95 | ACT VII, SCENE VI

P R E V I O U S L Y

Then I closed my eyes and saw her in my mind, before the last breath finally slipped out of my body.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: POSITIVELY DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU ARE ALONE. THIS CHAPTER IS EMOTIONALLY HEAVY SO PLEASE CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED.]

KNAVESMIRE, DRACNESSE.

EDWINA

THE WORLD HAD FALLEN SILENT.

There was nothing. No one. Nothing left. Nothing at all.

My mother, dead.

My father, dead.

My brother, most probably dead.

My sister... I did not have a sister.

And my husband - lords, I had to find him. I had to put my hands around him, I had to feel his hands around me. I needed to feel that heart beating inside his chest, I had to know that there was still someone left breathing for me at the end of this. That there was still someone worth living for.

Worth existing for.

There was no salvation left for me. The devil would come and claim me at the end of my life and drag me to my private hell to punish me for all I had done. I deserved... I deserved every last bit of pain possible for doing this. For destroying my family.

For damning myself to the fucking moon and back.

Pandora should have killed me then and there and be done with it.

A vile person like me did not deserve to live.

Every breath I drew was more painful than the last as the dying sun slowly set, disappearing between the ruined hills of Steffith. Dying. The world was dying, and I was dying with it.

I had to find him.

Tristan. I had to find him. I had to make sure he was alright. Knowing him, he would not rest until all his wounded men were tended to... all those men who looked to their calm, steady King for reassurance and support. I knew he would not rest until he had gotten the casualty lists, lists of those thousands of men who had died in this war.

Not a war. A massacre.

My feet dredged towards the ruins of Calchester which lay smoking a few miles away, my heart dead and empty and hollow - more empty than I had any right to be.

Endollon after the war was like a body after death. Rotting and pale and cold it lay, a skeletal pile of bones compared to the sheer beauty the capital once possessed. The grass was stained a deep red, and so were the bricks, along with the ruined remains of whatever buildings had survived the Logogram's blindingly disastrous explosion. Piles of corpses lay scattered across the ground in heaps, the smell of death already invading my senses. How many sons would not return home today? How many mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, children and wives would spend the night in tears?

There was blood rising in my mouth as the treacherous smell rose up from the streets to greet me. The graveyard of the unburied dead welcomed me with open arms, mocking the blood staining my hands a deep red.

Nearly to the point of passing out from that smell alone, I made my way to the place where the Citadel once stood, now nothing more than a pile of rubble. I felt hollow, I felt so, so hollow - such emptiness I had never felt before, had never experienced. I felt as if a part of me had fractured and died inside my chest. Died and gone missing forever-

Alarm bells went off in my head.

I increased my pace to find a huge knot of people gathered somewhere in the snow, with weeps and sobs filling the air as panic rose up in my throat. My body complained as I ran the last few hundred meters, feeling the ringing increase in my head to push past the onlookers.

No - no, no, no -

I carelessly thrust Nyx aside as I broke in through the crowd to the sound of Celinette's loud cries. Halette looked at me with miserable eyes as I barreled past her, past the huge throng of curious bodies. Eric was there as he saw me with a tired, crestfallen face, stopping me by putting his hands on my shoulders before I broke through the last line of people.

"Edwina..." he whispered, his eyes red.

"Where's Tristan?"

"I'm so sorry-"

"Where is he?"

"Please."

"Where is my husband, Eric LeVane?"

His hands snapped against me once, twice, grasping to hold me as Leonard tried to keep me in place, eyes clouded with emotion. I tried to strangle free of their grasp as I pushed and kicked out of their hold to push my way past Vivian on his knees, sleeves rolled up, hands stained red - beside him was Theodore, both the males doing their best to pull out a rod of Bloodstone out from-

Llewellyn was weeping, and my throat completely closed up at once as my vision began to shake, a whimper escaping my lips as I pushed him out of the way.

"Edwina, no, please!" Eric protested, his voice soft, but I had already seen the person lying on the ground.

I did not know when my knees gave out.

