I’m sorry, he mouthed, and she knew he truly did mean it.
Once they’d gone, Máthair Damhán turned back to her, and Evelayn lowered the dagger.
“I did what you asked. Now do what you said you would, Little Swan Queen. It’s not too late for me to send my daughters after them.”
Evelayn nodded and turned to Lorcan. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and then she lifted the dagger.
LORCAN STARED UP AT EVELAYN AND WAITED FOR THE pain. She bent closer to him and murmured something so quietly he almost wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. But it sounded like she said, “Take down the Tree.”
And then she cut the stone he’d been born with out of his forehead.
The pain was excruciating—as bad as being stabbed by Máthair Damhán. But the realization that he’d failed so entirely, coupled with the immediate loss of his power as Evelayn lifted the stone from his skin, was nearly unbearable. He almost wished for her to plunge the dagger into his chest as hot blood ran down his face. As she’d said, Máthair Damhán was surely going to kill them both once she got what she wanted—or keep them prisoners here, as she’d done to him ten years ago, but this time forever.
Evelayn lifted the stone above her head. Máthair Damhán scuttled toward them, triumph lighting her black eyes, her inky lips stretched open in a disturbing imitation of a grin.
And then Evelayn threw it as hard as she could at the opening that glowed with light.
“RUN!” she shouted, jumping to her feet.
Lorcan stared at her for a split second in shock, then he, too, launched to his feet and sprinted after the wild and brilliant queen he’d Bound himself to. Máthair Damhán screeched, an unearthly sound of fury. He could hear all eight of her legs slapping the ground as she raced after them.
Take down the Tree, she’d said … What was Evelayn hoping to do?
They barreled down the tunnel, the light growing ever brighter as the power all around them increased until he felt as though he could breathe it in, snatch it from the very air, and use it, even without his stone. His body still healed rapidly, perhaps just from being so close to the source of their power. When he saw his stone winking ahead of them, he stooped and grabbed it up off the ground mid-stride. Once before he’d come here, to the Immortal Tree, to reclaim his power. But it had taken time—time they didn’t have.
“Help me destroy it!” she called over her shoulder.
“Destroy what?” But Lorcan had a sinking feeling he suddenly knew what her plan was.
“The Tree! If we cut it down, maybe that will return the power to its original source.”
“What about Máthair Damhán?” Lorcan glanced over his shoulder, but the Ancient was gone.
“The tunnel is too narrow. She can’t follow us.”
“There’s more than one way to reach the Tree …” Lorcan warned, but then they rounded the corner and Evelayn skidded to a halt, her mouth hanging slightly open in awe.
Before them rose the Immortal Tree.
It was taller even than Máthair Damhán, part blinding daylight and part shimmering night. Flashes of lightning and lashes of shadow surged out of it in random bursts of power. Its beauty was beyond Lorcan’s power of description, so he’d never even tried to explain it to any male or female. When he tore his eyes away to look at Evelayn, he saw the same reverence and awe in her face he’d experienced when he first saw it—but hers was tempered by grief. Her stunning violet eyes were bloodshot from the tears she wouldn’t let herself shed. But he felt it, scented it. The sorrow, the desperation. Emotions that echoed through the gaping wound within him following Lothar’s senseless death. They’d already lost so much; destroying the tree would be akin to destroying a piece of themselves—no different from cutting off a limb, or gouging out a piece of their hearts. Perhaps even worse. The power they’d been born to wield surrounded them, filling every space of the cavern where the Immortal Tree had grown without sunlight or water for millennia.
“Quickly,” Evelayn finally said, squaring her shoulders and brushing furiously at the tears that finally had escaped, slipping down her cheeks. But Lorcan grabbed her hand and pulled her toward him. She looked up at him and he couldn’t help but remember the kiss they’d shared—the hope he’d felt, something he’d given up on long ago as a youngling. He brushed her hair back from her face, trying to memorize the way she looked, the way she felt. Because Máthair Damhán was coming, he felt it. And if Evelayn was determined to do this, then he would help her.
