“We’ll see about that,” Simon said. He moved up to the vessel and crouched down to study it. One hand extended above it palm down, and an expression of immense concentration came over his tired face.
“They’re right that it can’t be stopped,” Simon said in a heavy voice. “If I had the proper tools, I could disrupt the etchings on this vessel.”
“But you can’t leave the cemetery,” Gabriel said quietly.
“I can’t.”
“What about this?” Gabriel brandished Shōki quietly. “Last year, Sky was able to shatter the Plague Doctor’s reliquary with this sword.”
“That might work, but the results may be disastrous, son. This thing has absorbed a lot of power—two full souls. If it’s destroyed…”
“What will happen?”
“The blast could harm you. Even kill you.”
Holly was rising now. The pulses picked up in speed. My friend was next, and Gabriel stood so tall, so still, his back rod straight as his voice caressed my thoughts.
“I love you, Sky. You are the best thing to ever happen to me. I love you and Ama. If I don’t make it through this, be there for her. For my sister, my brothers, and my parents. Please.”
My head pounded as I pushed up onto my elbows. I struggled to make sense of the world, to remain conscious. “Gabriel, no! There has to be—”
Gabe shoved Simon away with superhuman strength, taking him by surprise. Our mentor went flying beyond the range of the circle. In the next move, he brought the sword down against the magical artifact.
A shockwave rocked over us, flashing over Gabriel and the unconscious body of Cole. Brilliant white light and pulses of magic dazzled me.
It didn’t throw Gabriel far. I crawled to him on my elbows, panicking when he didn’t immediately climb to his feet.
“Gabe?”
The magical tethers connecting us to the vessel had vanished. One by one, I heard low moans and murmurs, the sounds of awakening but confused people realizing they were nowhere near our last location.
“Gabe?”
He didn’t move. I rolled him onto his back and gasped. A large piece of the vessel had been embedded in his chest. The energy pulse had left him black and blue, ashen and charred. A low sob built in my throat.
“Gabe? Please, no.” I pulled at the iron shard unsuccessfully, but slick blood made it impossible to dislodge. “Gabe, no. God, no.”
Simon dropped to his knees beside me, took my hands by both wrists, and drew me close. “Shh, shh. I got you.”
Crying on his shoulder didn’t help. He rocked me and held me, and then I felt another set of arms from the other side and smelled the cinnamon and vanilla scent of Lia. Another pair of arms took Simon’s place as he tenderly transferred me to Holly’s embrace.
“Oh fuck. Oh fuck, no!” Stark ran to us and fell beside Gabriel. “What the hell happened? How? Fuck!” He pounded the ground with one fist. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
I couldn’t stop crying. I’d known all along at any time one of us could lose the other. I’d heard the prophecy.
Dain had warned me.
But the reality was too much to bear and I couldn’t breathe, choking on each sobbing breath.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Ama landed beside him, small again, and touched her beak to his face.
We were all alive, Tir na Nog was safe, and the only man I thought I could ever love had died making it happen.
“I’m so, so sorry, Sky,” Lia whispered against my cheek. “I’m sorry.”
They had known. They had known all along.
This was why they’d asked me to be her Morrigan.
Because from the very beginning, they had known I would be alone, with nothing to keep me in this realm.
Oberon stepped into my view, blurry as it was with stinging tears. There was no mistaking the king’s radiant presence. He crouched beside Gabriel’s body.
“This was a great and noble sacrifice. Gabriel will forever be known in all of Tir na Nog and this mortal plane as a hero who stopped a monster,” Oberon said, his voice almost drowned by my sobs.
I didn’t want a hero with a statue or a legacy. I wanted my mate. Losing him meant losing an integral piece of myself. “Why didn’t you warn me?” I demanded, lurching out of Lia’s grip to grab Oberon by his sleeve. “Why didn’t any of you warn me?”
“We did,” he replied in a soft voice. “Rather, Dain did.”
“I just thought we’d h-have more time.”