Strangled cries burst from my mouth as blood welled into my throat from the tongue I had just bitten through in vain attempt to keep quiet. The ground slipped from beneath my feet as I pushed them away, pushed them all away, my world collapsing around me, shattering at my feet like the buildings and men and trees had just minutes before. I knew nothing - not the men around me, not the gods waiting to help, not the dying night - but only that cold, stiff, lifeless body pale in my arms as I wept and wept and wept.

Then I began screaming.

My hands - my hands stopped being my hands. I did not let anyone touch him - just clutched his lifeless body to my chest as I shook his shoulders and wept and cried and shouted at him. He did not even open his eyes - his endless, loving eyes. I screamed and screamed and screamed as I saw his blood drenched chest, the gaping hole, the tear-

The pain kept on coming and going in waves as my mind called out for him, screamed for him, cried for him - only to meet unnerving, chilling silence, with only his last words playing over and over and over in my mind.

I love you. I love you so much, Edwina. Promise me you will never forget that, okay?

It had not been a declaration.

It had been a farewell.

He had not wanted me to panic - else I would have left Aidon to bleed out to death to try to come and save him. Gods, gods - selfless to the very last breath.

Somewhere in that unending pain, I dragged myself to a ruined wall and dashed my head against it.

I did not know who tried to stop me, there were so many - so many hands, pleading, begging for me to stop, to stop for the love of everything holy, but there was nothing left. There was nothing left, nothing real - and that pain, that pain was the only thing that I felt. Smoke rose from my palms as Helios tried to make me stop, his eyes a sea of pain as his calloused hands tried to hold me still. I screamed at him, a hand on my blades, slashing.

He fell back, aghast, nose bleeding.

The wall, the ground, the rocks - I crashed my head against that solid stone for so long, wondering why my skull didn't break. More hands gripped me this time, forceful hands, hands not wanting to hurt me-

"Stop, stop, Edwina, please-"

My screams tore through the air, endless screams - screaming and screaming and screaming. My chest was hollow and empty - the life, the connection between us both, between our minds and hearts... it was gone. Vanished into nothing, as if it had never existed.

There was such blinding pain over my temples, warmth trickling over my neck - that grip was getting stronger - purple and blue and green and gold and grey eyes clouded my vision as the women backed away, terrified, leaving the immortal lords of Endollon to face that wrath, that fury, that raging pain that resided in my chest like a living monster. I lost count of how many times I struck them with that blade, struck myself with the stone, struck them with the stone too, the stone, the blade, the lords, myself - everything was vanishing, and nothing was real. There was the cracking of bone ringing in my ears as something in that rotting skull of mine splintered, and there was something else now, some metallic smell, blood... maybe chains of Ekrite as it dragged across the ground.

"Gods, Edwina, stop, I beg you!"

The wall was now painted with bits of gore and tears of blood, and that ringing in my ears was nothing compared to that devastating pain as I pulled back out of their grasp and shot my fist cleanly through the brick.

My knuckles crumbled to dust.

With trembling fingers, I gripped that rod of Bloodstone so tightly that the metal spikes embedded on it punctured the soft flesh underneath, letting blood drip out as I broke it cleanly into two and dashed it on the ground again, shattering it into a thousand pieces with that useless hand.

The gods held me in pincer hard grips, eyes cold, faces miserable, trying to haul me away from him. I sobbed and cried and shook my head, and the words that stumbled from my lips were not of this world. Coherency lost all meaning, I was unable to feel, to think, to see anything past this. I could not live with this. I was going to die from the grief. I was going to drive that very weapon into my heart so that I could die and be with him.

Pain. There was such pain in my body now, and so many sets of hands holding me back as I cursed and shouted at the heavens. There was a cool, calm palm on my brow, slowly shifting the emotions underneath my skin, easing back that rage, quietly washing it over with a clean wave of numbness.

My vision thawed slightly to find Eric on his knees beside me, moisture staining his cheeks as his hand stayed there on my head, loving, caring. I wanted to scream at him, but every inch of me was so weary of existence that I wished Death would come for me.

It had taken five gods to restrain me.

Helios held back my left arm, Atherton my right, Llewellyn and Theodore and Deimos collectively keeping me rooted to the spot. Eric looked me quietly, his gaze soft, free of every inch of hatred as he gently put a hand around me, beckoning to the others to back off.