“I want you to know one thing first,” he whispered, running his thumb along her lips, wishing he had time to kiss her, to hold her, “that I love you, Evelayn, queen of Éadrolan. And I would do anything for you if you asked it. Even this.”
And then he handed her the sword he’d grabbed from the ground where Tanvir had tossed it, pushed her toward the Tree, and shifted into his hawk form, just as Máthair Damhán burst into the cavern from the other side.
Evelayn could scarcely see through her tears, could barely breathe past the tightness in her chest as Lorcan’s words pounded through her skull—words she’d been stunned to hear and hadn’t been given time to respond to.
She didn’t know how he shifted with his stone gone and his power stripped, but there was no time to question it as Máthair Damhán hurtled a blast of Light at her. She flung herself forward and barely avoided being struck.
“What are you doing?” Máthair Damhán bellowed, her monstrous voice echoing through the cavern.
Evelayn heard the hawk above, a sharp sound that she recognized as a battle cry, and then Máthair Damhán’s screech of agony, but she ignored both as she lifted the sword and swung it toward the trunk of the Immortal Tree. It sliced partway into it with a blow that felt as though she had been hit by a blast of power. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized she’d used both hands to wield the sword. Her bones were no longer broken—she was healed entirely. One last gift from the Tree she continued to hack at, intent on destroying, while Lorcan dove at Máthair Damhán again and again, keeping her from advancing on Evelayn. Black blood ran down the Ancient’s face; almost all of her eyes were gouged out.
Every strike into the Tree sent a shock of pain through Evelayn, as if by destroying it, she was destroying part of herself. The surges and waves of power grew larger, and more unpredictable, as she gouged the trunk, deeper and deeper. She had to jump back to avoid an eruption of lightning from the spot directly above where she’d just cut.
The hawk screamed at her, the only warning before a different blast of lightning struck her from behind, sending her flying forward, to crash into the Tree. The already damaged trunk cracked even further at the impact, and a massive blaze of shadowflame burst out from the Tree in all directions. The hawk soared high enough to avoid it, but Máthair Damhán was too large. She was thrown onto her back by the impact with a shriek, all eight of her legs up in the air, her belly exposed.
The agony of Evelayn’s charred back had already begun to diminish, as her body was still trying to heal itself, despite the injuries to the Immortal Tree. She climbed back to her feet. The hawk dove toward Máthair Damhán, but only Evelayn saw her lift her hand, summoning more power.
“Lorcan—NO!”
But it was too late.
The lightning struck him in the breast. A horrific sound ripped through the hawk’s throat and out his beak as he careened through the air and slammed into the stone wall across from them, then dropped to the ground and was still.
“LORCAN!” Evelayn screamed, sudden tears nearly blinding her.
There was no time. Already, Evelayn felt the draw of power and threw herself to the side to avoid the next blast of lightning that Máthair Damhán summoned, this time aimed at her. The Ancient had begun to rock back and forth, trying to flip over onto her feet. Evelayn knew she only had moments.
With tears running down her cheeks, and her entire body hurting inside and out, she grabbed the sword from where it had fallen to the ground and sp
rinted at the Ancient who had caused all this—all for fear of dying. Well, Evelayn wasn’t afraid to die. Not anymore. Only Ceren remained of all those she loved, and she had Quinlen and her younglings.
At the last second, Evelayn lifted the sword over her head and jumped, leaping through the air to land on top of Máthair Damhán’s bulbous body. In the same fluid motion, she sliced the sword down, carving it through the Ancient’s belly.
Máthair Damhán screamed, an unearthly howl that spoke of all the terror of her ultimate end that the creature had harbored for so long.
Evelayn stabbed her again, and then again, as the Ancient rocked her body back and forth, trying to throw her off. Yet another blast of lightning struck Evelayn, this time in the chest. She went flying and landed with a loud crunch as her legs crumpled beneath her and the sword clattered against the stones.
