Chapter 19

NINETEEN

Asha

I react without thought, hurtling back towards the rubble as fast as my legs can propel me while each breath burns through my aching lungs and my body shakes. When I reach the mansion, it’s nothing but a heap of wood and brick and glass and concrete with little fires burning all around it. Impossible. No one could have survived .

I start digging through it. My fingers burn. My body protests.

“Asha,” Max says softly behind me. “It’s not possible that he–”

“I need to look for him.” I end the words on a sob.

A hand squeezes my shoulder. I look up into Braxton’s solemn face. “Rest. We’ll search.”

“No.” I shake my head and continue, although I’m getting nowhere. One brick at a time when there’s a thousand bricks isn’t going to even make a dent in this mess.

“The chances of him surviving are–”

Braxton cuts off Orson. “Not great.”

“I don’t care,” I say, which is when I realize I’m crying.

Glancing through my tears at the mess, I realize I need to do two things: switch to the area the room was for my searching, which is the most likely place I’ll find him, and somehow dig deep and use my magic to search. Doing it this way will lead to nothing.

I rise, and my legs nearly give out. My ribs send shoots of pain burning through me, and I wrap an arm around my chest as I look out over the mess. Trying to picture the mansion, I shift and move around until I come to the place the orb had been. I think. Then I call my magic to me. It answers, slowly, sluggishly, and I swear to it that we’ll rest when this is done.

This final thing.

I start whipping silver magic like sonic blasts against the debris, flinging bits of destroyed mansion into the surrounding woods. My gaze is fixed on what I’m doing, so I don’t accidentally hurt my brother in the process. Simon is under there somewhere and I’m going to get him out.

I feel the sympathetic stares of my mates as they watch my futile effort. They’re all hurt. None of them believe my brother is alive. I understand. I don’t ask them for more. They’ve already done enough.

But then Orson joins the hunt, and the brothers follow suit, digging in the heap for my brother. For men who don’t believe in my cause, they don’t show it. They work quickly and quietly, focused on their task.

We all work in silence. Bricks and pieces of roof are tossed aside, along with concrete and wood, but there’s still no sign of him. Not even a whisper that he was ever here.

He’s like a ghost.

My heart aches. Even if he’s dead, I can’t leave him here. Every second he stays trapped in the remains of this mansion is another tragedy stacked atop the mountain of tragedies. If he’s dead, he deserves to be laid to rest. In his home. Not in this awful place that hurt him so much.

But what if he isn’t dead?

The thought spurs me to move quicker. If he’s alive, time is of the essence. He could be under this mess just waiting to be saved. Maybe even wondering if I’m coming for him.

Where is he? I won’t leave without him.

“Simon!” I call, staring out over the rubble, hoping to hear him call back to me. “Simon!”

Goddammit, Simon, call out to me!

I scream with every magical serve I hurl at the rubble. My voice is hoarse, but the scratching pain in my throat doesn’t deter me. I push on, drawing from every cell of my being to continue the search.

Please , I beg. Please let him be alive . I don’t know who I give this prayer to, only that I pour my soul into it.

My powers begin to fade. The light growing duller until no magic leaves my fingertips. Tears are flowing down my cheeks. My shoulders shake. I have to keep going. With or without my magic. Alive or dead. I have to keep going.

“Asha…” Max says.

“Not yet,” I plead. “Just…not yet.”

The mood is somber, but we all keep digging. Breathing hard. Slow. The cold of the night closing in around us.

“Simon,” I call again. “Simon. I’m here. Please. I’m here.”

I pull off more bricks in front of me, then freeze when an arm appears. Disbelief and happiness flow through me, and I’m sobbing uncontrollably as I remove one piece at a time until his entire torso and face are revealed. There he lies, mangled but whole.

Except…his eyes are closed, and his chest isn’t moving. He’s covered in a white pall of dust, looking grotesquely angelic.

It can’t be.

The hurt slams into my heart.

“NO!”

I push the grief aside and take my brother up in my arms. The others drift over to me and I feel their hands on my shoulders. I think to bat away their pity, but instead I focus on Simon.

My brother, who has been through so much hurt and suffering. My brother, who was always my best friend. He deserves better than this. He deserves… a life of happiness and peace.

It’s not time for it to end yet.

Then… something happens.

I feel it in my arms, like they’d fallen asleep and are now being prodded with a million pins and needles. They start to glow, a light that steadily creeps across Simon’s body. I look down, and I feel it. It’s my magic, only softer, brighter. I don’t understand it. I don’t know how it’s coming from me when I thought I had nothing left to give. And why? Why now?

Then my brother flinches. It’s a subtle motion of his brow at first, and then he begins tugging his legs up from the rubble. He’s alive! My brother’s alive! Only, he can’t get his legs free from what’s left on top of him.

“Let’s help him,” says Max, and the three of them clear away the bricks that cover Simon’s limbs.

I bring him into an upright position and wrap my arms around him. “Breathe, Simon,” I whisper.

He gasps. His body shakes with a coughing fit until he can draw a lungful of air. Then he encloses me in his arms. “Asha?” he says weakly.

“Yes! I’m here! I’m always here!”

We hold each other for what feels like a lifetime, before the cold of the night seems to seep in once more, and I remember that my brother needs to be cared for. We all need to heal. And we can’t do that here.

I look at my men. “He’s okay. He’s going to be okay.”

My brother’s alive. He’s free. And we’re back together.

“That was incredible,” Orson says, taking a seat on the remnants of a wall. “You… you brought him back from the dead.”

“How?” asks Braxton, equally as astonished.

I shake my head. “I don’t know what happened.” I try to understand the event, break it down in my head, but I come up short. It was simply…magic.

Max and Braxton complete a circle around us and the gravity of the moment sinks in.

It’s over.

It’s fucking over .

The evil reign of the Blood Mages is at an end. Simon saw to that. I have my brother back, and though he’s in rough shape, he’ll recover. My mates made it through, stuck by my side despite the dangers of our journey.

In the silence, there’s a strange sense of what now?

The mission consumed our lives just as the Blood Mages did Simon’s, but now that both are at an end, it’s almost as if we don’t know what to do with ourselves.

Addressing this elephant, Braxton says, “What should we do?”

“Heal and then celebrate, I imagine,” replies Orson without hesitation.

“That’s a good start,” says Max.

“But then what?” asks Braxton.

Orson takes a breath and releases it slowly. “Our dream. The pack. Our house. Our family.”

“ Family ,” Simon whispers against me.

“Sounds nice, right?” I say to him.

In the rubble of the exploded mansion, the five of us resurrect our dream, which now no longer feels like a dream, but transmutes into something more tangible. A plan .

While we all make plans, I wonder in the back of my head if they’ll work out just as we imagine them.

Will we get to live in happiness?