by Sarah Piper
The smoke thickened around me, inside me, forcing a cough from my chest before it finally retreated, giving me a modicum of breathing room. Hovering over the ground before me, it roiled and twisted into the rough shape of a man, large and looming, with cavernous pits for eyes that glowed like lava. There was no mouth.
“Do not presume to speak to us of wisdom,” the voice warned, and I stumbled a step backward from the splitting pain in my skull. “The witch is by all rights an abomination. She should have died long ago, many times over. Her life scroll has already been burned, has it not?”
It wasn’t a question, merely another accusation. One I wouldn’t deny.
“Yet she persists,” I said. “Her strength, her fortitude, her compassion, her love for—”
“She survives by breaking our natural laws and mocking the semblance of order we’ve abided by since the dawn of consciousness. She simply should not be.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that she is.” I regained my footing and approached the smoky essence again, my feelings for Gray propelling me forward. She was with me always; by my nature I transcended the bounds of time, experiencing her every wondrous touch as if it were the first again, as if it were merely moments ago, as if she were standing right beside me.
The memory of our last kiss arched like fire across my lips.
“There is a spark in her,” I said, “the likes of which I’ve not seen in others of her kind. I have learned a great deal during the time and space I’ve shared with her, and—”
“Learned a great deal?” The voice was mocking now. Cruel. “It seems you have forgotten a great deal, as well. Including your sacred oath.”
I closed my eyes and lowered my head, the collective weight of the Old One’s accusations piling high on my shoulders. I would carry the weight of my discretions for the rest of my existence, for it was true—I’d broken sacred oaths for her. I’d strayed from my path. I’d… I’d changed.
I was Death, the Great Change, the Ultimate Transformation. How many times had I told Gray just that, trotting out the appellations like badges granting me supreme authority?
A smile touched my lips. In the end, it wasn’t the Shadowborn witch who’d been changed so drastically by our relationship.
It was me.
“Indeed, I have forgotten things,” I conceded, my eyes meeting those glowing pits once again. “But I cannot regret the things I’ve received in exchange. Despite all that I’ve forgotten or discarded, there is one thing I know beyond the shadow of all doubts.” I recalled the sight of the moonglass, Emilio’s soul swirling inside as Gray held him close. In that moment, I’d felt his thoughts, the ache of past regrets he’d feared he’d never have the opportunity to make right.
And I felt his love for Gray, burning brighter with every passing second.
“In the face of his sudden departure,” I continued, “her spark would’ve been utterly extinguished. And the darkness of that loss would echo across the realms for eternity.”
“For her, you have disobeyed your sacred duties at all turns. You say that her loss would’ve echoed across the realms, yet do you not believe that your own actions would have similar consequences?”
“It matters not,” I admitted, “for I would do it all again, through time immemorial, if it meant sparing her even the briefest touch of heartbreak.” Shame flared inside my chest for all the pain I’d already caused her, but I spoke the truth. “I will not bring the witch to harm again. That is my solemn oath now, and in obeying it, I must also serve those to whom her heart belongs. I must love and protect them as my kin.”
“You’ve no obligation to her guardians.”
“Obligation, no. But respect. Gratitude.” And, dare I hoped, should we survive what was to come, brotherhood. Family, just like Gray had said when she’d brought Emilio back to his body.
For that is what we’d become, Gray’s men and I. Regardless of their feelings toward me, regardless of my form on this realm or another, regardless of my many mistakes and missteps, our love for her bound us as family.
I knelt down in the grass again, placing my hands on the impression Emilio’s body had left behind, making my final decision. “I will not carry him through the gates to the Shadowrealm on this night or any that follow. Nor will I defend my decision further. This matter is closed.”
“Very well. In creating moonglass and sharing it with the Silversbane witch, you have brought it forth from the mists of legend and into the realm of thought, idea, and possibility once again. Your primal oath has been broken, and even now, you remain defiant. As such, you shall inherit the consequences of this decision, to be determined by cosmic tribunal at such a time as we deem appropriate.”