“You … horrible … little … swan … queen …” Máthair Damhán panted, her head turned toward Evelayn, her two remaining eyes locked on to her. Her words were a gurgle through the blood that filled her throat and dripped out the corner of her ink-black lips. “If … I … die … so … shall … you …”
And with her last breath, the Ancient blasted Evelayn one last time. She tried to heave herself out of reach, but it still hit Evelayn in the hip and leg, launching her across the ground and slamming her into the severed tree trunk. There was a sharp snap and the Tree groaned behind her.
The pain was unimaginable. Evelayn gasped, each attempt to breathe agony. There were more snaps and cracks from the Tree behind her, and she felt it quake. Evelayn tried to move—but she couldn’t. Her legs wouldn’t respond to her at all. She realized the first crack she’d heard wasn’t the Tree at all—it had been her spine snapping. Tears ran down her cheeks as she tilted her head back and stared up at the white-and-black branches, at the surges of power that winked and shuddered. Then she turned her head toward the hawk that hadn’t moved, not so much as a flinch. He’d died trying to help her.
“I failed,” Evelayn whispered, to herself, to Lorcan, to the Immortal Tree, to the Spirit Harbinger, to her parents, if they really were out there somewhere. “I’m sorry.” Her lungs felt wrong, sort of sticky and … viscous. Each inhale grew harder to suck in, and each exhale began to feel as though she were drowning from the inside. “So … sorry …”
Another shudder went through the Tree, and there were more sounds of it snapping. Then with one final shudder, there was a deafening crack and the trunk gave way. The Immortal Tree crashed toward the ground. Power that had emanated from it for thousands of years exploded out of it in every direction. Evelayn felt it go through her body, filling it so completely that she seemed to be made of it, every cell and fiber of her expanded with it. In that moment, she could have done anything—she felt every possibility she’d never explored, every ability she’d never mastered … she even realized how amazingly simple shifting should have been for her, had she ever learned to do it on her own.
Lorcan had died as a hawk; perhaps it was only fitting that she die as the swan, Evelayn thought suddenly. To shift just once on her own, before she was gone.
She let her eyes fall shut as the power began to ebb out of her, to be absorbed back into the earth, where it belonged. Evelayn saw the swans in her mind—her swans. She visualized her skin becoming feathers, her elongated neck, felt the water beneath her breast, and the wind beneath her extended wings. And finally, after all that time and her many failures, Evelayn shifted into the swan.
Then the power was gone and the cave fell into utter and complete darkness.
SEVERAL MOMENTS PASSED BEFORE SHE REALIZED SHE wasn’t dead yet. In fact, all the pain had gone and she could breathe easily once more. But it was completely dark in the cavern with the Tree destroyed and the power gone. Though she’d spent so long as a swan, it still took her a moment to grow used to this shape again. She tried walking forward, and much to her surprise, her legs responded. Had she been healed in that last explosion of power? Or did her injuries only last in her other form?
The swan extended her wings and gingerly attempted to flap them. No pain whatsoever.
If only she’d managed to destroy the Tree in time to heal Lorcan. She carefully moved toward him, using her senses of smell and touch to feel her way across the cavern to where he lay, his wings open and his charred breast feathers completely still.
She couldn’t cry as a swan, but she was able to voice her grief in another way, in a long, sorrowful trumpet that echoed back to her. She couldn’t leave him here to rot beside Máthair Damhán’s massive corpse. Instead, she tenderly scooped him toward her feet with her wings and tried to pick him up. But the webbing made it impossible. Her only option was her beak. He was much lighter than she, and it was easier than she’d anticipated to gingerly clamp her beak around his limp neck and lift him off the ground.
The swan spread her wings and flapped, taking flight. She turned her head in the darkness, smelling for fresh air, feeling for a breeze that would guide her out of the claustrophobic cavern. Finally she felt it—a draft.
