Then everything crashes over me at once, my emotions shocking me back to life.

“Noooooo!” I lunge for her, but Finn and Dmitri grab my arms and hold firm.

“You cannot help her now, moy sever. I am sorry.”

Helplessness threatens to drown me in a suffocating wave. My magic is utterly useless in this moment. The newly mended bond between us has been torn away, leaving nothing but raw, agonizing loss in its place. My heart shatters as tears stream unchecked, streaking through the dried blood spattered on my face.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Taryn.” Finn dips his head, resting it near my temple to speak softly in my ear. “I need you to get somewhere safe. Once he figures out Aine isn’t who he wants, he’ll come for you. We’ll hold him off for as long as we can. You know how to hide your identity. Get the hell out of Faerie and start somewhere fresh.”

I snap my shocked gaze to his. “You want me to run?”

Golden-honey eyes I fell in love with, long before I saw them in person, plead with me. “We can’t win against that spear. Please, solnyshko, it’s the only way. I need you to live.”

Anger and frustration and fear mix into a volatile cocktail that boils in my veins. “Forget it,” I hiss. “I will not leave you all here to die.”

“What the fuck?!”

Edevane’s outburst snags our attention. His face is red, and he’s staring down at his body like it’s failed him somehow.

“I don’t feel any fucking different. I knew something had to be off with that bitch’s powers, but nothing? She’s the One True Ruler, she has to have the Power.” He cuts his diatribe short and looks up at me. “Unless it was given to someone else.”

Finn’s upper lip curls in a threatening snarl. “Or maybe you’re just not worthy enough to receive it.”

“Not a fan of that theory. Let’s test out a different one, shall we? Ibar.”

Edevane throws the Spear of Assal so fast none of us have time to react. The weapon is a blur of golden light slicing through the air, and yet everything suddenly moves in slow motion, allowing me to clock my final moments.

Dmitri and Finn shout my name, their voices full of rage and despair as they realize they’re helpless to stop what comes next. The twins howl in protest, their keening cries already mournful.

This is how Faerie is destroyed. Because I couldn’t stop a murderous tyrant with a god complex. I close my eyes, pushing the tears over the edges to fall down my face, and think of everyone I’ve failed.

Devlyn, Cathal, Moira, Barwyn, my father, my mother, Dmitri, the people of Faerie…

Finnian. My sire, my king of kings, my gentle giant, my fate. My everything. And I was too afraid to tell him I loved him. What a fool I was.

“Forgive me,” I whisper to all of them, but especially to him.

WHOOSH…

A sudden breeze brushes the left side of my face and lifts my curls before they settle again. Opening my eyes, I look down to see a single ringlet floating to the ground.

Finn gasps as he pulls me into his crushing embrace. “Thank fuck.”

“It missed?” Sure enough, the spear is still flying away from us.

“Athibar!” Just like that, the spear curves around and returns to Edevane’s hand. He repeats his attempt to kill me. Again, it soars past me, seemingly adjusting its trajectory enough to barely miss. His frustration is evident as the weapon returns to him unsuccessful a second time, but he quickly schools his features.

“The good news is, I know you have the Power. The bad news is, apparently, a weapon of the gods won’t kill someone with gods-given magic,” he says, disappointed. “No matter. Guess I’ll have to do things the old-fashioned way.”

“He will not succeed.” Dmitri crosses his swords in front of him, the bloodlust in his eyes darkening as he looks at me and repeats the Blood Oath he swore to me on the day we met. “Kogda ugodno, gde ugodno, chto ugodno.”

“Fuck no, he won’t,” Finn adds, his face a mask of steely resolve as he lifts his swords in kind.

Connor and Conall, growl low in their throats as they crouch, the fur on their heads matted with blood making them look more menacing than normal. They narrow their bright golden eyes on Edevane and suddenly take off, executing their own plan through their telepathic connection and ignoring my screams for them to pull back.

Sprinting toward the Light King, they angle to flank him from both sides, then simultaneously leap into the air, their massive bodies stretching long, their jaws open and ready to shred⁠—

The spear pierces through Connor’s body and sails right on through Conall’s a fraction of a second later. Both wolves collapse to the ground in furry heaps at Edevane’s feet, their soft whimpers fading to nothing as the grass beneath them floods in twin seas of red.

Sadness threatens to choke me. “Oh, gods, no.”

My mother is already gone, her still form and shredded wings an agonizing reminder of what happens when one is wounded by a weapon of the gods. There is no amount of healing or regenerating that can reverse the damage.

And now Connor and Conall—brave Dark shifters who put their lives on the line for me and an entire realm they never had the privilege of knowing—will share the same fate as my parents.

Unmitigated rage bubbles in my gut like lava. I’m going to fucking kill him.

I open the door to my magic as much as I dare and let the lightning flow through my veins. The rope armor on my torso and forearms seems to tighten as my powers ripple beneath the surface of my skin. Snapping my palms open, they ignite with violet fire as I release a torrent of flames at Edevane.

But he deflects the attack as easily as he did in the cavern, laughing as it hits one of the garden sculptures instead.

With a roar, Finn readies to lunge, and I know Dmitri will join him if I don’t do something. “Stop!” I shout at them, and push energy out with my hands for good measure, knocking them both on their asses. “You’ll only end up like the others! This is between me and him now.”

“Taryn.”

“Sestra.”

Switching to Russian, I glare at the two most important people in my life. “No! You will not needlessly sacrifice yourselves for my sake. Let me handle this.”

Edevane begins twirling the spear in his hand, a growing smirk on his face telling me the asshole understands Russian, because of course he does. “As a show of good faith, let me help you with that.”

He sweeps his hand out in front of him and suddenly Dmitri and Finn drop their swords and spread their arms out to the sides as though they’ve been shackled by an unseen force. No amount of struggling gives them freedom of their arms or legs. They’re stuck.

“There, now they can’t interrupt us.”

“Fine by me,” I say, acting as casual as possible while I focus on the four discarded swords. They disappear, then reappear in front of Edevane, hurtling toward his heart like it’s the bullseye on a dartboard.

But just like with the earlier stream of fire, he only needs the span of a heartbeat to see the threat and react. Just before they reach him, he teleports himself a foot to the left, their iron points drilling uselessly into the wooden door behind him.

His face contorts in anger. “I grow tired of these games, Princess. I want what I came for. Bequeath the One True Power to me, and we can be done with all this.”

“You expect me to just give it to you?” I scoff. “Over my dead body.”

“How about over your brother’s?”

In the time I can blink, the spear has left his hand, run Dmitri through, and returned to Edevane, my brother’s blood still dripping from its tip.

“Moy sever…” he rasps, his knees hitting the ground.