"Go easy on her. I think she's broken more than a few bones."

Into his arms I crumbled, howling in pain as the sharp waves of it finally registered into my blood, falling face first into the grass, my hand still clutching at Tristan's broken body.

Vivian looked at me with nothing but hopelessness in his eyes, and I collapsed at his feet, begging and pleading - I would give my life if that would bring him back -

The healer shook his head painfully, despair lined in his face. I screamed again as he came to me, screaming and crying to get the hands off me as he knelt beside me.

"I tried my best. But I was too late," he whispered. "I'm so, so sorry."

I numbly shook my head at him, weeping and shuddering with great gasps as I saw Emerick over the crowd, his dead wife in his arms. Rowan, whose expression was so full of misery that it broke my heart. Deimos, blood flecked in his hair and all over his throat, his lips pressed in a thin line.

"He... Valmont - he fought well," he rasped, his voice dry. "Managed to hold off Zadicus for the rest of us."

All I knew were hands around me, hands around my shoulders as I crumbled to the ground, the only words I could manage were please.

Thanatos - Ambrosine - they had to be behind this - I was going to kill them. I tried to get up, but I fell down - my legs were marshmallow, so exhausted that I could not even breathe or think, or stand or say something. Someone tried to hold me still to have a look at the bleeding injury on my head, and I cried and tried to push them away, clutching harder at Tristan's body-

"Edwina, please," Rosalva's soft voice lingered around me, her tear filled eyes quietly keeping me still as fingers probed at the blood dripping down my brow. "Stay still. Skull's already cracked in a few places," she croaked. "Let me fix them - before the bones grow back on their own and align wrong. I'll have to break her skull again if that happens-"

No, I tried to scream. All I need is him. Bring him back.

"Bring him back," I croaked hoarsely, pushing away the water someone was trying to dribble into my lips.

Blank, empty faces looked at me. Llewellyn. Deimos. Helios. Eric. Emerick. Theodore.

"BRING HIM BACK!" I screamed at them, tears rolling down my cheeks in streams, clouding my vision, blurring my eyesight.

"The funeral," someone whispered. "We need to hold the funeral."

"NOOOOOOOO!"

The thought of him in the closed, cold box - his body lying still and lifeless in it - the very thought sent bile up my throat and shivers down my neck. I was shaking, shaking so badly that I thought I was going to faint. He was so cold in my arms, his body was so stiff... his face was stained with my tears as I held him closer to my heart, refusing to let anyone touch him.

"Edwina, you need to think about-"

"BRING MY HUSBAND BACK TO ME!"

"The rigor mortis is setting in," Vivian said softly, his voice devastatingly gentle as he put a hand on my shoulder. "You have to let him go."

His words shattered through whatever sanity I had still left, making me cry harder and harder as I wordlessly shook my head, which was throbbing from the pain and tears. Moisture dripped down my cheeks as I curled in a corner, holding him in my arms, whispering sweet nothings in his ear so that he'd open his eyes again. So many times... so many times he'd held me like this as I cried myself to sleep, kept sane only by his comforting, rock steady presence holding me together. And now he'd never hold me again, laugh at me again, touch me again, smile again - he'd never open those eyes of his, wink at me, kiss me, or run his fingers through my hair. My sobs turned into deep, broken sounds that came straight from my chest, sounds that made even Emerick turn pale as Amphitrite wordlessly wrapped a blanket over my shoulder before trying to tend to my wounds.

I did not even shout at her.

I just pushed her away before huddling closer into the corner and wrapping my arms around Tristan's lifeless body, trying to listen for a heartbeat. For the familiar pulsing of blood under his smooth skin, which was now unnaturally white, replaced by a cold pallor. I wept and sobbed and cried at him, but he never opened his eyes.

The scar on my wrist when he gave me that Blood Oath finally disappeared, and that was when I knew that he was truly gone.

• • • • •

I did not know when I passed out.

I did not know when that darkness claimed me like one of its own.

