97 | ACT VII, SCENE VIII

P R E V I O U S L Y

And without a second of hesitation, I picked up the slim dagger and plunged it right into my heart.

LAIR OF THANATOS.

EDWINA

The world was black and white and grey, clouded with smoky haziness and memories of a life long forgotten. Something ancient and deep stirred in the pit of my stomach, making me sick - so, so sick - that I went on my knees in that impenetrable darkness, retching-

I looked down to myself, feeling only wisps of obsidian smoke where my body had once been, feeling only curls of glittering black mist now swirling in place of blood and bones.

Gone.

Everything was gone.

"Afraid, Edwina?" Thanatos's voice rumbled into my ear as it crawled out of the darkness, and a steel finger crawled down my spine - or what was left of it - leaving me shivering. "Well, that's not something I have seen on you... but something tells me I'm going to be seeing quite a few things by the time we are done."

Dead - I was dead - this was death.

I was nothing. I was nothing at all, only moonkissed smoke scattered in the darkness, and my barely corporeal form-

"Don't you worry about that, sweetheart," Ambrosine crooned beside me, "you'll remain in this form - for as long as we deem fit."

A light seemed to flicker somewhere far down the path, as if at the end of a deep, black corridor. The entrance to the immortal prisons, I realized, a place no one knew the location of, stitched right in between the folds of the worlds. A place where they took their dead and locked their spirits to rot away in the darkness forever. And in that light, I examined that smoke as it seemed to solidify into my old features that were a mockery of their original form. As if the flesh and organs had rotted from the very inside, leaving only a dying, decaying thing behind as it slowly fell apart in front of my very eyes.

A ghost.

Horror slammed into me, deep and unnerving, shaking me to the very core.

"It has been a while since I last used those instruments," the voice of the lord of the lair greeted me as they dragged my dead form along the gravel in the dark. "But with that immeasurable power running deep into your core... well, I'd say the netizens of the prison are in for a rare treat."

It wasn't everyday that a member of the Triarchy was their guest of honor, I thought bitterly.

I could fight - I should fight - but then there was the matter of those lives she held in the palm of her hand, lives she could cost me if I went back on my word.

That pool of light was now nearly upon us as it slowly licked over my skin like a living flame, as if mocking me, taunting me. My limbs were nothing but rotten skin encased in smoke, barely solid, but it was the sight of the two immortals at my side that froze me right at the spot.

Their skin was marble, their eyes stone, their faces granite.

And when they smiled through painted lips to reveal teeth as sharp as the weapons at their side... the brutally pointed canines grinned at me in the promise of pain.

The faces we had known, had hated - the couple slid the masks off to reveal their second skins, even more hateful than the first.

Their true form.

For the light came from a single flame lit low in a lamp from the ceiling, and beneath it-

A dim metal table stretched out in the darkness, manacles of Ekrite lying by its side.

And in the corner... knives. More knives. Knives, every size and every shape one could think of. Knives to wrestle out the last bit of power from my spirit, to release the stopper on my power.

Me - they were meant for me - that flame, that table, those chains, those knives - me.

I had spent enough time in chains to know that this was going to end very, very badly.

"That's not all," Thanatos hissed from behind me, gripping my neck hard enough to leave bruises as his hand turned my jaw to the side, to look.

To look at the bars of the prison around me, to look at spirits in every stage of decay, to look at faces I had I had known. The years made them rot further and further, it seemed - the newer ones still trapped in their pitiful excuse of a body while the older ones seemed no more than wisps of bare smoke.

But he gripped me harder, harder still, forcing me to look.

The world started to spin as I looked.

At my father, gripping the bars of Ekrite so hard, even though the metal burnt and tore at his smoking fingers.

At my mother, nearly vanished into mist, rattling the chains furiously, even though the manacles refused to yield.

At my parents as they wept and raged and screamed, even as the lord and lady of death hauled me right to that table. Even as I could do nothing but keep myself from breaking into sobs, because the only thing I felt over their screams was that thick, choking pain as it filled my pores. Even as they laid me over the cold, cold metal, and slid the manacles right over my wrists, my ankles, my neck.

The bite had never felt colder.

"You said you would let them go," I rasped, voice hoarser than gravel.

Ambrosine turned her head to me, hair glowing like molten quicksilver, meeting her brother's eyes once, twice.

