Page 23 of Court of Dragons and Twilight

Lysander is frozen, staring at his brother, desperately trying to heal him, with tears flowing down his face. I don’t know whose emotions belong to whom. It’s all the same. The same screaming grief and heartbreak. “He’s my brother.”

“I know.” My voice breaks. “And he’s gone. Arty is gone.” I can barely look at her without feeling my heart snapping in two. She came to save me one more time, and she died for me. For us. “But Emrys, Emrys, please.”

He gives me a shaky nod. Lysander barely manages to crawl past Kian’s body to put his hand on Emrys, right over mine. The water flows around Emrys’s body, but it doesn’t glow. Nothing happens. Thunder cracks across the sky as Lysander lifts his eyes to mine. “He’s gone.”

No. “NO!” I scream at them all, pulling Emrys with me. I press my forehead against his, sobbing as I clutch his top. “Emrys, please. Please.”

I hear him, just in my mind, just for a moment. “Find me in the Mist. Share a boat with me.”

The boats. The Mist. Grayson’s Court…he’s where the dead go. It’s a chance, and the dreams…it was Emrys showing me where he was waiting for me. He never left. The dreams were never just dreams, and I knew it. He came to see me, but he also came to show me how to save him in the end. I don’t know how he managed it, but I am never giving up on any of my mates, and I will risk dying on a dream of saving him. I stand up, wiping water and strands of my wet hair from my face. “I have to go. I have to go and take him with me. I need you to trust me. I have to go. Just please look after each other until we are back.”

“I’ll come with you,” Terrin offers.

Grayson meets my eyes. “Elle, where are you going? Why?—”

“I don’t have time to explain it all,” I answer them as I make a portal to Grayson’s court. Using the air, using Emrys’s powers, I lift him into the air. “Please, just trust me.”

“We do. If you have to do this, then we will wait for you,” Arden softly replies.

“You can’t go into the Mist. Only death walks there…” Grayson warns.

I lift my head high. “My court controls death. I am the queen of the Spirit Court, and I have used my power to slow his last moments down. There is no place death cannot walk and therefore, nothing can stop me from going in there and takingmy mate’s soul back. He is waiting for me. Death will fucking bow, because I am done losing him.” I walk straight through to the other side of the portal, onto the grassy green mountains where the death mist floats in the air. There is a smell in the air that borders on sweet and as cruel as death, all at the same time.

I walk through the grass to the edge of the Mist, standing before the fog and staring into it. It’s wrapped around the edge of the Earth Court, and I came here once with Grayson to send his mother into the Mist. The dragons send all of their dead here, but I don’t know if a living person has ever made the trip over, and I doubt it. I have to believe I’m not wrong. I have to believe Emrys is waiting for me. I’d wait for him. I’d wait for them all.

There is a single boat lined up at the edge of the Mist, the shimmering veil of it just behind. Gently, I lay Emrys in the boat before climbing in with him. I use the air gift to blow the boat forward, right into the Mist. This is madness, I know it, but I look down at Emrys as we float forward into somewhere that only death will judge us. I run my fingers down his cheek. “Please be there. I’m not leaving without you.” I lean down and kiss his forehead. “You can’t leave me, not now, not ever.” My tears fall from my face onto his as the Mist covers us. It parts slowly and my magic stops working, the boat pausing in a clearing in the deep mist, like fog I can’t see through.

I look into it, feeling like someone or something is watching me. “Please give him back. If he dies, then it was for nothing. Arty and Kian are dead for nothing. All this didn’t save him anyway. He can’t die.” I rest my head on his chest, wishing I could feel and hear his heart beat. “EMRYS!” I scream into the darkness, and nothing echoes back. I can’t see anything in it, just a fog that endlessly spreads in every direction. I stand up, tightening my hands into fists. He doesn’t deserve this. I am the spirit queen. I am the queen of death. I can save him!

