Page 97 of Shadowkissed

“Did... we win?”

“Yeah. We did. You dumbass.”

He blinks up at me. “Good. Told you I wasn’t leaving.”

She lets out a broken laugh, one hand slapping my chest like she wants to yell at me and hold me all at once. “You idiot. Youalmost died.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t,” I say, wincing as I try to sit up. “Because of you.”

She bites her lip, and for a second, I think she might cry again. But she doesn’t. She leans in instead—careful, soft—and presses her lips to mine. It’s not desperate. Not fierce.

It’sgrateful.

Like we both just remembered we still have time.

The battlefield is quieter now.

Still not peaceful—there’s no such thing after something like this—but still.

The sky’s shifting from that strange twilight to actual morning. The rift’s gone. The Veil’s whole. Seraphiel is… dust. Powerless. Erased.

And the ruins around us—this broken patch of ancient forest that sits just beyond the edge of the city like some myth that got forgotten—are scorched and cratered and reeking of ash and magic.

Bodies lie scattered. Some of his. Some of ours.

The air still crackles. But it’s over.

It’s finally fucking over.

“You destroyed him,” I murmur, dragging a hand down my face. “Like,reallydestroyed him.”

She nods once, slow. “It wasn’t just me.”

I glance at her. “It wasn’t not you either.”

Her expression flickers. Guilt. Grief. Maybe awe.

“He tried to use me,” she says quietly. “To twist what I am. To make me something I hate.”

I reach for her hand, interlace our fingers.

“You’re not that,” I say. “Youneverwere.”

We sit there for a long time. Not saying much. Just breathing. Watching the sun climb over the tree line like it forgot how to rise.

Eventually, I pull myself up onto shaky legs. She helps. Doesn’t say anything when I curse under my breath and nearly fall.

“PEACE’ll want a debrief,” I say after a while, squinting toward the horizon. “They probably already know.”

Liora’s brow furrows. “Think they’ll come down on us?”

“No,” I say. “If they were gonna interfere, they would’ve done it already. This place is just off the grid enough—half buried in old runes, forgotten ley lines, barely shows up on maps. Tamsin knew that. She probably told them to stand down.”

“And the mundanes?” she asks.

“They’ll feel it,” I say. “The shift. The pressure drop. Maybe the sky looked weird. Maybe they dreamt of stars falling. But they won’tremember.Not in a way that matters.”

“Good,” she says. “They’ve been through enough.”

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