I bowed as low as I dared, respectful once again.
But not remorseful.
Not regretful.
And not ashamed.
“So it shall be,” I said, expecting—and hoping for—its immediate retreat.
But the Old One lingered.
The glowing eyes dimmed, the smoke thinning, but still, it did not vanish.
Suddenly I felt it inside me again, filling my chest, surrounding Liam Colebrook’s heart. My heart. It beat frantically as a mouse caught by a predator, desperate for escape. My body flooded with fear. Adrenaline.
And beneath all of that, something else.
Hope.
“Your human heart shall be your downfall, Lord of Shadows,” the voice echoed ominously. “And the downfall of those you’ve come to love as well.”
Your human heart…
Hope surged, drowning out the fear. The Old One had touched upon something deeply personal within me; I’d never felt more human than I did in that moment, knowing I’d broken my sacred vows beyond all repair, knowing that I’d made my choices willingly, knowing that I’d sacrificed something precious so that others might have a chance at something even better.
“Perhaps,” I countered, the beat of that almost-human heart as loud and steady as a drum in my ears, “it shall be our savior instead.”
Fourteen
EMILIO
Snatches of memory flickered behind my eyes. The flash of magic… My wolf form lunging at a fae soldier… The metallic taste of his blood filling my mouth. The fierce clanging of swords reverberated off the walls. Ronan was shouting, running toward me. Elena in the line of fire. Ronan’s face, stricken and panicked.
And then came the burning. Poison. My body feeling like it was consuming itself just to escape.
Pain. So much pain, and everyone around me screaming, all at once. Shouting orders. Ronan bent over me. Elena, tears leaking from her eyes. And Gray, holding my hand…
Fire. Smoke. So hot, and still so much pain.
And then…. Nothing. I was floating, soaring like a bird through the night sky until the inferno at the warehouse was nothing more than a tiny point of light on an infinite black canvas.
There was a tug, a presence, something telling me to let go. I wanted to. Anything to make the pain end. But then her voice broke through the mindless haze, clear as a song on a silent night.
Mi brujita bonita, calling me home…
Gray, I mouthed, but no sound came out. I felt the beating of my heart in my chest, the blood running through my veins, strong and clear once again. I smelled the antiseptic scents of floor cleaner and medicine and gauze. My skin crawled with an itch so deep, I was sure it would never fade.
But I was alive. I knew it with every fiber of my being. I was alive.
My head was heavy, my body trying to drag me back into a deep sleep, but I fought it. Where had I ended up? I had to see. Had to know. Slowly, I forced my eyes to open, recoiling at the sudden flood of white light.
I tried again. A peek. A little wider. Shapes and shadows emerged before me, filling in the light. Molecule by molecule, it seemed, my surroundings finally solidified.
I was in a bed, taped up with bandages, wearing nothing but gauze and a flannel sheet covering my lower half. It smelled like m
e. It smelled like Gray. The room was familiar, as was the woman keeping vigil at my bedside.
Gray, I mouthed again, but no, it wasn’t her scent.
The woman beside me was my sister, seated in a chair next to the bed, her back ramrod straight, her hand resting on my forearm. Her face was turned in profile, her gaze focused on something outside the window.
She hadn’t seen me yet, and I took the stolen moment to watch her. To re-memorize the shape of her face, the color of her hair. She had a few years on me, but when we were children, people used to think we were twins.
Same golden skin. Same wavy black hair. Same smiles.
It was a long time ago.
I finally shifted in my bed to let her know I was awake, and her head snapped toward me immediately.
I grinned, the last of the lingering fuzziness clearing from my mind.
Elena gasped at the sight of me, slapping a hand over her mouth. A smile peeked through around the edges of her fingers, making the skin around her brown eyes crinkle.
