CHAPTER 63

AUREN TURLEY

A flare of breath burns away the cold as life pours back into me. I'm dropped down from the river, past soil and air, and then contained in the confines of my familiar body. Gold drips down my figure and gilds every thread on the fabric of my clothes as I suck in a gasp.

Slade is holding me.

Wind blowing around us, fog so thick I can hardly see.

Only, it's not wind. We're plummeting through the air.

Slade's clutching me tightly with his hand on the back of my head, keeping me tucked against his neck while his other arm is banded around my waist. My ribbons are snapping in the air as we free-fall.

There's a flash of fear that goes through me, but then warmth sparks down my spine.

What if I do not want to fall?

Then, little sun…don't.

Don't.

Those sparks catch. Melt. Like candle wax, it overflows and drips down the lengths of every ribbon. Each strip melding together with gold and warmth.

Because I don't want to fall anymore. I have been falling my entire life.

So this time, I don't.

My ribbons combine in a searing burst of light, and suddenly, they're not strips anymore. They're not streaming uselessly. No, they come together. Forming into something else.

Forming into wings .

Slade wrenches me back as they stretch behind me. " Auren ?"

I hear him, even with the rushing wind. I smile as tears are torn from my lids.

He quakes around me. "What—"

"It's okay," I tell him.

Because this time, it really is.

I clutch onto him as tightly as he's clutching me, and then, I let instinct take over. He blinks in awe as my wings flare, spreading to their full length. It makes Slade and me snap up in the air from the shift, but I grit my teeth and hold on.

I echo those words Slade first said to me, so long ago.

Don't fall. Fly.

And I do.

I move my wings as I've moved my ribbons, with an innate familiarity and ease. They beat against the rushing air of the void, pulling at the muscles in my back, clawing at the grip of gravity.

Until finally, instead of going down, Slade and I start to rise up .

Up.

Up.

My stomach bottoms out from the change in direction, but I tilt my head to look above with razor-sharp focus. Every limb is tense, each muscle along my back straining.

Invisible, greedy hands seem to try to swipe at us from the void.

But the void can't have us.

With determination locking my jaw and stiffening my spine, I angle us faster, speeding through cloying fog, eyes stinging, fingers grasping Slade with a steely grip.

And then, we burst out of the haze.

Like the arc of a shooting star, we launch up and then curve back down before we crash into the land. Our bodies roll to a stop, with Slade below and me above.

My breathing is labored, my back muscles screaming, but none of it matters.

Slade grips my face between his trembling hands, eyes so wide I can see my reflection in his green irises. "Am I dead?" he whispers hoarsely.

I shake my head and grip his face too, relishing the stubble that scratches my fingertips. "No. I came back to find you."

He pulls in a shredded breath, in strips and pieces from a tattered heart. His eyes grow wet, his expression fracturing. And then he speaks with the most devoted, heartbreaking tone. "You flew, Goldfinch."

My own heart seems to fill up, every inch that's ever been pinched or prodded or drained. "I did."

And then we're up on our feet, and we're clutching each other. Holding on so tight. He spins me around, making a smile spread across my face—spread across my entire soul.

When we stop, we clash into a desperate kiss. I kiss him with devotion and need. He kisses me with awe and adoration.

I don't need the divinity of the goddesses.

Because with him, I have what I've always wanted.

Love .

Whole. Unconditional. Healing. Beautiful. Pure. Love.

When we pull away, our eyes still locked together, I can feel our pair bond singing. Can see his dark aura drifting off his body, with tendrils of gold.

But I can also see the devastation stabbed into him.

A tear escapes the corner of my eye because I can see his hurt. His grief. I want to take all his pain away.

"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm so sorry I left you for a little while."

He smiles softly, hand cupping my cheek, gaze intense over my face. "You came back to me."

I nod, lashes wet, chest full. "I'll always choose you."

"I'll always choose you too, Auren," he says before kissing me again. My wings curl around us like they want to hold us in a cocoon, cloistered and safe.

We cling to each other, our heartbeats in tune, our love spilling over. When he pulls back to look at me, his gaze crawls over every inch of my face, trembling fingers stroking over my skin.

His forehead presses against mine, and I hear his ragged breath. "Don't leave me again."

My heart squeezes.

"I won't," I promise.