“Fate can be unkind to the least deserving,” the great fae king said before kissing my brow.
“I can’t…” My voice cracked. “I don’t want to do this alone.”
“You won’t have to.” With infinite gentleness, Oberon pulled my hands from his coat. He rose to his full height over us.
“Holly, you’ll want to move back,” Lia warned. She scooped Ama into one hand and set the quaking bird on my shoulder. “All of you, please.”
None of it made any sense. One by one, my friends were leaving, moving away as though Gabe weren’t lying there dead and my world wasn’t falling apart. Only Lia remained, and she drew me away from Gabriel’s body.
The reason quickly became apparent. Oberon’s phoenix form rivaled the sun in its brilliance, casting a golden glow that lit every shadow in the graveyard. Each ruby feather glittered, shifting in molten shades from gold to scarlet. He spread his wings wide and settled his body atop Gabe’s.
“No, what are you—”
“Shhh,” Lia soothed. “Watch.”
They went up in flames and became a pillar of fire. The inferno roared and crackled as I instinctively jerked to escape Lia’s embrace. Her arms may as well have been bands of steel around me. I couldn’t shake her off me, no matter how I screamed.
“What are you doing?” I shrieked. Ama squawked in matching terror.
“Sky, watch!”
The flames receded seconds later, though it felt like an eternity to me at that moment, watching the king incinerate my beloved’s body. Oberon emerged from the column on two legs once more, but he wasn’t alone. A dark figure stood beside him, and it took my rattled mind a moment to make sense of what I saw.
The handsome black attire of Halloween night clothed Gabriel, an outfit of inky fabric and black feathers. His ears were longer and pointed like Lia’s and Oberon’s—like mine whenever I visited the other realm.
The arms around me loosened.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered, barely believing my eyes. Oberon offered a hand and helped me to my feet.
“I could not save the shifter, but I could do this.” Oberon gestured with one arm. “Rise now, Gabriel, as who you were meant to be. You are reborn as fae, both blessed and cursed to walk the long path of eternity as those you love remain trapped in mortal shells. You will watch loved ones die and friends wither, yet you will remain unchanged. It is a road paved with pain, but you will not be alone. You and Skylar will always have one another.”
“I’m…I’m alive?” Gabriel felt his chest where the shard had struck him, then he whirled to face me with wonder in his eyes. “Sky…”
“Holy shit, dude!” Stark exclaimed.
I didn’t recall moving, but I must have, because I was in his arms and kissing him as if it would be the last time. The way I wished I could have kissed him before his moment of heroism. Afterward, I clung to him and gave a ragged sob.
“How is this possible?”
“We waited for this day, expecting it but blind to the journey you would both undertake for it to come to pass,” Lia said. “
“But how is he a fae?”
Oberon smiled. “Do you remember a gift Dain delivered on my behalf?”
“The goldberries?”
“Yes. It is by that gift that Amaterasu has become the fae who assisted you today. Without them, Gamayun would not have been able to share her power. A mortal may only receive the sponsorship of a fae when they have imbibed the delights from Tir na Nog. Even
then, it must be no small amount, and the fae in question must have great power to bestow the gift. I have shared mine, and it is a gift I can never spare again in this lifetime.”
“It is the least that we could do for the heroes of two planes,” Lia agreed. “If we had the power to undo every death, we would, but we were unprepared.”
“Does that mean it’s over?” I scanned the wreckage of broken gravestones and shattered marble.
Annalise’s body had been incinerated at some point, disposed of by one of the mages. Daniela sat with a shell-shocked look on her face while Simon consoled her. My joy at getting Gabriel back was tempered by the loss of others. Christian and Daniela had been partners. I didn’t even know the name of the other sentinel who had been killed in the ritual.
How was it fair for my mate to return to me when they remained dead?
“Everything is over?”
Oberon craned his neck and gazed at the stars. “For now, it appears to be. Your friends led a great battle on the campus grounds long before we arrived.”
