Page 56 of Born of Blood and Thorns

Allora watched Bella calmly, and I watched alongside her. Even at that moment, I wanted to go to her, grab her, and take her into my arms, meeting her in death's cold embrace. Now the heat from her body could be felt from where I stood, and I let the compulsion go and waited, hoping for a miracle.

Fire erupted, and panic sat in. I fought against the sun goddess's magic as I railed and pushed to be released, to go to her, and to meet her fate in the same way, together forever.

"Stop it," Allora muttered. "Stop with these morbid poetic thoughts you have bouncing in your head and wait."

Allora's voice held a command, a power that spoke to me, to my dragon. That's when I felt him, felt his emotions, heard his thoughts, and sensed him there for the first time in almost a millennia. We were one once again. My dragon told me to trust, to be calm, and to be patient. So I took a deep breath, and I listened.

Even when I watched the body of my beloved, my heart, catch on fire and burn until she was nothing but ashes. Even when the smoke cleared and the day continued, I knelt on the cold ground, refusing to look or talk to anyone, waiting for a promise that never came.

At first, nothing happened, but then Bella's skin began to glow from within, as though embers were smoldered under her flesh. The light intensified until her entire body was wreathed in blazing fire. I shielded my eyes against the scorching heat.

A memory of a story my mother once read to me about the phoenix came to mind. She had called them the children of the sun goddess. Of allure and from sacrifice and death, they would rise from the ashes, anew and powerful.

When I could see again, ashes were all that remained. My heart shattered anew as doubt crept in. Then—movement. A small red-gold bird emerged from the cinders, feathers burning with living flame. The phoenix stretched its wings and trilled triumphantly before shapeshifting into Bella, reborn. Transformed into the body of the woman I loved and thought I had lost forever, Isabella stood before me, naked and whole. My world was right once again.

I let out a breath, a sob, and all the anguish that had consumed me as I clutched her to my chest.

"I love you." I kissed her. "I love you," I repeated over and over, not believing she was here, whole and alive.

"When I said pounce on it, I didn't mean in front of the whole kingdom!" Alysha rushed forward with a cloak, wrapping it around Bella as the kingdom gawked at us. "This is not the best way for the kingdom to see their queen, now is it?"

"Queen?" Bella asked, dazed before her eyes snapped to Allora's. "I…" she began before her voice warbled. "I heard you."

"Of course you did, my child. You never left this world. You were merely waiting for your new beginning." Allora stepped forward and took Bella's hands.

"Why, why would you leave me here with him? With them?" she asked the goddess, her mother, the question only an abandoned child could ask the parents who didn't want her.

"Because where I go, you cannot follow, and I could not imagine a world for you without the warmth of the sun. Every time you tilted your face to the warmth of my rays, I was there." A bright golden tear trailed down her mother's face. "But I must go because holding this body for too long is taxing, and it took a great deal of energy to help guide you to your phoenix and rise from death's ashes."

Bella nodded, her disappointment clear in her expression. Before she released the goddess's hands, she wrapped her arms around Allora, and I heard her whisper, "Thank you, Mother."

As one, Bella and I turned to the newly un-cursed kingdom of dragons.

CHAPTER 29

Bella

Ilooked out across the growing crowd, and a lump of pain and regret stuck in my throat as I thought about the one person in the many who would never awaken. The one I had killed in my rage and attempt to make a point. The pieces of a king and queen who would never see their son in love or their kingdom restored.

Because they lay in broken pieces on dirty thrones long since unused.

Billy broke through the crowd and ran until his arms wrapped around me, and his toothy grin was slightly less gaping as I realized somewhere along the way his adult tooth had begun to grow in. Change had been happening under our noses this whole time. "I knew you'd be the one to break it!" he exclaimed, squeezing me hard.

Alastair followed close behind as he affectionately ruffled the boy's hair and kissed Alysha firmly. She leaned into him and sighed, her arms wrapping around his neck.

"Eww!" Billy groaned, pretending to gag.

Alysha only clutched tighter at the man who had stuck with her for centuries before she tore herself from his lips and winked at me. “Now, that’s a good pounce,” she said breathlessly.

“I thought you said bounce,” I teased as Lore began to pull me toward the gathering crowd.

“No, that comes later.” She giggled as Alastair smirked and pulled her tight to his side. Lore did the same to me as the crowd grew.

“My people, I know not what you remember in your time during the curse,” he called out to the crowd, his voice loud and commanding as it carried across the courtyard.

“We remember everything,” a voice called from the back.

Lore watched them, haunted, as if he'd been tormented by them—and he had, but in a different way. I squeezed his hand in comfort, and he squeezed back.

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