The dead of night loomed above when my ruined eyes finally cracked open, stinging and watering as I winced. Pain throbbed along the ridges of my chin, my brow, behind my ears, burning like a white hot iron. The sickly taste of sedative lingered on the edges of my lips, and my throat burned - burned so, so bad - lords, it was like the fire was consuming me from inside. Some metallic smell hung in the air like a lingering ghost, my breath coming in gasps as my throat burned. By my side, my curled fist lay clenched like a dead thing, wrapped in blood stained bandages wrapped around a brace held together with splints.

I tried to move - but my body refused to.

This was what hell was, then. My private version of it. That was what this was without him, what it was going to be - hell.

My hand flinched this time, twisting of its own accord with the misery curling into me. Muscles strained as I groaned, a dull sound escaping my lips as skin chafed against leather.

There was warm hand on my cheek, and that - that smell of burning rock and knitting flames - damn it.

"Don't try," Aidon said wearily, his words quiet. "You broke your hand, your skull, and three ribs with that goddamned rock."

Gods - gods - he wasn't dead-

Another weak sound from me as I tried to shift, and the candle flickered beside me. His eyes were dark, rippling green as he groaned slightly, adjusting his weight to lean onto his good side, his back still bent with the impact of the pain. He - he had survived - he had fought. He gave me a warm smile, gently squeezing my unbroken hand as emotion welled up in his gaze. Behind him, Irina put a comforting hand on his shoulder, her eyes soft and shining with tears as she gave me a look of pure misery, such apologetic, unending misery-

"I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I'm so terribly sorry."

"I need..." I choked, my throat burning, "I need to... please let me see him."

Irina quietly glanced at my brother, who looked up to another corner of the room, where Eric and Vivian quietly stood with Helios, arms crossed. The face of the lord of healing was crestfallen, sucked void of any emotion - there was only pain and regret in the set of his face, the way he sucked in a sharp breath with guilt - blaming himself for not being able to save him.

"Please let see him," I begged, helpless as I was. "Please."

He nodded grimly, darkness flickering in his eyes. The straps of leather stopped biting into my flesh as someone loosened them, and Helios held out a hand to help me up. It was my brother who half picked, half helped me down that table, still groaning slightly with pain. I shied away from the touch of others, only holding him tight. The world swayed slightly as my vision tried to focus, blurring around the edges.

I was so weak, so pathetic - it was disgusting.

Another minute, and Llewellyn was at my side, looping my arm around his shoulders and taking on my weight. Amphitrite lingered nervously at the side, hands fluttering, but one warning look from Aidon had her backing off.

"Where is he?" I rasped, tears welling in my eyes once again. I could feel thick, heavy bandages wrapped around my head as I tried to find my balance. My brothers quietly led me to another part of the suite, half dragging, half limping.

They turned around as Helios opened the door, his eyes wary. Celinette was inconsolable, weeping over her son's body in great sobs. Llewellyn turned pale beside as Vanessa rubbed his back, holding his hand quietly.

"I'm so sorry," Atherton said gently. "You both deserved so much better."

I could not reply. Could not speak. I only went to him, where his body lay still. I could hear the rest of them silently troop out of the door, leaving only the both of us alone in the room. Someone had stitched up the fatal wounds and wiped off the blood, dressing him in a clean shirt. My feet pattered on the floor as I sat down near him, tears falling fast down my cheeks.

Love.

People sang songs about love, made ballads about it. Glorified it and serenaded it and crowned it. But no one - no one - warned us about the loss that came after.

The best part of missing him would be that I would recall every moment I ever spent with him. But the worst part...

...I would miss him so much.

That body, that pale, cold body - that was what my life would be now. Grey. Colorless. Devoid of emotion. He was probably one of the only people I had left in the world, and he was gone too.

I could count the number of people I cared for on the fingers of one hand.

How was I going to fill those holes he had left behind? How was I going to live for the next of my infinite many years? How was I going to go back to our chambers, touch his things, lie on his side of the bed with his pillow in my arms? Was this how he had felt when I had been tortured? When he sat beside me in the chilling silence, not even knowing if I would ever open my eyes again? When I had suffered in that oblivion of pain, holding on only to the little beacon of light shining there at the end of the tunnel?

