Chapter 33

Thirty-Three

It must have been a dream I woke up in.

No fire around me at all. The trees—they weren't burning. The branches weren't moving. The leaves on them were green and big and shiny— perfect, exactly as leaves should be.

And the grass underneath me was as healthy as it should be, too.

I pushed myself up, feeling strange. Not in pain, but like I was living in a different body. Not in a bad way, just…in a different way. Like my skin was more elastic. Like my mind was more open.

And the box with the emerald crystal in the front of the lid was right there, laying open a few feet to my side.

No ball of blue light inside it.

No Fessa.

No roars.

No flames.

I stood up and my legs shook, and suddenly I couldn't think straight at all, couldn't even begin to imagine what the hell had happened. All I knew was that I needed to go back to the lake, to find the others, to see if someone had survived. To see where the sirens were.

Had Fessa done something to me?

I looked down at my body, clothes torn and dirty, but no fresh blood was on me. A little under my nose from earlier, but not between my legs—and that was a good sign, wasn't it?

" Run," I whispered to myself, and I was going to. I was going to run back where I came from and find out what had happened, and why it smelled so good in the woods, and why the birds were chirping so loudly.

Had they always sung like this? Because I couldn't remember for the life of me.

And had I made up that scene with Fessa? Had it been my imagination that she'd caught me?

Because it made no sense that I was still alive.

Just run, run, run !

A step and I fell to my knees, my body too weak to hold me. My legs were shaking, and I had barely any energy to keep my eyes open. But there was a tree near me, and I held onto it before I fell all the way. I just held onto it and breathed and begged my legs to carry me.

And then something moved.

Tears burst out of my eyes and my mouth opened, but I could make no sound. I recognized the shape of him, wings and all, even before I saw his face with any clarity—he was too far still. And he was just as weak as me, falling from one tree trunk onto another, jumping forward and limping to the sides, his head down most of the time.

Grey is alive.

My shoulders shook as I cried in silence, but I didn't even try to move. I just stayed there, kneeling and hanging onto that tree.

" Fall…"

My name fell from his lips in a whisper. He was searching for me.

He was searching for me and I couldn't stop crying and I couldn't call out his name. I could do nothing but sit still until Grey was close enough, and he finally— finally —looked up.

He saw me.

His legs gave up too, and he fell to his knees for a moment, but he was stronger than me because he stood right back up. He stood up and the wings on his back disappeared, and he used that energy to jog his way to me.

Then we were face-to-face and I was a mess of tears that he caught with his thumbs; he was dirty and bloody and awake. Wide grey eyes awake and conscious. The smile on that face something to die for. To kill for.

"You're okay," he continued to whisper over and over again as he touched my face and pushed my hair back.

Meanwhile all I could do was cry and hold onto his arm. You're okay, you're okay, you're okay.

Eventually, he pulled me to his chest. Eventually, he sat down on the ground, rested his back on that tree, and took me on his lap. Eventually, I let go and my breathing slowed down and my heart no longer beat like it wanted to break out of me.

We were okay, indeed.

"What happened?" I asked while Grey held me to his chest and played with my hair, head back against the tree, eyes closed. "What…what happened, Grey?"

"Ennaris," he whispered, forcing me to leave the comfort of his shoulder against my cheek to look at him.

"What?"

"Ennaris," he said with a small smile, eyes half open. "All the Isles came back together again."

I shook my head. "I don't understand."

Grey began to laugh.

He was shaking from head to toe, and since I was on his lap, straddling him, I was shaking, too. Vibrating. And smiling—because how could I not, when Grey was laughing?

"It's over, my queen," he finally whispered, taking my face in his hands and bringing my forehead to his. "It's over. Ennaris is whole again. It's one. "

Part of me didn't believe it, of course. How could it possibly be? I'd seen the burning. I'd felt the magic—that awful magic. I'd been so sure that I'd destroyed everything for good, had caused that end just like the stars predicted, but Grey seemed to believe otherwise.

"Tell me," he whispered against my lips. "Tell me what happened, baby. Tell me everything."

So, I did. I told him exactly what had happened since the moment I took that box from Reeva's hands and ran.

Eventually, the others came to find us sitting there on the ground, and they were all laughing and crying, too. Mama Si and Assa, the witch sisters holding Reeva by the arms, helping her to come closer. Her leg was bleeding, and she needed to sit down right away, so she sat next to us. And smiled. And laughed.

They were okay. They were all hurt, but okay.

Not him, though. Valentine was nowhere to be seen.

I kept searching, kept expecting him to show up with Shadow on his shoulder, looking like shit, covered in blood and dirt, but he didn't.

"Where is Valentine?" I asked in a whisper. If everyone else was here, why wasn't he already?

I was sure there was a reasonable explanation to it, but the way everybody just stopped all of a sudden…

"Master Valentine didn't make it, Fall Doll."

I looked at Mama Si's face and it felt like I was seeing her for the first time. Must have been her hair, half of it burned, and all that blood on her face hiding most of the cuts on her skin.

