Page 122 of Fae Reckoning

37.HERE AT LAST, AND UNBEARABLY BITTER

RUSH

“Rush. Rush!”

It’s Elowyn, your mate, my mind told me.She needs you. Everyone needs you. You have to listen to her. Right now.

But all I could do for several moments was stare at the spot where two of the fae I loved more than I loved myself had vanished.

“Rush.”

My shoulders shook, and I realized it was her, her hands gone from my neck, from my hair—trying to rouse me into action.

“My love,” she cried. “Be here with me.”

How many times had I fought off death?Too many. I knew full well the midst of battle was not the time to grieve. How many times had I lost loved ones? Again, too many. Enough to know the weight of their loss would last my entire lifetime. There’d be plenty of time to mourn RyderandHiroshi later.

Ry and Hiro.

Hiro and Ry.

For fuck’s sake, I couldn’t imagine a life without them.

West was on his knees, his head thrown back, his throat bobbing, his hands tugging on his hair. Roan was next to him, speaking to him urgently while looking to the monsters, who were now emboldened, pushing harder against the line of our allies.

Another monster snatched a pair of goblins and threw them into the mirror.

That roused me. My focus sharpened.

“Now’s not the time to stop fighting!” Elowyn snapped at me, vicious, strong, fierce—necessary.

I stared at her. Our glow was muted, but still there.

Her eyes brimmed with glistening sorrow as she took me in. “I lo-ove you.” Her voice broke; her fortitude didn’t. “We have to end this. Right the fuck now.”

I didn’t know if I had it in me to let go of my brothers the way I needed to. I only knew that my love for this woman was boundless. And that light was stronger than darkness. It had to be. Or else everything I’d ever believed in would be for naught. The Mirror World and all the beauty and potential within it would collapse on itself like the pit that had so senselessly devoured guards in the arena. It would all be so senseless and meaningless.

If darkness prevailed, there would be nothing worth living for. Not for me, not for Elowyn, and notfor the thousands of fae who loved others of their own, who deserved better than the harshness this life had granted them thus far.

“I’m here, my love,” I said in a ragged voice I didn’t recognize as mine. “I’m always with you.”

Tears rolled down El’s cheeks, cutting a swath through layers of filth. Only the morand berry that marked her as a soldier stood up to her sorrow.

She leaned her mouth against mine but didn’t kiss me.

“For Hiro and Ryder,” she whispered, the names of my brothers vibrating against my lips.

I couldn’t respond. The place in my heart where my brothers lived was shattering.

“For Saturn and my father and Dashiell and Ramana and Edsel and Finn and Rompa-Romp and every other casualty of this fucking unbearable darkness.”

I nodded, a tear busting through the dam of my eyelashes.

“For every fae and creature who deserves better. We’re gonna give it to them.”

Then she kissed me. I kissed her back, filling that kiss with all my love for her, my hope for a life shared with her, for a realm where the fae could thrive. My faith in the light, that goodness really could defeat darkness. That there was true justice in this existence.

I filled it with my losses and wounds, with the many devastations of my past. And through our kiss, Ifelt them melt away, transmuted by the wave after wave after pulsing glow that surged from my mate and me.

---