Please don't go, I whispered to him in the darkness. Please don't leave me alone.

He did not move. He did not speak.

Stay with me, I begged harder. Stay with me, Tristan.

Only quiet silence greeted me.

In that silence, I began tell him. About us.

About all those nights we had spent fighting with each other, all those nights we had joked and teased each other. All those quick little kisses we had stolen in the dark of those nights, all those hours we had spent making love to each other. Those bottles of wine we had shared while talking the night away, falling asleep at dawn in each others' arms. Our inside jokes, our tiny secrets, our shy smiles and stupid names we had reserved only for each other. All those giggles and peals of laughter he had coaxed out of me. I told him of everything we'd done, and what it had meant to me, and all that I still wanted to do. All the life still left before us.

"You promised you would never leave me," I whispered over my tears. "You promised you would never make me cry again."

All those promises he had made to me, and all those promises I had made to him.

I don't care if we win or lose, I had promised him. But we make it out. Together.

Kill myself. That was the only way out of this - the only way out of this misery. I could not live like this. I'd waste away over the centuries, yearning for the day I could die and join him. This was no way of living. Bitterness filled my mouth, already salty from the tears that were dripping over my nose. I knew every inch of that face, the curve of his lips, the flex of his jaw, the shade of his eyes. And I had to watch every bit of it as they closed him in a box and lowered him into the ground.

I could not watch that.

It would break me forever.

Killing myself would be better.

My hands reached out for the weapon, unwavering with purpose, stupid enough as someone was to leave a knife around me. And even when I put the tip to my heart, his words rang again in my head.

You have to run. You run. Run until you can't run anymore. And don't... don't look back. Promise me.

Don't, he seemed to whisper even now, even as I was on the verge of committing suicide like a coward. You are strong. You will make it through this.

More tears rolled down my cheeks at the memory of his warm, silk voice.

I died so that you could live another day. Please don't make my death go in vain, woman.

And then I tossed the knife aside, put my hands around him, and stayed there the entire night.

• • • • •

A mother crying for her passed son was not a sound I wanted to hear ever again.

Every second of the funeral killed me even though there was nothing alive left inside me.

My heart sank as I looked at the dead. At the bodies, at the faces of so many people I had known. Justaline. Apollo. Aeneas. Olinda. Elias. Lunette. Remora. Randall. Adriel. My father, whose body Aidon had gone back and retrieved in the early morning. Geneva's face was haunted and hollow when she saw me, her eyes burning with misery at the sight of her two dead brothers. Deimos was whiter than paper as he cast his eyes over the dead body of his son. Emerick's eyes had sunk in from weeping for his sister, his son, his daughter. Rosalva was sobbing as they took her daughter's corpse away, carrying her to the tombs. Helios and Nyx were distraught - both their sons dead in a single stroke. They had loved Apollo, vile as he was - but he had been their son. And my father... and... Tristan.

My eyes had sunk into my face after that long, perilous night - rimmed red, stained by blood that would never leave me. There were no tears left to cry, because the river of rage that flowed in me was now burning, and the fire had sucked it dry.

Tristan Valmont left behind his beloved sword to me.

Along with every one of his goddamned properties, every castle, every inch of land owned by him.

My fingers had itched to rip apart that piece of parchment, that will he had made just two nights ago - the evening before the war. I did not know when he did it, it must have probably been before that last party at Steffith. He'd have destroyed the old ones probably, and made a new one just before the battle.

So had I.

'Do not bury the sword with me,' the words on the paper said. 'Make sure you place it in the hands of the Queen herself.'

That signature, those letters scrawled in that black ink made me want to destroy the fucking thing, to crush it into my hands and burn it to ashes - to destroy that proof, that living, breathing proof that he was dead, and he was never, ever coming back.

To Celinette, he left the welfare of the people, his people... in the hands of that one person who would be a mother to his people the way he was a father to them.

And to Llewellyn-

'In the event of Apollo Valmont's death, please make sure that you appoint my brother the Head of House Valmont.'