"What…what do you mean?" Valentine didn't make what ?

"Fall," Grey said, calling my eyes to his. "They attacked him—all three at the same time. He didn't make it."

"Oh."

They meant he didn't make it out alive.

Huh.

My body let go of me then, even though I wasn't exactly sure what I was feeling.

No, no—I was feeling nothing . Just emptiness. Just an echo in my chest, if that makes any sense.

Grey held me in his arms, and I pretended that I was okay. Just tired—but okay.

Was I, though? I really, really wasn't sure.

But whatever I was feeling, I felt it through every second while I told the others exactly what had happened, what I'd done. While they told me that the land had caught fire indeed, just like I'd seen. While they told me that the process of Ennaris's destruction had been the same when it came back together again.

Just like when the land had caught fire when Syra attacked it and it broke apart, the same thing happened when I willingly gave that same magic to Ennaris and wished for it to heal.

Magic was such a wonderful thing—I'd known this since the beginning, since I first saw the fur on that rabbit glowing at my touch. I'd known it since I first played that piano made out of tree roots in the Burrow.

But even so, I still found it so hard to believe that it was over.

Over.

And Valentine wasn't here.

We walked back to the lake slowly—the castle was indeed on the other side of it. The sirens, it seemed, had all gone into the water when the burning began. No words, no rage, no nothing—they'd simply ran and jumped into the water and had disappeared from the surface. Reeva thought they'd be back soon enough to talk, once things settled.

Grey thought that we still needed a way to make them submit.

"But what if they go back to…you know, the way things were before?" Mama Si asked as we all dragged our feet back through the woods.

My God, it was thriving for real. I thought the land was healed after the curse, but this was completely different. It was so much more that I could have ever possibly imagined.

"They will if it is convenient for them," Reeva said. "We need a meeting with the rulers, Mamayka. Asap."

"We will, my friend. Let's just get to the castle and rest first, can we? I, for one, need a bath," said Mama Si. "And Fall Doll here needs to sit down." She turned to me. "I'm arranging that meeting with the gynecologist now. How does the end of the week sound?"

She was absolutely serious.

I swallowed hard. "Sounds great."

"Excellent. Assa will get right to it."

Assa, who was walking on her other side, laughed silently.

"Of course, Mama Si."

She'd fought so well. All of them had fought with their everything—and Mama Si, too. I honestly had no idea she had it in her, but they'd all done what they had to do.

I shook my head at myself constantly because I was still so, so confused. Shocked. I just couldn't pick what to think yet.

When we reached the edge of the lake, we stopped to see that no sign of the fight remained anywhere. No broken trees and no holes in the ground, just green grass on every inch of the surface, and the leaves bigger and shinier than I remembered.

"Where is he?" I asked again because I kept searching behind that rock that the roots of that tree still held hostage. I kept searching for a sign of Valentine—and there was nothing there. No blood. No body. Not even a piece of clothing—and no Shadow, either.

"He…disappeared," said Reeva. "Vanished with the magic." Amika was still holding her by the arm—she had messed up that leg pretty badly.

"But how?" How did one simply vanish?

"Siren magic," she told me, and in her wide brown eyes that looked so light and amber now I saw the sadness. The regret. The sorry she felt for me. "It's my best guess. But he stepped in front of you when you started to run, and they all hit him at the same time. I didn't see him again."

"Give me a second," I told Grey, and he took his arm off my shoulders to let me walk by myself. It was more difficult than I thought because my legs were so, so weak still, but I made it all the way to that rock.

Grass on the ground where there had been none. And those roots that were wrapped around the rock were so much thicker, and each grew tiny leaves on them, too.

So different, yet it was the same place.

"I don't…" The words escaped me for a moment. "I don't understand. What now? What happens now ?"

I turned to the others again, and they, too, looked very confused as they took in the lake—so much greener than it had been. The sky, too—I could swear it was bluer, even though the sun had already started to set somewhere beyond the trees.

Storm was still there, too! He was flying over the woods, high enough that I barely made him out—but it was him. I'd recognize the shape of him, now, too—anywhere.

"Now, we go home," Reeva said, smiling at her sisters, who were a mess of blood and tears, but also happy.

All of them were happy—except Grey, who wasn't alarmed, but he was concerned.

Concerned about me.

"But what about the end? What about the Nella Lexis and the stars—what about them ?" Because I had no bad feeling in my gut right now. No something's wrong whispering in my ear, and it felt so strange. I didn't know what to make of it.

Reeva began to laugh, and she let go of Amika to hop on one leg all the way to me. I reached out my hands to help her carry her weight. She was smiling so big and her eyes were full of tears, and though she looked just as tired as she had when she first performed that spell to get the magic out of me, she was glowing, too.

"I'm afraid we misunderstood what the stars were trying to tell us," she said, reaching her hand to my cheek.

"We did?"