I relaxed, then stole another glance at Gabriel, still awestruck by how much fae blood had changed him. “Wait, where’s Cole? And Hansford, for that matter.”
“We found Delores’s body on the path leading to the cemetery. Looks like Annalise ripped out her heart, probably for a final burst of power before she began that ritual. As for Cole, when Gabriel shattered the vessel, he vanished,” Simon said. “He might have been incinerated, but…”
“If there isn’t a body—” I started.
“We can’t confirm the kill,” Gabriel finished. He squeezed my hand.
I hugged him all over again and buried my face in his throat. I couldn’t stop touching him or hugging him. Nothing tempted me more than the great desire to spend the rest of the evening in his arms.
“I sense a great change, but I cannot fathom its source,” Oberon said. “So much released magic will have consequences.”
“But the barrier is safe, right?”
“Strong as ever,” Lia assured me, smiling. She leaned against Oberon and he slid his arm around her.
One by one the others finally surrounded us, Stark hugging Gabriel so tight I would have thought he lost his mate. Simon embraced us both, then Holly practically flew into my arms.
“We did it, girl. We fucking did it.”
“Yeah…we did. We did it together.”
Epilogue: The Sweetest Reward
Gabriel became a miniature celebrity on the campus and someone to look up to, his fellow ravens viewing his Ascension with a surprising amount of grace and pride instead of the envy I’d expected.
Yet with everything that happened in the fall, it amazed me that any of us graduated. Somehow, my friends and I had all muddled through despite the faces missing at graduation that could never be replaced. We honored all the fallen from not only that fateful day in the cemetery, but everyone I’d met since starting at PNRU four years ago.
Loss had a way of bringing everyone together. In light of Delores Hansford’s betrayal and Cole’s treachery, the outrage over Jiro and Professor Tristal died down. His bullies didn’t apologize, but they let him be. Sometime around spring break, the parents calling for Tristal’s resignation petered out and lost interest. Or maybe they had been thoroughly shamed by the students who took up for her.
Hate only begat hate. Hate had taken root in one grieving mother, and like the flutters of a butterfly’s wings, Sophia Dekker’s actions spread out to affect everyone else in the magical community.
It was also because of her and Annalise that the council had decided to revisit their rules about Binding. Liadan convinced Oberon to fight with her, and the two fae refused to wrongfully rob another person of their true self until all other options were exhausted.
I hoped that made Sophia rest easy.
I hoped it brought peace to Annalise, even if it was too little, too late. It was something, and the beginning of change.
Ben and Holly were the only ones of our core group not leaving campus. As Gabriel had, our brainiac pals chose two more years of graduate study in an intensive, competitive alchemist program.
Anji didn’t fare as well initially. The news of Cole’s treachery struck her hard. She’d thought he loved her and cared about all of us. More than that, she blamed herself for giving him a way into our lives. None of us blamed her, but she struggled most of our spring semester. A few weeks before graduation, she received an offer for the job of her dreams—a posting in Japan with their bureau. She accepted and promised to return for our handfasting in Tir na Nog.
Teresa designed and printed all the invitations, then Lia and Pilar helped me with the magical seals. For those, we had to imbue a little faerie dust for every guest to be deposited at the correct location in the fae realm once they reached a Faerie Ring. It took us days to complete the task.
Finally, a month after graduation, the day of our handfasting dawned bright and clear in the mortal realm. Even the skies in Tir na Nog seemed particularly lovely, flushed with jeweled color. A balmy breeze blew through the flower-laden trees of Avalon Palace’s garden.
“Ready, bambolina?”
I inhaled a deep breath. I had nothing to fear. Gabriel was already mine.
What intimidated me was the impressive crowd of visitors awaiting us in the garden as I finished preparations in a guest room. Every lord and lady of Tir na Nog had fought for standing room at my wedding.
And my great and proud ancestor Tenanye was there. I turned to my father, rapidly blinking to banish the stinging sensation in my eyes. “Ready.”