"Keep your fucking word, bitch," a snarl ripped out of my chest.

She grinned at me, a predator assessing a prey. Thanatos looked at her with a sly smile dancing on his lips, as if contemplating - what if they tricked me? He raised an eyebrow at her, steel in his eyes... and fear gripped me so hard that something inside me snapped.

Her hand raised, encasing in a shimmering black robe that I had not noticed before, shining with sparkling threads of glittering jet. A knife gripped in one hand, she picked at the threads for a moment, softly tutting, before picking a few particular strands.

She cut the threads, and they drifted away into the air at once.

Spirits.

Ambrosine wore a robe made of dead spirits.

But she let them go. Let them drift away. Let them return.

Enough for me to keep those tears, that sorrow, that misery contained to myself, and let it not break me apart. Knowing that they were safe, that they would return - that my death might mean something to someone.

"Bitch, am I?" her smile grew wider, blooming over the face of a pure sadist. "I look forward to the profanities yet to come, Edwina."

The flame burned bright above me.

I did not know how long I could hold out like this. How long could I keep myself intact. I was tired, I was so, so tired, and the exhaustion weighed me down like a beast, making me sink lower into the slab of iron under me. I was tired of doing this, I wanted this to end.

My father was on his knees, still begging, still pleading, but the two gods paid no heed, their backs turned away as the jangle of knives cracked the air. My mother - gods - my mother, she wept and wept and wept, before a glare from Ambrosine and a snap of her fingers had her voice knocked out of her dead lungs.

Terror  - I had never felt such terror. They would break me here, break me for years, decades, centuries... right in front of them. I probably only had minutes before my screams mingled with theirs.

I closed my eyes silently, wishing for it to end. For it to all end.

"Please, I beg - please, Thanatos! Do what you want to me - I beg you, please... don't do this to her - don't you dare to fucking touch my daughter!"

And a single tear rolled down my cheek from under the closed lids.

For this was the price I had paid. For my crimes, and for those lives - and I knew it. Knew there was no going back. Knew I was in for a very, very long torture.

And when my eyes snapped open again, only the hard, cold, unflinching gaze of marble looked into me.

The knife was sharpened, and gleaming in the dull light as it lingered over my neck.

And then I closed my eyes, and took myself away... far, far away.

"Shall we begin?"

• • • • •

HEWE, STEFFITH.

ERIC

The ground began to shake the moment she drove that dagger into her heart.

The moment that lifeless blood began to drip down her black robes.

The moment that life, that light in her eyes died out, faded into nothing.

Aidon began to weep when her body hit the shaking ground.

Somewhere far away, a volcano woke from centuries of slumber to rise into angry defiance, mustering up the power harnessed from years of sleep.

Cries. Shouts. Sobs. Sounds of misery and pain rang out in the air as the lord and lady of death dropped to their knees to reach for that corpse on the ground.

It took all Llewellyn and I had to stop Aidon from raging out, to stop them, to save her - but she was gone. She was gone. Forever.

The scythe flashed in the light as Thanatos rose, leaving her body crumpled on the ground. He turned on his heel, his simpering sister at his side... when Helios gripped his hand tightly, anger flashing in those great golden eyes that burned with a thousand fires.

"Tristan," he spat. "You took my granddaughter from me. Give me back my grandson."

"All in good time, brother," Ambrosine smirked, her smile a confection of lying sweetness. "I did make a promise, you know."

"Lying bitch," Geneva hissed, lunging for the goddess with the grace of a deadly predator. "She died for him - bring him back!"

A flash - as her dagger saw the light - and then she was running, running, leaping for her - before Emerick pinned her to the spot, Rowan at one side and Theodore at the other. Her blood red eyes glowed with death as her fingers rose in the vulgarest of gestures while she spat and snarled.

"My sister keeps her promises. Valmont will come back," Thanatos sneered, a mocking smile on his face as he examined the silvery wisp of smoke clinging to the weapon in his hands - watching her spirit, her essence - angering me to such rage that I would have nearly lost it-

And then they were gone.

Aidon tore himself from my arms as he shouted with uncontrolled anger, his screams piercing the air - but they were gone. Gone.

And around us, every god swore.

"No," a ragged sound ripped out of him as he fell to his knees beside her, her eyes still open. A thin trickle of blood flowed out from her nose as he rocked on his knees, holding her so tightly that I feared he'd damage the - the body -

Edwina.

