“Advice taken and accepted,” Kieran muttered, glancing at me as I folded my hand over his arm. “I’m fine—” He sighed as the healing warmth hit him. His eyes flicked to Casteel.
“Let her do her thing,” Casteel replied, his focus now on Isbeth. “It makes her feel good.”
Kieran quieted then, and when I lifted my hand, there was no mark. “You do feel fine?” I asked, not trusting the Revenant at all.
He nodded.
“He’s fine,” Millicent snapped. “Unlike the Queen, who appears seconds from climbing into the casket.”
“Would that be a bad thing?” Emil asked.
A choked laugh left me, the sound quickly fading as I saw that Isbeth leaned over Malec’s body.
“He’s my heartmate—a part of me. My heart. My soul. He’s my everything. If Nyktos had granted us the trials, we would be together.”
“And ruling over Atlantia?” Casteel surmised.
“I don’t think so. He was done with that godsforsaken kingdom,” she said. “We would’ve traveled the realm, found a place that we were at peace with. There, we would’ve stayed. Together. With our son. Our children.”
Who knew if what she spoke was true to anyone but her, but it was painful to witness, nonetheless.
Isbeth smoothed a palm over Malec’s cheek, her hand trembling as she bent over him more, her mouth inches from his dry, pale lips. “I love you now as much as I loved you then when our eyes first met in the rose gardens. I will always love you, Malec. Always.”
I shifted under the weight of the raw tide of emotion that Isbeth did nothing to shield. Tears rolled down her cheeks, leaving faint tracks in the pale powder she wore.
“You know that, right?” Her voice had lowered as she reached for the jeweled belt at her waist. “You have to, even now, as you sleep so deeply. You have to know how much I love you.” Isbeth’s fingers trailed down the side of his neck as she pressed a kiss to his still lips.
“That’s really disgusting,” muttered Emil.
It was.
And it was also sad. As terrible and evil to the core as Isbeth was, she still loved deeply and painfully. It would hurt even more when she realized that we had no intention of allowing her to keep him.
“Fuckboy is awake,” Kieran muttered as Callum slowly climbed to his feet. “Heads up.”
Casteel reached between us, folding his hand around mine. He winked at me, and other than proving that he could pull that off without looking ridiculous, it was a sign. It was time. Looking away from the sad scene playing out before us, I narrowed my senses until I could only feel the notam and searched out Sage’s fresh rain imprint—
“And that’s why… That’s why you have to understand,” Isbeth said to Malec’s sleeping form. “You know how much I loved our son. You understand why it must be like this. That it cannot be any other way.”
Concentration broken, my head jerked toward Isbeth at the same moment as Millicent’s. Isbeth jerked her arm up. Casteel pulled me to his side at the first glint of shadowstone. The jeweled belt at her waist had hidden a shadowstone dagger. I tapped into the eather, worried that she would turn that dagger on any number of people standing near—
Isbeth screamed—and, gods, that was the sound of pure anguish. She brought the dagger down—into Malec’s chest. His heart.
My mouth dropped open.
Isbeth had…
She’d stabbed Malec in the heart with shadowstone.
Shadowstone could kill a god. I remembered Reaver saying as much.
What we’d just witnessed didn’t make sense. Not in any realm. But she had…she had killed Malec. Her heartmate.
“What in the actual fuck?” exclaimed Casteel, dropping my hand as Millicent staggered back, her eyes going wide.
Kieran cursed as Isbeth jerked her hands free of the dagger. Her body folded over Malec’s. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she wept. “I’m so sorry.”
My arms fell to my sides. The shock of seeing the glimmering, ruby-encrusted hilt jutting from Malec’s chest rooted me to where I stood. And that astonishment rolled, coming in waves from all who witnessed it—all except one.
The golden, now-bloody Revenant.
Callum smiled.
A nearly overwhelming sense of dread exploded in my chest as Callum slowly turned his head toward me. He clasped his hands together, bowing. “Thank you.”
The essence stirred violently. I reached out, clasping Casteel’s arm.
“Thank you for doing what you were prophesied to do long ago. Thank you for fulfilling your purpose, Harbinger.” Callum’s pale eyes brightened behind the golden mask, and the eather, it thrummed through my veins. “It wasn’t exactly as foretold or how many of us understood, but prophecies…well, the details aren’t always exact, and interpretations do vary.”