“If you’re going to take anyone’s life, then take mine, because he never, ever deserved this! He is good, he is pure, he killed Ares to save this world, and now his life has been taken. If there is any good, anything pure left here, please, please give him back to me. I love him. I love him so much and I want him back. I’m not leaving without him. Fuck the rest of the world if I can’t have him!”

Massive dragons appear in the darkness of the fog, and they look like they’re made maybe of stone, and the Mist has bent to smother their bodies in a sparkling haze. They lean down, stretching their wings out, their eyes sparkling like a thousand colours. One is clearly male and the other female. A couple. They talk, not out loud, but straight into my mind. “No one comes to the place of the dead and demands a life.”

I lift my chin. “I do,” I snarl, getting angry. “I come here because I am queen of this place. Because I will spend the rest of my life making sure this world thrives. I deserve to have him at my side, and we can rule together. He deserves to live. So please, I am begging whoever you are to give him back. I know he is here, waiting for me. He waited.”

“We are the Dragon Gods, known in this world. In others, we are known as Darkness and Light, as the Moon Goddess and the God of Hell. We collect souls from all worlds and, yes, he is here.” My heart races. “We have watched you. You are a goddess in your own right, and you have fixed this world. You have never stopped and fought endlessly. For that reason and only this once, we will allow the dead to walk back.”

“My life for his?”

“No, your servitude in this world in exchange for the return of his soul,” they command together.

“It’s a deal.” I look down as Emrys blinks, gasping for air, and he wakes. He’s alive. I throw myself on him and he grunts as he catches me, laughing as he holds me tight to his chest.The dragons fly away, sending our boat flying straight out of the Mist. By some miracle, I saved him, and I’m never letting him go again.

CHAPTER 15

This evening, I do what I do every time I wake up from a bad nightmare, and I look for my mates to check they are alive. Emrys is sleeping next to me, finally with some colour back in his cheeks after two weeks of constant healers. I might have brought him back from the dead, which has somehow become a legend around Ayiolyn, but Ares wrecked his body in the meantime. Grayson is on my other side, his arm thrown over his face and his other arm resting across my stomach. I ease it to the side and sit up, wrapping my arms around my knees. Arden is on the sofa, stretched out, and Lysander is on a makeshift pull-out bed by the bathroom. Terrin still hasn’t gotten used to his human form, and he is sleeping in dragon form on the wrap-around balcony.

Only in the middle of the night do I get a moment to remember that Arty and Kian are gone. Telling everyone about their deaths when we got back was heartbreaking, and bringing their bodies here was just as bad. Even Hope cried, and we all bowed to them, because we owe them everything. I wish I knew if they are happy now and if they are still together in wherever death took them next. I want to tell Arty so much, tell her I love her and thank her. I want to thank them both.

Lysander and his mother have grown closer in their mourning, and the entire Water Court has thrown an endless funeral leading up to tomorrow. The funeral arrangements are tomorrow, to send their bodies into the Mist, and they can be at peace. There are so many bodies, so many funerals from the Air Court to go into the Mist that I know funerals are going to last for months.

Everything is so quiet in the night, and I close my eyes, remembering that I’m safe. My mates are safe. I don’t think there will ever be a point I won’t remember my mate dying in my arms, not just once, but twice, and how I very nearly lost him for good. A rustle from the balcony makes my gaze shoot over, and I see the outline of a figure. I can see Terrin’s dragon stretched out on the other side, so it isn’t him.

I quietly climb out of the bed, not wanting to wake anyone. Everything is such a mess, and we are all working from the moment we get up till the moment we get back to our room for dinner and bed. I know it won’t always be like this, but getting order in the courts is important. Making sure everyone has food and housing is important. Our people are important, and we can suffer for a while.

I find my uncle standing outside. “What are you doing here?” I whisper, shutting the door behind me. I glance at Terrin, but he is a heavy sleeper and completely out of it. “I thought you’d gone back to Earth.”

“I had until an old friend asked me to come back just this once. I have some good news to share with you first.” His gaze sends fear lacing across my chest, even when I know he wouldn’t hurt me. It’s a normal response to the god of nightmares. “I am to have a child next year.”

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