Lords - he had planned it. He had planned to kill his father all along. Had arranged for it - in battle it would be seen as another casualty, and he did it - he did it in the end. All those years of suffering that tyranny, and he'd ended him at last. Ended the life of that monster who had stolen his mother's virtue.

My head was heavy with the morphine someone fed into my veins in the early morning, but my heart couldn't have been any heavier.

I wondered if it was possible for a god to die from the pain of heartbreak alone.

The wounds had healed somehow over the night, save the stitches still at the back of my head. The ribs knitted themselves together, and my wrist still hurt, but thankfully was free of that brace. The bandages lay covered up with that cold veil over my head. There was nothing left in me, nothing human, nothing alive looked back at me when I glanced into the mirror. There was only frost there, brutal and painful, as if even the fires inside dimmed.

The scars on my body were healing, but the ones in my heart never would.

Aidon had been the one who never left my side for even a moment. He was there when they came to get me in the early hours of the sunrise. He stood waiting outside when Halette and the others stripped me bare and hauled me into the steaming hot water. He was there when nothing of me was left - save that cold, unending rage, the dying ember flickering inside as it slowly guttered out.

"I failed you the last time they hurt you," something in his eyes dulled as his words cracked at the end. "They made me hurt you. And as long as I breathe, I will never, ever, let you down again, Edwina."

But he stayed outside that door when I asked him for those few minutes, those last few minutes alone with my soulmate. There was nothing but only careful respect in that gaze.

I had dressed him myself - dressed him in the robes he had worn at the coronation, those fine robes in which he looked so grand. My hands had trembled as I placed his handsome crown on that head, caressing that silk black hair, running my fingers through those locks one last time.

I had nothing to give him.

Nothing but my heart.

I shook violently, gritting my teeth hard as I unbuckled Hellfyre from where it lay strapped on my belt, the hilt heavy in my hand, shining just as brightly as it had been the day he'd given it to me. The ring on my hand sparkled in the dying light as moisture welled up in my eyes.

The phoenix and the lion twined together on that golden band seemed to weep.

I quietly placed Hellfyre under his palms, the wedding rings on his fingers catching my eye as the sword finally rested in his hands.

It was the only piece of me I had to give him.

The gift he had fashioned himself, that very first gift he gave me - not out of courtesy, or hate, or anger. That very first gift.

I looked at him one last time... my husband, my King, as he lay there on that cold white stone, lifeless and more pale than ever. And when I pressed my lips to his that final time, I could have sworn I could taste tears on his lips too.

Then I strapped Aetherius onto my own belt, and walked out of the room.

And every second of the funeral made that bile rise up my throat, made me want to sink right to my very knees and weep.

But I did not.

Llewellyn looked older than Helios as he and the men carried the casket down the aisle.

I did not know how he did it. How he kept himself from screaming, how he kept himself from breaking into pieces right then and there. All I knew was that it must have taken him some mass of willpower to stay upright even as the tears blurred his vision so badly that I doubted if he saw where he was going.

More than ten thousand from the corners of Endollon had gathered in that space, and more still swelled outside the gates - yet all their eyes dripped with tears.

My misery... it simmered into wild anger when I saw Thanatos raise his scythe to take away his soul - and I lost it.

I lunged at him, tossing the weapon out of his hands.

"You can kill me," I begged. "Hurt me if you want. Beat me if you want. But please," I rasped, "for the love of Uranus," my voice cracked and broke, "please don't touch him."

"Move," Thanatos said coldly, pushing me aside.

"No," I half snarled at him. "No."

I could already feel someone hauling me back as I broke free of their grasp, the flames stirring under my skin.

"Please."

"No," the god of death snapped harshly.

"I'll give you whatever you want. Anything-"

"No."

"Please-"

"There is a way," a sharp voice broke into our argument. I turned around to find Ambrosine simpering in her pure white silks, a garland of skulls around her slim throat as she bitterly looked at me. This woman - this woman was the one who had cursed him to death - I was going to kill her-

"What way?"

She picked at her fingernails, her smile mocking me.

"The cost would break you. Death is cleaner."

Every person in the clearing went still.

"What. Way?" I gritted my teeth together as she studied me, clouds of silver hovering in her eyes.

