Page 64 of War Of Fire and Fortune
“Mai lou kai,”he whispered, and I dropped to catch him as he fell to the side, but then I saw a light in my peripheral that wasn’t mine. I stood quickly to defend Ace because I needed to save him. I had to. But it was too late. Valla’s lightning was hurling straight for my chest.
One moment, it was there, and in the next shadows had replaced it. Kade was in front of me, his face gnarled with pain, and then he dropped to his knees. I could hear the sizzle of his flesh where he’d been hit. My brain was still groggy, catching up with what was happening, but I dropped to my knees and cradled his face in my palms as his body went slack.
“Every time,mei wynsoara,” he vowed with his last breath. Suddenly, the bond between us snapped like a thread and was nothing but a void. A barren wasteland where I was completely and utterly alone.
Ace was dead.
Kade was dead.
And I would destroy this world if I couldn’t have them back.
The monster inside me screamed with me as the world paused. I began floating. Every Ember soldier fell as I sucked the air from their lungs or swallowed them with the earth beneath their feet. The battlefield ripped apart like the cavern inside my chest. The fire Ember used to keep the skyships afloat ravaged them as they all started to fall from the sky, and then Valla was in my line ofsight, her manic laughter filling the quiet inside my head.She did this.
I felt the blood rushing through her veins, pumping in time with her heart. Lifting my hands, I pulled and pulled and pulled. All of it. Her laughter shifted to screams as I ripped her apart from the inside out. Blood leaked from her eyes, nose, ears, and mouth, and I kept bending it until she was nothing but a pile of skin and bones on the battlefield. Our last enemy was officially dead.
Once the battlefield fell silent—truly, devastatingly silent—I collapsed to my knees beside their still bodies. As if moving too fast might shatter what little of me remained. The weight of it all crushed my chest, like I was being held under water with no hope of surfacing. My arms trembled as I gathered them into my lap. Their armor was cracked and scorched, their faces bloodied and streaked with ash. Their chests didn’t move.
Glowing tears poured down my cheeks, splattering against their skin, their armor, the dirt beneath us. I didn’t care. I couldn’t stop it. My body shook with each sob, and I couldn’t seem to draw in a full breath. My ribs felt like they were splintering from the inside out.
I held Ace and Kade tighter.
The two people I loved more than life itself were gone.
Gone.
“No,” I whispered, voice cracking like broken glass. “No, no, no—”
The word became a chant. The emptiness inside me spread like frostbite, curling into my limbs, my heart, my soul. I could feel the light in me dimming, flickering like it didn’t know how to go on without them. Like I didn’t.
I pressed my forehead against Kade’s then Ace’s and whispered their names like maybe if I said them softly enough, they’d answer.
But there was nothing.
Just the silence of death. The worst kind of quiet.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t think. All I could do was cry and rock them in my arms, as if love alone could bring them back. My glowing tears smeared across their faces as I tried to wipe away the blood and dirt, only making it worse. My hands shook too hard.
“Please,” I whispered. “Please wake up.”
I clutched at them like I could keep them here with me, hold them down in this world before their souls drifted too far away.
“I’m not ready,” I sobbed. “You weren’t supposed to go. Not like this. Not without me.”
I felt hollow. Like something had been scooped out of me, scraped raw. I kept reaching for my mating bond, but there was nothing. I screamed then. This wasn’t just grief. It was devastation, ruin. And it was mine to bear.
The Peacebringer pulsed inside me, but I barely felt its power compared to this pain. I had never tried healing while it was fully unbound. I didn’t even know if it was possible. But if there was ever a time to try, it was now.
I leaned over them, placing my hands on their chests. Light surged beneath my fingertips, humming with sorrow and love and the last remnants of hope I had left.
“Please,” I breathed. “Please come back to me.”
I poured myself into the connections.
Not just magic or bending—but everything.
My memories. My love. My guilt. My desperation. The nights I’d lain awake with Kade’s arms around me. The way Ace’s voice had sounded on the battlefield. I wanted to hear it again. The promises we’d made, the battles we’d survived, and the family we’d found in each other.
I gave it all.