Edwina - that powerful, immortal goddess who breathed fire with every step she took - never ever had I ever imagined that a woman so powerful would be lying dead, crumpled on the ground.

Lying dead, a mere body.

Edwina.

It was hard to believe - to ever believe that a fire as bright as her would ever burn out. That a light shining so fiercely, bursting with such life and energy... would just die out one day.

Horrified, Amphitrite stayed at my side, clutching me hard as her sobs shook through both of us. Tears soaked the fabric of my shirt as she wept in soft, fitful cries. I carefully put my arms around her, holding her quietly, letting her mourn - when the time came, I would tell her. But not now.

There was still a small smile on the lips of the dead Queen Regnant of Endollon.

That smile on her lips - that sad, soft smile to the world that had been so unjust to her - that smile reached into my heart and ripped it into two. Aidon could not contain his heartbreaking sobs, and the air slowly began to fill with soft, mournful cries.

Tristan.

He did not stir. He did not wake. He did not move.

And her life - she had given it for nothing. For no one.

Her precious life. She had thrown it away.

"She... was the finest woman I had ever known," Helios said softly, his voice tender.

To think - to think of her never glaring at her enemies again. Never laughing, never smiling or fighting with her sword again. To think that she was gone forever, that her feet would never touch the ground and her blood stained lungs would never fill with the autumn air. To think that we'd never hear her voice again - to even think that made me miserable. After all those fights she had had a habit of winning, all those swift strokes of her sword that brought down her enemies, all those times she had gotten out of life and death situations - this had been the very last of them.

"The funeral," Emerick said quietly, his eyes only on the auburn of her hair, the way it curled in the damp. "We need to bury the dead."

"The Tremaynes burn their dead," I said with despair. My gaze travelled back to Lucius Tremayne, and his lifeless daughter - at the blood staining the dagger still in her hands. We tried to lift her up, but Aidon only shook his head, clutching her tightly as he screamed into Llewellyn's shoulder.

Soft whimpers emerged from where Miriel had buried her face in her hands, even as Celinette held the girl, her own tears mingling with hers, face whiter than snow.

"Vivian," I said quietly, voice low, eyes downcast. "Is there anything... that can be done?"

The god looked at me grimly, gaze clouded with nothing but pain as his fingers probed at the wound, at the blood already drying. He gently laid a hand on Aidon's shoulder, Aidon - who had aged a thousand years in the last few minutes.

"I am sorry, child," Vivian said, his eyes downcast. "I am so sorry."

"Don't touch me," he hissed, eyes black, words crumbling, breaking. "Don't touch me - don't touch her. Don't fucking touch her!"

"You need to close her eyes," the healer was soft, silent - speaking to him as if he were a wounded animal.

"GET AWAY FROM ME!"

"Please, Aidon."

Those words seemed to break something in him.

Her eyes closed at last, as we crossed our hearts and prayed for peace.

I was so sorry, I wanted to tell him. Sorry for not being able to stop her. Sorry for not being able to change her mind. Sorry for letting her go too easily from us. Sorry for letting her leave, and never see her fire, her gentle soul ever again. A life without her - an eternity without her, her - who had once been as close to me as a sister; a life like that seemed unbearable. Unthinkable.

Even more unbearable were the survivors' cries as we lifted her body, carrying it through the crowds to take her back home - one last time.

The blood on her leathers, the thud of my footsteps, the growl of the thunder. I did not think I would ever forget this day. No. I was going to remember this day for a very long time.

I was going to remember the scraping of knives on marble, the sound grating on my nerves as the metal carved out headstone after headstone in the garden of the unburied.

And I was going to remember Thanatos and Ambrosine.

And I was going to drag them out of whatever hell they lived in.

And I was going to make them pay.

"They both..." Rowan sucked in a deep breath, letting out a sigh as her eyes filled with tears. "They both deserved so much better."

"They deserved to be together," Halette whispered. Moisture dripped down her sunken cheeks as she managed a wary smile. "And wherever they are now - I like to think that they are together. Happy."

Deimos looked miserable. Aeneas lay in front of his eyes, ready to be forever buried deep under the ground. A skilled immortal - but a wasted person. Emerick hardly spoke, or moved, or looked at any of us. Justaline had been the last of his five siblings. And she was gone.