After another devastating kiss that he presses to my lips, his gaze casts behind me, and I look over my shoulder at my wings.

They've folded together against my spine, but I spread them out again, turning around so we can both get a better look. His hand skates over the smooth curve of the top, and I shiver slightly.

"Your ribbons…" he says, and I nod.

My wings drift open and close slightly, like a butterfly resting on a flower. They've clearly been formed by twelve strips of ribbons on each side, each piece melded together. At the bottom and the very ends, the ribbons are long and stretched out, looking just like…feathers.

Instantly, I remember the story Slade told me as I was dying. About what that nickname really meant for him. For us.

As if to punctuate its meaningfulness, Elore suddenly appears, her face wet, expression joyful. "Goldfinch," she utters as she cries through a smile. "Goldfinch."

I surge forward and wrap my arms around her in a hug. "Thank you," I whisper into her hair.

Thank you for leading him to me.

Thank you for leading me to myself .

When she pulls away, she gestures to the ground. "Goldfinch."

I look around, noticing for the first time that the land is gray and dead. Wrong.

Something comes over me then. A presence, a sense of intuition. Like the stars themselves are beckoning… encouraging .

I kneel down, pressing my hands against the silt.

"Auren?" Slade questions.

I don't answer at first, because I'm too busy listening to the land and the sky. To Annwyn, as she whispers her secrets. As she calls to me.

Then, I feel it—that piece from the ether. The droplet that the goddess tossed down with me. And with a sense of divine knowing , I immediately understand what it is. A gift to stem the curse.

"I can fix it," I whisper.

Slade steps closer to me.

My eyes flutter closed as I feel that droplet drift up to the surface of my body, and then I let it pour out through my gold-touch.

To heal. To restore.

To bring back life and warmth with this goddess-touched light of a cracked-open sun.

With my palms pressed to the land, the light of the goddesses streams, making the entire deadlands flare .

The Vulmin were right, this land was cursed. Because a long time ago, a willing connection was made by Orean and fae. A sacred path forged from love and unity.

When fae betrayed that and broke the bridge, it cursed the land. Left it leeched with sickness that spread with death, sucking it dry of all power.

But the stars have been watching, and the goddesses have gifted us another chance.

The drop of power instantly soaks into the land and surges through. It's so potent, so raw and pure, all my nerves and senses seem to ignite. My entire body is wrapped in warmth and light, wings trembling as this unfathomable, otherworldly magic flows out of me.

I nearly pass out, nearly crumple to the ground, but Slade catches me, with my name shouted from his worried lips.

He holds me while my hands are stuck against the soil like a magnet, unable to break away. I can't—not until every part of the gifted magic is used.

My hands shake and glow, veins showing through. Light continues to pour, making sweat bead on my skin and heat flare from every direction.

I feel the power banishing the curse. Feel it burning away the poison. Shockwaves spread over the ground, and I hear people cry out as the blinding light pulses, making me squeeze my eyes shut as my body jerks and my wings flare with one last seizing tug that nearly buckles me, and then…

It's done.

Slade grips me as I fling back, hands released from my duty, his arms catching me as I fall. I breathe heavily as I lift my head, feeling utterly spent.

As the last of the blinding light dims, my gasp joins in with the others who are gathered around us. Tears spring to my eyes, and I blink, looking out at the incredible sight.

My gaze skims over the rolling hills and dappled meadows, past trees that sway against the lavender sky. There's a city woven through the river, with white buildings and rooftops that seem to bloom with gilded vines. In the distance, mountaintops peak with caps of snow, and forests spread out for miles.

Everything is vibrant and alive.

Ecstatic joy lifts me up, pulling me to my feet as I spin around to look at it all. It's beautiful . The landscape now ripples with lush grass and sparkling waters and bursting life.

The deadlands are no longer dead. The curse has been broken.

Annwyn has been restored.

I turn to look at the crust of the world that's now smoothed and green, where it tapers off with a beveled edge. Beyond it, fog flows down the void in streams of endless white and glacial blue like a waterfall of vapor.

I smile at it all, feeling the rightness of Annwyn humming through me, but then, my smile slowly falls, a frown forming between my brows.

I turn to look at Slade. "Wait, the bridge of Lemuria. Where is it?"

Slade's eyes meet mine, and his answer makes my stomach drop. "It's gone."