Page 200 of Cherish

The sounds of joy fill the air—bells ringing, birds chirping, water flowing—as all around us, the purple cracks and crumbles and every color of the rainbow begins to take its place.

Purple dissolves into the bluest skies. Green grass. White clouds. And a big, bright, yellow sun shining down on every single thing it touches.

The Shadow Queen is free, and so are her people.

A thousand years in captivity ended in the moment between one choice and the next.

But there is still Adarie, still the farm and all the people who love their lives here. The last thing I want is to force them into yet another prison in our world, and so I do the only thing I can to ensure that they, too, always have a home.

I grab my green string, and I grow a thousand trees, huge and sturdy and everlasting, with the most steadfast trunks and the strongest branches. And I make a forest around Adarie and the farm, filled with chaos magic and near-constant daylight and purple dirt—and with these trees to keep the magic stable, not prison bars.

Behind me, the Shadow Queen gasps, and as I turn around I already know what I’m going to see. Lorelei walking through the shadow of the trees straight toward us, her steps steady and sure.

The Shadow Queen runs to her, and when they embrace, I feel one more part of our new world become whole. Even before Lorelei pulls away from her mother and walks to Mekhi.

He’s on the ground now, his back against Jaxon’s, as the pain of the poison grows too much for him to bear.

Lorelei drops to her knees beside him and cradles his head in her hands as she pleads with her mother. “Please. Please, save him.”

“I can’t,” the Shadow Queen says, and there’s a sadness in her eyes I never expected to see. “I never could. There was never a cure for shadow poison.”

“You mean we did all this for nothing?” Eden asks as she, too, drops to her knees beside Mekhi. “We could never save him?” Outrage fills her voice.

“Not for nothing,” Mekhi tells her as he looks around at all the colors that exist where only purple used to before. “Look at what we did.”

“It’s not enough,” Jaxon grinds out as he holds his friend steady. “If you die, it will never be enough.”

“It has to be,” Mekhi answers. “Sometimes this is all you get. It’s just my time.”

“It will never be your time,” I tell him, tears burning my eyes as I finish freeing this world and crouch at his feet.

“Hey now, Grace. None of that.” He gives me one of his patented Mekhi smiles—the kind that made me feel like I had a friend in the halls of Katmere. He was Jaxon’s friend first, but he was mine, too. From the very beginning. And I can’t imagine what it will feel like to live in this brave new world of ours without him.

“It’s all good,” he whispers as Lorelei holds one of his hands and Jaxon grabs onto the other. “I’ve had the best friends and life and love. I can’t ask for anything more than that.”

“Mekhi. Mekhi, no,” I gasp out as his eyes slowly close.

Not yet. Please, not yet. I’m not ready to lose him yet.

Beside me, Jaxon sobs—one single, desperate sound that tears right through me. And then Mekhi shudders out his final breath.

Lorelei’s scream splits the air, and she falls forward onto his chest, her tears pouring like wishes down her cheeks as she cries over and over for Mekhi to wake up, just open his eyes one more time.

Then I see someone running across the garden, crashing through the vines and the flowers to get to us. Liana—but it’s a Liana like we’ve never seen before. Her hair is black now, her skin a deep olive, and her eyes are a warm, dark brown.

But the purple isn’t the only thing that went when the Shadow Realm collapsed. Because now that she’s free, her previously flat and terrifying eyes contain the many multitudes of her soul.

“I’m sorry!” she says as she all but throws herself at her sister. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Lorelei whispers to her. And when they finally pull away, gold sparkles hang in the air between them.

The sparkles flow back and forth between the two girls for several seconds before a large group of them arrows into Lorelei. She gasps when they hit her, but within moments her cheeks grow rosy and her hair takes on a new luster.

She barely notices, though, as she falls to her knees again and takes Mekhi’s hand in hers—and jolts, her eyes widening on a desperate cry. Then she falls across his chest and sobs over and over: “My mate, my mate, my mate.”

My stomach twists at the cruelty of finding your mate as he lies dying, knowing how brief your time will be together. “Why now?” I whisper.

“She didn’t have all of her soul before,” Hudson says, wrapping his arms around me as we both imagine the pain Lorelei must be feeling.

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