My eyes snag on Deandra, battling her heart out, but she’s covered in blood.
Tears well up in my eyes again, and a choking sob tears free as I see Titus huddled over Priya’s lifeless body.
Oh, God. Priya.
All these people fighting for me.
With me.
Against evil.
Slowly, I turn my head to bring my eyes back to my sister.
My twin.
My heart.
“You can’t abandon humanity,” Zora says softly. And with her magic, she conjures a long dagger, holding it out to me. “I haven’t known humanity long, but it deserves the chance to survive.”
“I can’t,” I croak, shaking my head and refusing the dagger.
Zora flashes in toward me, then presses the weapon into my hand. She forces my fingers to close around the hilt.
Her other hand comes around my neck, and she pulls me in closer so she can whisper in my ear. “I would do it myself, Finley, but I’m not brave enough. It’s why you’re the one who has to bear the sacrifice.”
Another choking sob escapes and then I’m in free-fall, burying my face into my sister’s shoulder as I cry. “I love you so much.”
“And I love you,” she murmurs, squeezing her arm around my neck. “Thank you for rescuing me. Thank you for showing me real happiness. I want you to know I’ll leave this life with no regrets knowing that, in the end, my life was perfect and had meaning.”
“Zora,” I sob, pulling my head back slightly to look in her eyes. A one-word plea to find some other way.
Not this.
She merely stares at me resolutely before slowly removing her hand from atop mine on the dagger.
I am now holding it of my own free will.
Zora’s eyes—mirror images of mine—are determined and strong. They give me strength.
Without taking my eyes off my twin, I make my sacrifice. Turning my wrist, I slip the blade between her fourth and fifth ribs to the very edge of her heart, where I hesitate.
Zora gasps in pain and I hate I’m prolonging it, but I want just one more moment with her.
“I love you,” I tell her again on a sob as I pull her in for a hard hug that causes the blade to sink right into her heart.
She stiffens, a tiny moan escapes, and she whispers, “Love. You. Too.”
The moment is shattered when I hear a piercing shriek of pain that rings out so loudly over the entire field that the battle stops abruptly, all creatures turning to its source.
I continue to hold tightly onto my sister as her breathing becomes ragged and her blood soaks into my shirt. I look over her shoulder to see that a huge hole has opened in Kymaris’ chest, right over where her heart lays beneath her sternum.
She looks down at it, horrified by what she sees.
Her gaze lifts, moves across the field, and locks with mine.
I don’t move. Merely hold my sister as her pulse slows and Kymaris falls weakly to her knees.
Zora starts to sag, but I don’t let her fall. I release my hold on the dagger and move my arm around her waist to support her.
I hold her close to me, feeling the handle of the blade pressing against my own chest.
And I just stare blankly at Kymaris as her white skin goes even paler.
When Zora takes one last ragged breath, the exhale blowing over the skin on my neck where she sags against me, Kymaris’ body starts to turn black. She screams again, not in pain this time, but rather in disbelief.
Zora’s heart gives its last beat as Kymaris pitches forward, face-first into the dirt. Her body ripples, turns even blacker, and then starts to peel away in chunks of tarry ash.
The rip in the veil pulses for a brief moment before it knits closed.
It’s over.
The prophecy has been thwarted.
CHAPTER 28
Carrick
Carrick swiveled the chair away from his desk and stared out over the cityscape from his office window. It had been two weeks since Finley stopped the ritual and things were getting back to normal.
Sort of.
He was back in his office, running his empire, but it didn’t hold much interest to him. Carrick had more money than he knew what to do with. In all his re-invented lifetimes, he was always successful in managing businesses, people, and lands. He did it not out of any true interest but more as a way to pass the time.
Because—to him—time moves infinitely slower.
He was pondering a change. Not anything soon because he wasn’t about to change his life with Finley. But he’d lose her one day, and that would be when he’d make a change and start over somewhere else. As it stood, Seattle held way too many memories—admittedly both good and bad—to make this a comfortable place to keep roots.
Finley had been struggling after Zora’s death. A mere two weeks ago, she had to kill her sister. The grief and guilt nearly swallowed her up those first days and Carrick was worried that he’d perhaps lost her.