Gone forever, and dooming him to an eternity of loneliness.

And Geneva - both her brothers dead, both her siblings gone. Dead in a fight she had dragged them to, and I wondered how she would live with that guilt till the end of her days. Seeing the way her eyes scrunched up in an effort to prevent the tears from falling over... I knew she wouldn't cry. Thanatos and Ambrosine had disappeared. So had the rest of the Dessari army after escaping the manipulative mind control of the Halflings. This war had made fugitives out of us, fugitives trying to escape death and fight for another day.

And no matter how long we waited for time to pass... none of us would be ever, ever be the same again.

No, we would not.

Distant, blank gazes looked back at me as we gathered around the dead.

And it took all I had to not think of that body - that cold white body lying in Hartington Castle as they dressed her in cold silk and velvet and diamonds. Dilston Castle had been ruined the moment she took her life, and half of Knavesmire lay in hot, ancient ashes as the volcano under her royal seat had erupted.

We had all known it would burn the day she died.

But had never, ever imagined it would be like this.

"Light the pyres, LeVane," Emerick said coldly, his jaw twitching as he looked at me with dead, haggard eyes. "We don't have all day to perform the last rites."

A scuffle of silk against marble moved behind us.

"Light the pyres?"

That voice - that voice sent fear chilling into my blood.

Something in the universe shifted. Something in the planets. Something in the air... changed. Power thrummed in the quiet breeze, throbbing, singing even. Raw, hard power that was stronger than steel, more unyielding than iron. Power that sang of new life and new beginnings, power that was a mighty ocean, a deep vast, an unending chasm of strength - looming reserves of power that spanned wider and deeper than what no immortal had.

Frozen, I turned back. We all did.

Tristan.

Alive, and standing right on his feet, studying the graveyard meant for him.

And his eyes...

...a dark, deep blue that sparked even more intensely than ever before. Clear with pulsing power that seemed to roll off him in waves. New power.

"I died," his voice was quiet, hoarse.

"Y - you died -" Llewellyn stuttered, falling over his feet to fall into his brother's arms as their mother began to weep again.

"I died," Tristan echoed insistently, walking towards us with his familiar, deadly gait. Sinister, that was what his walk was - as if cruelty was a thing that could be stolen from a dead Titan. A King of Titans. "How did I come back?" he demanded.

"The - the battle is over," Vanessa stuttered, lines of grief fresh on her face.

"How did I come back, Eric?" Tristan snapped again, his jaw tight as his eyes roamed over the lot of us. "I died!"

Something terrible, terrible shone in his eyes - as if death resided in his soul, as if it peered out to us, sending us regards from the other side. Something ancient - and powerful - and unendingly mighty... and terrifying glimmered in those dark blue eyes. Flickering flames touched with something like the slightest bit of insanity.

"You..."

No one dared risk incurring that terrible, terrible wrath that would rain on us.

Once he found out.

"Why are you lighting the pyres?"

I sucked in a deep, sharp breath, not knowing how to break it to him.

That predator's gaze studied my face.

"Which Tremayne died, Eric?"

No one said a word.

No one said a word, no, not with that horrible, sickeningly strong wave of power swirling around him. Power that made my head spin, power that was impossible to think around.

"Lucius," Geneva murmured quietly. "He - he passed away..."

And yet no one said a word.

Suddenly, he seemed to notice someone missing - a very specific someone who should have been standing among the rest of us. The expression on his face changed as a horrible thought began to enter his mind.

"Where is Edwina?"

"Tristan," Vivian said softly, gulping as the King's eyes darted to him.

"Where is she?"

No one replied.

"Stop testing my patience," Tristan Valmont snarled blackly. "Where is she?"

Not a sound.

"WHERE IS EDWINA?"

He shook my shoulders now, as a horrific misery filled my heart and he saw the foreboding over my face.

"WHERE IS MY WIFE, ERIC? WHERE IS SHE?"

"She - she is at Alnwick," I managed to gasp out a few words, even as my throat closed up, strangling my voice.

He vanished.

Cries of panic rose up as the rest of us bolted after him, running at his heels as he reappeared on the southern gates of the Hartington Castle. The terrified guards immediately moved out of his way as he ran up the stairs frantically, ignoring Aidon's choked cries. His eyes were fear struck, and even his sword slipped from his weakened grasp as he hammered on the door of Edwina's old chambers as Helios pleaded for him to stop. The door was locked from inside, and he rammed a fist straight into it, again and again, even as the lock snapped shut into place.