"Absolutely! Five hundred years ago, when they predicted the Fall of Ennaris, it was evident what it meant when it came to be weeks later," she told me. "But this time, when they predicted the Fall of the Seven Isles?" She came closer and slowly kissed my forehead. "They meant you ." Big tears slid down her cheeks. "They meant you, young one. I see it now."

"Does that meant the end is not coming then?" Mama Si said from behind her, and someone laughed.

"Yes, dear Mamayka, it does," Reeva said as she turned to her. "And we have a lot of work to do, to see how the lands came together, to figure out how to coexist again on the same continent—oh, so much to do!" And she hopped her way to Amika again, while Grey came to me.

"How are you feeling, baby?" he asked, looking me over, still concerned.

And I shook my head once more, looking at the others, at their smiling faces, all that blood and dirt on them.

"I don't know," I said. "I don't…I don't understand how it happened still. I don't understand what happens next. I don't…I don't know who I am ." And that was the whole truth to it. I still had no idea who I was. So much had happened, and now that I had nothing else to carry on my shoulders—so suddenly—it was eating a hole in my chest, that thought.

Mama Si and Reeva were laughing again—straight from the heart.

"From where I'm standing, doll, you are exactly what Reeva said—Fall of the Seven Isles," Mama Si told me, and together they all turned to around to leave. "But you'll figure it out. Be gentle with yourself—and let's keep going. I really do need a bed now."

My ears whistled when Grey put his arm around me and guided me behind them.

Step by step, through the woods. More trees and more birds and so much more green than I had ever seen before.

It was all like a dream, a bit blurry around the edges. The others were talking and laughing, and Reeva was still hopping, and then there were doors—no, gates. There were people.

"We're here," Grey told me, forcing me to blink my eyes and clear my view. Forcing me out of this cold that my mind was stuck in because Valentine didn't make it. And that seemed just too absurd to me. I couldn't— couldn't wrap my head around it, and I was trying.

But now we were in the Evernight castle, and when I focused hard enough, I saw the magnitude of it the way I never had before. I saw the towers and the large stone blocks, and it looked so much lighter in color than it had before. I saw the guards and the windows and the grass—I saw the dragons flying over us in circles. I saw the brides right there by the open doors to the main entrance of the castle, one I'd never been to before.

I saw the three Evernight brothers, Romin in the middle, Emil to his left, and Tristian to the right.

Tristian—with wings on his back, smaller than Romin's and Grey's.

"Brother, you made it," Romin said, confused. Half smiling as he took us in. "What happened? The land moved—was that you ?"

"Yes, it was. It was us, all right," Reeva said with a laugh. "And we require your hospitality now, Master Romin. If you'll be so kind."

"Of course, Reeva," said Romin, looking her over, and then his eyes landed on my face.

To say he was shocked to see me there was an understatement. "You're alive."

Then Grey moved.

He was still tired from all that fighting, but Grey moved and everything turned to a blur again, and someone screamed, too.

My heart skipped a long beat, the sirens at the center of my mind. The fear of them still very much alive and breathing in me.

But when the dust settled, I found Grey standing on Tristian, one foot on the small of his back, the other on the ground, while Tristian spit dirt from his mouth.

"What the— aargh! "

Grey ripped his fucking wing off his back.

I didn't even have it in me to be terrified and surprised anymore—all I could do was watch, completely stunned, still as a statue.

"Grey, what are you doing?!" said Romin, but he and Emil were backing away, not getting closer. Tristian moaned in pain when Grey took his other wing and pulled that off him, too.

The way blood sprayed out of Tristian's back shocked me out of my trance, and finally, some voice left me.

" Grey! " I called, but I was too paralyzed still to move.

Grey threw Tristian's second wing to the side. "You better thank your lucky stars that she made me promise not to kill you for what you did," he said, putting his foot on Tristian's head to keep him from moving. His back was a fucking mess, and he was bleeding everywhere.

Fuck, what a sight…

"But I'm begging you—look at her again. Just look at her ," Grey said and pressed his foot down on Tristian's head harder until his skull cracked.

Tristian was no longer moving.

I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, ready to scream out his name again, but Grey let go of his brother and came back to me. Put his arm over my shoulder. Looked Emil in the face, and said, "I will deal with you later."

I had never seen a more terrified look on Emil's face as he stepped aside.

"This is fucking insane— look what you did!" Romin spit, when Grey pulled me toward the stairs. And he was mad—he was outraged, eyes bloodshot and fangs extended.

But Grey gave him an exhausted sigh and said, "Get out of my way, Romin. My wife needs to lie down."

Romin wasn't happy about it, but he stepped aside anyway.

I had no words to speak with and no thoughts to think. All I saw was the faces of the brides, their wide terrified eyes.

Snickering laughter came from behind me—from Mama Si and Reeva and even Assa.

"You shouldn't have done that," I whispered as we made our way through the hallways and to the third tower.

"But it felt incredible," Grey said with a wicked grin. "Let's go to bed, baby. We'll think later."

That's exactly what we did.