom. I love you. Tell Dad I’m trying to fix this,” he said. Again, my heart leapt, performing a series of somersaults I wasn’t prepared for. What did he mean by this?

I couldn’t allow myself any false hope. Sherus had been right. I’d fooled myself about all this for too long. My motherly instincts kicked in, swerving through various scenarios.

“Tae, don’t get yourself indebted to anyone or anything. Please,” I replied. “I don’t want you to owe—”

“Mom, don’t worry. I have to go.”

Silence settled inside me. The kind that worried me. Taeral had left our Telluris line without clarifying what it was exactly that he was trying to fix. I knew he was dead set on saving his father—though chances were he was now looking to save five million fae, not just one.

Again, I found myself in the middle of turmoil on the inside. Hope, ever the treacherous fiend, was circling me, prowling through the darkness of my thoughts and threatening to seduce me. The last thing I needed was another bout of disappointment where my husband was concerned, not to mention everyone else who’d perished in the sanctuaries.

Then again, my son had always had a tendency to surprise.

What if?

Taeral

I stood in the middle of the frozen lake, thinking I’d made my mother broil without giving her details of what would happen next. She was in so much pain. They were all in so much pain that I simply didn’t have the courage to detail the promise I’d made. I just knew I’d make it happen, one way or another.

The specters had all been cleared—whatever was left of them, at least. The ghouls had munched on their fair share. I wondered, for a brief moment, if there was such a thing as ghoul indigestion. The souls had not been part of their diet in a very long time, yet they’d managed to consume thousands in the span of a few hours.

Death stood before me, the chain still keeping her tied to the bottom of the lake. The Reapers were done releasing the confused specters from their curse, and billions of golden flakes spread across the sunset sky. The sun had already sunk into the horizon, leaving behind splotches of pink and dark blue. It was cold, but it was also quiet.

Glancing around at my team, I found relief. I even allowed myself to smile, watching Amelia and Raphael as they hugged and kissed. Riza grabbed Herakles and pulled him into a short smooching session, prompting the Faulty to groan and chuckle with delight. Eva and Varga were inseparable, laughing and showering one another with kisses. We’d made it so far.

Eira was next to me, trying to look away from the couples. She avoided my gaze as well, but I could see the roses blooming in her cheeks. It was over, at least in one matter. The Spirit Bender was dead, and so was Brendel. Gone forever from this world. They’d left so much pain and misery behind. I knew I wouldn’t stop until I’d found a way to fix that.

Until then, however, I turned to face Eira and took her hands in mine. I’d been waiting to do this for so long, I couldn’t get on with anything else until I got it out of the way. She gave me a startled look, seemingly confused.

“Tae, what are you doing?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“What I should’ve done a long time ago,” I replied.

Without giving her the opportunity to serve me with a follow-up question, I leaned down and caught her mouth in a kiss. It was meant to be a short and sweet one, but enough to make her understand how I felt. I’d never experienced such feelings before—not with this intensity, and not until I’d realized how important she’d become to me.

She tasted like a dream come true, the very dream that Phantom had forced us into for the Phyla challenge. Only better, because this was real. I felt her lips. I could hear her drumming heartbeat. I belonged with her, and she belonged with me. Maybe, if Inalia hadn’t sacrificed herself to become Cerix’s Fire Hermessi, this never would’ve happened. I never would’ve gotten so close to Eira. But fate had a funny way of arranging the pieces, making sure they all fell in a certain direction, without us knowing.

She moaned softly, unable to break the kiss. Love burst through me in waves of honey and sunlight, finally free to roam and consume every atom in my body. I’d been holding this in for a while. There had never been a right moment, but dammit, we’d earned this much.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her close. We deepened the kiss, reacting to one another. So much for that short and sweet one. I heard Amelia giggle somewhere in the background, but my eyes were closed as I lost myself in the moment. It was if time had been stopped, just for Eira and me.

Eventually, I managed to raise my head to just look at her. There was peace in her blue eyes. The peace of a sun-kissed lagoon, opening out to an endless ocean. A smile rested on her glistening lips, and I instinctively licked mine, already yearning for round two. Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—the Soul Crusher felt the need to cut in.

“I’m sure you two will get a room at some point down the line,” he said dryly. “We need to get back to business.”

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, slowly moving away from Eira.

She took my hand and squeezed gently. “Nothing to be sorry about,” she replied.

“It took you two forever!” Riza exclaimed, prompting the rest of the crew to laugh.

“Yeah, hardy-har-har,” I muttered, jokingly narrowing my eyes at her.

Death chuckled. “It’s nice to see love prevail,” she said.

Her voice had an instant effect on us. The laughter faded like mist before the rising sun. Here we were, in the middle of a frozen lake, in the heart of a world that had suffered so much at the hands of the very entities they’d unknowingly worshipped as gods. I felt awfully sorry for the Aledrasians. Much like the fae, they must’ve been hit hard by the ritual.

“What did Thieron do, exactly?” I asked Death. “You told me the spell, and I said it and whatnot… but help me understand, what just happened?”