The healers.

They had shut the rest out - after preparing her body and leaving it there.

"Edwina!"

The iron refused to yield.

"Gods, woman, open the door!"

No one had the heart to tell him, to break it to him - even as four, five, six of us held him back - but nothing - nothing stopped him, not with that impossible strength, the power laced new blood as it flowed in his veins like a force none had ever seen.

"Edwina, I beg you... open the door!" he croaked, hoarse.

Even Geneva begged for him to stop.

"Edwina!"

He banged on the door again and again, even as his knuckles cracked. Then he slammed his palms on it and struck it with a mighty blow, as the wood shattered and scattered in pieces.

Just like the bones in his fist.

There were no healers in the room.

But -

Every single person in the room went silent.

Because the room wasn't empty.

That female figure lingered near the window, but the flesh on it wasn't dead, rotting - no.

Breathing.

Alive.

Dark blue eyes shining with moisture glimmered back at us, a twin to that of the man beside me.

Every bit of colour drained from his face.

Elodie.

Alive.

And in her arms... three bundles of white muslin that squirmed and moved with tiny, fitful cries.

My heart stopped beating.

The ground slipped from under my feet.

Children.

My children.

Edwina - Edwina had to be behind this - she had pulled in some sort of trade -

Because...

...there she was.

She was dressed in the finest silks of blue and crimson and gold, her hair brushed back, the crown settled on among her curls. Her skin was so astoundingly pale, stiff and bloodless and cold - but her face - it looked like she could be sleeping. Calm, and peaceful, and home at last.

Uranus incarnate, reborn, resurrected - the sound of despair broke from his lips first.

And then came the terrible, terrible scream.

The screams of the High King haunted Endollon forever.

• • • • •

I am so sorry it had to happen this way. But this was something that needed to happen from the very start.

Because Tristan's sister and Eric's children, they died - died with Edwina being involved in some way, however insignificant. It was never her fault, no. It was her father's battles that killed Elodie and it was Celestina's jealousy that killed the triplets - but all those deaths came back to her. And she always carried that bit of guilt with her wherever she went.

Because Edwina died, but refused to go down without fighting to make her death mean something.

Because Edwina agreed to an eternity of torture if her death meant bringing back five other lives.

Because Edwina left behind both of rulers of the Triarchy with a parting gift.

Because Edwina let her death bring back a part of both their families.

Because Edwina saw her death not as an act of cowardice, but as a last chance to right two wrongs she wished she could have prevented when alive.

And yes - she went down forgiving Amphitrite. She was going to die, yes, and more than half her family was dead. Edwina knows the cost of losing family. So yes, she forgave Amphitrite in that last gesture of hers - and willingly traded her life to bring back those triplets.

Edwina agreed to die if Tristan came back, and she agreed to let herself be tortured for eternity if Ambrosine returned the debt she owed to Edwina. Ambrosine is the keeper of life, and does not take kindly to deaths being taken for granted or before their time. You all know what she did to Tristan when he killed Elodie before her time. Erida, Cymbeline and Atherton would have died on Vezort too had Edwina not saved them - and Ambrosine agreed to give her back two lives, if not three. One was Elodie's, and one was that of the triplets.

You might say that Ambrosine should have only returned one of the triplets, and not all three - but the fact is that she gave back the other two only because Edwina agreed to let them do whatever they wanted to her. She holds the power of an entire volcano, an entire element - and Ambrosine gets all of it to feast on. Its hers until any other newborn gets it (and yeah, she doesn't have any control over that atleast.) So she agreed to the exchange. I know it is horrifying to imagine Edwina's spirit in that dark place and all those things they do to her in front of her parents - but they are merely exacting the price Edwina paid. They won't stop - not for a very, very long time - because they covet every inch of her power. Every last drop. Every last bit. And it will be all theirs until a new god comes along to seize it before birth.

That's the only reason the Queen never protested. Not even once.

Because she agreed to it.

I'm sorry. I know it hurts. It hurts a lot. I only pray you keep it together because Tristan will lose it when he finds out and you really need to be prepared for that.

And rest assured, this wretched torture of a book ends in a few chapters. So you won't need to keep purchasing your tissues every week :) love you cookies to the moon and back ♡