A flood of silent tears leaked down her cheeks.
“¿Que pasa?” I teased, testing out my voice. It was cracked and raw, but the words came out anyway. “Jesús, María, y José. You look like somebody died, Elena.”
At this, my sister burst out laughing.
Dios mio, that was a good sound to come home to.
“You asshole,” she said, smacking my shoulder, but she was still laughing. “You had us all scared out of our minds, thinking we’d be planning a funeral this weekend, and now you’re cracking jokes?”
“What better time for a laugh then when you’re standing on Death’s door?”
“Speaking of Death’s door,” she said, “where is your friend Liam? I’ve got a few choice words for him, too.”
Liam… At the sound of his name, a new memory surfaced, but I couldn’t hold onto it. He’d been there that night, I was sure of it now. Helped me somehow. But that was all I had.
“I haven’t heard from him,” I said, still chasing that memory. But it was gone, like so many others from that night. Perhaps that was for the best. “As far as I know, he’s still tracking Jonathan in Gray’s realm.”
Elena narrowed her eyes, but if she knew more, she wasn’t saying a word.
I sat up a bit, and Elena propped an extra pillow behind my head. That, too, smelled like Gray, and I glanced around the room, searching for her, though I knew she wasn’t here. The scent of her on my sheets was fading.
“She’s resting,” Elena said, answering the question before my lips had even formed the words. “For the first time in days. It took all of us multiple attempts and a few threats to convince her to finally leave your side for more than just a quick bite to eat and a trip to the bathroom.”
“So she’s… okay?”
Elena smiled. “Tired from the ordeal, but yes, Emilio. Now that you’re here, we’re all okay.”
“And the witches? Reva? Haley and the others?”
“All present and accounted for. Getting stronger every day. I should know—I’m feeding and housing them. All this time, Emilio, I had no idea how much these women could eat!”
“You love it, and you know it.”
“Guilty as charged. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a full house. As chaotic as it is, it’s also kind of nice. Big meals. Late-night talks. Fighting over the bathrooms.” She took my hands in hers, her smile slowly slipping away. She held my gaze a moment longer, then looked out the window again, her attention drifting back to whatever she’d been watching before I’d woken up.
Wind howled against the side of the house, lashing the windows with heavy, wet snow I’d only just begun to notice—fiercer than any storm I’d ever seen in the Pacific Northwest.
“Wow,” I said. “How long have I been out?” I was sure it’d been months. I’d probably missed Christmas, missed New Year’s. It might be past Valentine’s Day for all I knew.
“Three days,” Elena said. “In and out of consciousness as your body healed.”
I blew out a breath. Three days? That was a relief. “What’s with the snow?”
“They’re saying on the news it’s a once-in-a-lifetime storm,” Elena said, though something in her voice had changed. Was that fear I detected? “It started in the Bay and has been working its way westward ever since. Most of the state is feeling the impacts.” She rattled off snowfall amounts and temperatures, wind chill factors, all the facts and figures as if she were a weather reporter. But she was holding back the deeper truth. I could practically smell the lies of omission in her blood.
“Elena. What aren’t you telling me?”
She shook her head, turning her gaze on me once again and forcing a smile. “There’s plenty of time for catching up and making plans of attack now that you’re awake. Right now, I want you to focus on healing. Can you do that for me?”
She swept the hair from my forehead, a gesture so unexpectedly sweet and motherly it made my throat tighten. She must’ve seen the emotion in my eyes, but this time she didn’t look away or change the subject or feign some excuse about getting dinner started. Instead, she held my gaze, her own deepening with a mix of shadows and regrets and memories and even, most shocking of all, love.
“What are you thinking, Lainey?” I whispered.
The sound of her childhood nickname was foreign to us both, and the shock of it showed in her face. But still, she didn’t break our connection. Not this time.