“You look stunning,” Dad said, a funny note in his voice. His eyes had gone misty as he admired me in my dress. The corseted bodice flared at my hips and draped to the floor in lush layers of silk chiffon and lace, the color deepening from a dark iris purple to black. Earlier, Pilar had twisted my hair into an elegant updo fastened with a bridal hairpiece fashioned from silver pearls and a handmade garland. Somehow, it accented the oil slick shine perfectly.
“I actually feel stunning.”
He kissed my cheek. “Let’s go. Everyone is waiting.”
I had expected a large crowd. After all, there had never been a wedding in Tir na Nog before, and we’d invited everyone we cared about, family and friends alike. Technically, it still wasn’t a mortal wedding now that Gabriel was one of us.
As my father walked me up the flower-strewn path, all I could initially see was Gabe’s triumphant grin welcoming me to the altar.
What I hadn’t expected was for Oberon himself to officiate. When he had told me it would be taken care of, I’d assumed they had a fae who handled such responsibilities.
“Continue to treat her right, my boy,” Dad said when he set my hand in Gabe’s.
“I will.”
“It is with great honor that I attend this task, uniting two souls destined to find one another. Skylar and Gabriel have defied odds that would have seen lesser hearts quail.” Oberon drew a crimson and gold cord from thin air, the ends decorated with bells and dark feathers. “Gabriel, will you share Skylar’s burdens, her sorrows, and her dreams?” he asked, wrapping the binding cords around our joined wrists.
Gabriel’s suspiciously thick voice tugged my heart. His honey-brown eyes were wet and shining, damp with emotion he valiantly struggled to keep at bay. “I will.”
“And will you do the same, Skylar?”
I didn’t need to think or question myself. I would. I had. I floated on cloud nine, heart soaring higher than the magical sun above us. “I will.”
Oberon doubled the magical cord over our wrists another time. “Skylar, do you vow to take the heat of anger and the flames of passion, and use both to temper the strength of this union?”
“I do.”
Pilar’s talented makeup job earned its value when the first tears spilled down my cheeks as Gabriel made the same vow.
“The binding is made, melding two spirits in a union of love, faith, and trust. May the hands joined
together today always hold one another with such tenderness and joy.” The binding cord grew warm against my skin, sparkled brighter than stardust, and disintegrated. A faint shadow of black feathers remained where we had been joined. “You may seal your binding with a kiss.”
My new husband kissed me before Oberon finished speaking, much to the amusement of Gabriel’s family and mine. A few fae laughed politely as the applause began.
When we separated and turned toward our audience, I couldn’t help but gaze in awe at the numbers. We turned toward our audience to give our thanks.
“Before we release you to your loved ones, my queen and I have one final thing to say.”
I blinked and twisted around to face Oberon again. Lia answered my questioning look with a knowing smile.
“I grant this honor to you, Liadan.”
“Thank you, my love.” Lia reached into the Neverspace and removed two glowing bundles wrapped in silk. Unfolding them revealed two near-identical headpieces in a dark silver metal, both shaped like flight feathers joined by a purple jewel. “For your acts of valor and heroism, I grant you both the title of lord and lady.”
I stared.
Lia stepped forward and kissed each of us on the cheek, placing Gabriel’s circlet then my tiara as she did. “May the Shadow Thicket prosper under your care.”
Gabriel’s eyes almost bugged out of his head. Months ago, he’d accepted becoming the first shadow raven of our kind with grace and dignity. Yet receiving land and a title was what made him sputter ineloquently. “Lord? I’m a lord? I thought—whoa, thank you!”
The fae monarch dipped his head. “I am the one in eternal debt to you. It is one that can never be repaid for all you have done for us. I thank you, and I wish you only happiness.”
Turning to face our friends and loved ones, happiness was the only word I could find to describe how I felt. So long as Gabriel was at my side, we could face any obstacle and forge ahead in our new lives. Together.
* * *
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The Puppet Master: The Paranormal University Files: Skylar, Year 4 Page 26