"He almost killed Zadicus without shedding a drop of his blood. The Titan's blood will drive out the poison in his veins."

I whipped my head to Helios and Eric.

"Where are the bodies of the Titans?"

"In the Fortress of Vertgate," Atherton said quietly, not meeting my eyes.

"Bring the body here," I ordered.

Eric sighed deeply, putting a hand around my shoulder before whispering in my ear.

"Ambrosine is a cheater," he said cautiously. "A trickster. This is a game to her."

"I don't care," I hissed back at him. "Get it."

"But-"

"You will bring the body here," I growled again. "Before I pick up a knife to do it myself after gutting the entire lot of you."

The clearing went completely silent.

"THE HIGH QUEEN OF ENDOLLON GAVE YOU A FUCKING ORDER!"

Another minute passed, and my hand went to easy reach of that sword resting against my knee. The burning in my eyes told them that I had nothing to lose - and that I would not hesitate.

Helios paled. Llewellyn gulped and nodded quietly, motioning to a legion of his men to get to the task. We waited in agonizing quiet for them to return. Those minutes were the longest ever of my life. I dared not hope - but if there was a way, if there was a way we could make it out of this, could have a life together.

I dared not think of it. Thanatos watched me with a sickly smile from beside his wife, as Celinette clung to me, the tears drying on her face.

The men returned, with that great monstrosity of a body on their backs. Even in death, Zadicus's lips twisted in a sadistic, grim smile - as if he knew that his death had not been for nothing, that his opponent had gone down as well with him.

I made sure that I dug even deeper when that knife was buried in his vile, wicked heart. Upto my elbows I went in, not caring about that blood now staining the black robes encasing my body. My nails sunk right into his heart I viciously tore out that black, rotten organ, slicing it open with Aetherius.

Every person around me had fallen silent.

Even the wind had stopped blowing.

The flask was full in a minute.

"What next?" I spat at the simpering goddess.

"Make him drink it," she smiled sweetly at me, her gaze coated with sugar. My fists balled up with anger - she and that bitch, Sarette - they would get along so well.

Aidon and Eric put a hand under Tristan's body and sat him up. My hands were shaking, shaking even as I managed to pour the dark liquid down his throat, trying not to think, not to hope of what would happen next.

A minute passed. And then another. And another. Fifteen minutes. He did not open his eyes.

"Why is it not working?" I demanded, staring at Ambrosine with fury in my eyes.

"You see, my dear," she twirled a strand of hair around her finger, skipping past Geneva with a knowing smirk on her full lips. "There's just one more thing needed for the power to work."

"And the thing is?" I questioned, but fearing the worst.

"Your life," she tinkled, tipping back her head to let out a hearty laugh.

• • • • •

I don't know what's the saddest part of this chapter. Every word here comes straight from my tear stained keyboard at midnight. It took me two days to edit this because I was crying so badly.

Edwina's reaction hurt me the most. All that self destruction and the way she hurts herself. I'm sorry you had to see that. But that's exactly what Edwina would do. After what Pandora made her do. She had no one left. Except for her brother. She went mad. She went psychotic. She lost it.

Tristan's death broke her.

We've spent 94 chapters with this woman who never breaks, and this was the chapter when it finally shattered her to pieces. I'm so sorry for that. I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry about the will. That sword he left her behind. But she left her sword with him, and he left his with hers - a fitting farewell to each other, even in death. I really pray he rests in peace.

I really pray that he rests, because you really don't want Edwina getting that crazy idea in her head to kill herself. We do not know if it works. But Edwina at this moment is just... so lost. So desperate. She'll do anything. By that, I mean anything.

Such people are very dangerous.

Btw, can we talk about her and Aidon a bit? Yeah, we all know that Eric was like a brother to her too. But Aidon was possessed for almost the entire book... so here, here we get to him. The real him. The guy who stands by his sister come hell. I think we needed this from him, because honestly - Edwina needed him the last time when she was tortured and he couldn't be there. That's literally the last beautiful thing we have left in this story.

Adios, amigos. Y'all can probably guess we're very, very near to the end of the story :(