Page 61 of Last Ride of the Umbra Fae

Moments passed in silence. I thought I heard Vessa’s voice carry through the wind. I could call upon mynaito listen, but I was done prying. She had many things to sort through, and I hoped, by the end of it, she would still see me in the same light she had when I’d first met her in the saloon.

The ground furiously shook before my next thought could form, throwing me off balance. The fountain of the Eternal and everything around it rose, unearthing the entire expanse from where the Earth’s Fall truly began. My eyes desperately narrowed on Vessa. I’d never seen a light so luminous in all my life, none as blinding as hers. Shadow and light surrounded her the same way nebulas brushed the night sky.

Lavender, like the freckles that glittered across her face.

I dropped to my knees as Vessa expelled every ounce of power from her chest. Her loud cry cleaved a deeper mark on my soul than ever before as she destroyed the stone within a simple breath. Panic swept down my spine in fear that she could end herself in the process. The winds picked up. I gritted my teeth, sensing the heaviness taking residence in my heart as a gale force pushed me back. The fucking hells would open up before I ever let anything take her away from me, even death itself. For the first time in a very long time, I felt the recesses of my mind tearing apart, revealing a feeling I’d kept hidden for so long.

Loss.

I was afraid to lose her the same way I’d lost my mother. I was afraid to be alone again.

Flashes of Vessa were engraved into my mind, from the way she looked down as she smiled, to the simplicity of her touch that could undo me every time, to the stoic strength she held in a world that was always at her heels.

This was how she’d chosen to live her life.

Hard and fast.

Another deep breath.

A roar tore through me as I mounted my stallion without question. I was out of my fucking mind riding toward an unearthing mass of destruction. Wind Fae had no home, but I saw one possible with her, and I would go wherever the wind carried her. I called upon the power ofNai, begging it not to failme now as my horse jumped into the air. In desperation, I sent a silent prayer into this sacred place to carry me to her. My soul reached into our bond.

In the final leap grew a blinding light that swallowed me and my stallion whole.

34

Vessa

“Keep to the shadows and low-lit taverns.”

“Here, my fate awaits,” I whispered into the quake of truth that rumbled beneath my feet. I saw it all.

I was not here to return the stone; I was here to end it.

The Eternal stone held a power over our land, and it was now torn with pain. I’d seen what its existence could do to those who were weakened by greed.

I was the last of the Umbra, dying and always on the run. A war between two worlds who couldn’t figure their shit out, and I so happened to be caught in it. There was no peace. I had seen battle and famine for far too long. All I knew was how to fight and survive another day just to wake up and do it all over again.

I saw the sun through the Eternal in a blinding, white light. No matter how fast we rode, I was destined to end up here.

No longer under the wing of Pa, I stood alone in the vast expanse of this space as I was surrounded by serenity.

Peace.

This was where I had chosen to be.

Within the power of the Umbra, darkness coiled up my arm, brushing along my skin. I had always known this distant partof me, the other side of the moon. It was the other half of what I’d lost, affirming what I had to do. The power ofAmawas a familiarity that gently wrapped around my hand and the Eternal stone as light broke out from between my fingers. I was a reckoning force, cast in light with the power ofAno. I was the Umbra, willing the end of the Eternal stone. It split in two as more fissures veined across its golden amber glow, dispersing into a thousand shimmering pieces of blinding light that lulled me into a vacant space. Darkness followed bright rays, appearing as stars upon an open night sky. My soul was whisked away as my mind flashed through a lifetime of memories—the ebb and flow of my existence. Running barefoot in the woods with my sister, nothing but soot on our feet and hungry bellies craving pastries. Her voice was a calm throughout the woods. I followed it until I caught sight of her bright violet eyes with azure drops around them, child-like until I blinked again and caught a glimpse of what she would have been if she had survived. Tears stung my eyes. She was beautiful, surrounded by lush, wild terrain. I saw Raven smiling for the first time when I’d offered him a gift in a place where he had felt so alone. The smile that Pa had worn even on days when Ma was being wicked. It was the sound ofhervoice that stilled my next breath. A call to the divine as a silhouette took shape, causing me to run as fast as my legs would carry me, only to discover I didn’t have to run. The gravitational pull brought us together. Rich brown eyes greeted me as familiar hands touched my soul. I couldn’t stop the tears from falling when I saw the woman who smiled back.

“Hello, my moon. Home so soon?”

Home…

Words so foreign on my lips, they nearly broke me. I’d never felt I belonged in a world that was vastly changing. But there was one thing I knew for sure as I studied the shape of her faceand curve of her high cheekbones with bronze skin and dark hair matching my own.

I belonged to her.

Every word I’d ever dreamt of saying to Ma evaded me. Only tears fell in heavy waves, cascading down my face; I could barely see.

She held me in her arms. A phantom touch, recalling what her warmth had once felt like on cold winter nights. The way her soft skin felt inside her arms.

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