It was a cumbersome flight with the hawk in her mouth, but she refused to drop him or leave him behind. He deserved better for what he’d done. She flew slowly, carefully through twisting tunnels and massive caverns. Everywhere was the scent of the monsters who inhabited the White Peak, and her instincts begged her to go faster, to flee, to drop the extra weight that slowed her down.
But she refused.
And then finally, ahead, there was light and a strong breeze that smelled of pine and fresh soil, free from the decay of Máthair Damhán and her daughters.
She soared out of the mountain and spread her wings more fully, flapping hard to rise up, up, up, toward the white clouds that raced past. Even though it was still cold, and winter was still coming, she felt the difference in the earth. It was no longer dying, it was merely slumbering, preparing to return to full life in the spring. The spring that was surely coming now that they’d succeeded in returning the power to where it had always belonged.
And that’s when she banked and changed course, winging her way back the way they’d come, only this time, to give the Spirit Harbinger the sacrifice he had demanded, even though they’d fulfilled their promise.
It took all day, but as the sun set and a huge, luminous moon slowly rose in the east, the swan finally saw the temple ruins rising through a forest no longer encased in fog. The trees were emerald and jeweled flowers bloomed, glistening with dew. She swooped lower and lower, the hawk’s body limp in her beak, careful not to drop too low, remembering the skeletal monsters with razor-sharp teeth that surrounded the temple.
But as the swan circled the temple, she saw not demon dogs but a pack of white wolves watching her somberly with eyes that gleamed as golden as the sun at dawn. She felt no malice from them—in fact, they dropped their heads toward the earth when she approached, as if bowing to her.
Finally, she found the entrance to the temple where the pool of water sat, as still as ever, with that ethereal glow still emanating from it. The room where the Spirit Harbinger had come to them.
Carefully, she laid the hawk’s body on the stone wall surrounding the water. And then she filled her beak with the water—not for herself, but for him. If ever a creature was deserving of a miracle, it was the hawk who had died to help her keep their promise.
But when she tried to dribble it into his beak, using her webbed foot to pry it open, the liquid merely pooled and then ran out, to soak into the stone beneath his head.
The swan tucked in her wings and lowered her head in defeat. There was nothing she could do then. He was truly gone.
She felt the presence before she saw the Spirit Harbinger taking form across the pool. It was the same one as before, but this time he was not alone. Behind him, others also formed, males and females, all looking at the swan and the hawk in silence.
Finally, the first one spoke.
“I misjudged you, Queen of Éadrolan. You and your Mate. I se
t you a task I did not expect you to complete.”
The swan lifted her head, confused at his words.
“But you proved yourself. You both put aside the desire for power and kept your promise, returning true balance to our world and the one beyond our shores. For this great deed, you shall be granted a boon. But first …”
The Spirit Harbinger waved his hands as if summoning power, but rather than from below, the Light came down from above, encompassing both her and the hawk. Warmth unlike anything she’d ever known filled her body, every cell, every fiber. It was Light and Dark, day and night, it was the most pure love she’d ever experienced. More powerful than anything she’d ever wielded.
When the shift came, it wasn’t painful; it was as easy as breathing. And she knew that this time, when she left the swan behind, it was forever.
IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE, THE WARMTH DISSIPATED AND Evelayn stood before the Spirit Harbingers in her Draíolon form, completely healed. All except the grief in her heart.
“Evelayn?”
She went rigid with shock, unable to believe it. But then he was there, standing before her, every bit as alive and healed as she.
“Lorcan!” She sobbed and threw herself into his arms. They came around her, holding her so tightly, he seemed afraid she wasn’t real, either.
“For your sacrifices, you have been gifted with healing and life,” the Spirit Harbinger spoke again, his voice gentle. “But you may each request one further boon of your own choosing.”
Evelayn inhaled the scent of Lorcan as deeply as she could—the familiar blend of ice, pine, and velvet night, even without his power—relishing the feel of his body against hers. He was alive, Ceren had escaped to return to her family, balance had been restored to the world, and Máthair Damhán was gone—the last of the Ancients who might try to steal the power again. What more could she want that was in their ability to give?