“I was thinking about that old saying about anger and forgiveness,” she said. “How holding a grudge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
I hadn’t been expecting such a dark turn, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. All evidence pointed to the fact that I’d nearly died in the warehouse that night. It made sense that my sister would be thinking about all the unsaid, unsettled things left between us—things we’d ignored for two decades. Hell, I couldn’t be certain, but as I lay on that concrete floor, blood leaking out of my organs, I was pretty sure my own stockpile of regrets had flashed through my mind.
“For so many years,” she continued, “I pretended you didn’t exist. Did you know that?”
I shook my head. How could I know? The last thing she’d ever said to me was “Leave me, and don’t ever come back,” a broken whisper from a broken woman whom I would’ve done anything to make whole again. Until I’d called her about the Landes murder and Jonathan’s connections in Raven’s Cape, we hadn’t spoken a word to each other in two decades.
“It’s true,” she said. “It was the only way I could let go of even a fraction of the rage I felt toward you.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, pressing her lips together so tightly, they turned white. “Whenever anyone asked about my family, my home, I told them I’d been an only child, adopted by a couple in America when I was very young.”
I sighed, my heart breaking. My for-public-consumption backstory had been similarly constructed, similarly terrible.
The only person I’d ever told about Elena was Ronan, and even he didn’t know the whole story.
“That night at the warehouse,” she continued, her face going a few shades paler, “seeing you on the floor like that, the blood… I thought I’d lost you, Emilio Alejandro Alvarez. I thought I’d have to see that name carved into a tombstone. And for the first time in twenty years, I realized you hadn’t stopped existing for me. You never will.”
Tears glazed her eyes, her pain so raw and real I had to look away. “We share the same blood, Elena. That alone connects us, even if we’d never spoken again.”
“No, it’s more than that.” She wiped her eyes. “I spent so long wishing you’d never existed, and then I almost got my wish the other night. I was a monster, I realized. A fool. All that hatred, all that wasted time and energy, none of it ever brought my baby back. And now I was going to lose my brother on top of it all. When I got home that night, I went to my room and prayed. I prayed to Jesús and Madre María. I prayed to the saints. I praye
d to the ghosts of Mamá and Papá and my husband and daughter. I prayed to every goddess I could name, and when I ran out of goddesses, I moved onto the gods, and then the universe, and then the stars, and anyone or anything else that would listen. Because in that moment, when I looked down and saw your blood covering my hands, I knew in the depths of my soul that I didn’t want to lose you. Not again. No matter what happened in the past.”
The force of her emotions hit me like a wave, and I closed my eyes, nearly drowning in the guilt I’d kept at bay for so many years. It was a constant force, and now it surged, as dense and heavy and dangerous as a black hole, threatening to drag me under for the last time.
“Emilio,” she said softly, her hand against my cheek, and I opened my eyes to find her face streaked with fresh tears. “I don’t want to waste any more time pretending I don’t have a brother. We’ve lost so many years already.”
“So many I’ve almost lost count.” I swallowed the thickness in my throat. “I’m sorry, Elena. I’m so sorry. I was sorry then, and I’ve never stopped wishing for a time machine to go back and do it all differently. I never meant…”
I trailed off. She’d heard variations of this apology many times, and it hadn’t changed anything.
I almost expected her to turn her back again. To order me out of her life, out of Raven’s Cape, never to return. I wouldn’t have blamed her.
If it weren’t for me, her family might still be alive.
But instead, she looked at me, the look in her eyes more vulnerable and hopeful than I’d ever seen, and said, “I want to let you back in. I just… I just don’t know how. All that time, all that anger, still so many questions that I know you don’t have answers for… There’s a wall around my heart when it comes to you, and I can’t find a way to crack it. Not yet.”
I took her hand in both of mine and held it close, grateful beyond words that she’d shared that with me. For so long, I thought she was lost to me, and I’d tried to make my peace with that, though I’d never succeeded.
And now, she’d given me new hope, no matter how fragile. No matter how distant.