The denouncement.
He was eviscerating my essence. Exsanguination. I’d seen this done. I knew the chances of survival were slim, and after having the source ripped from me? I would never recover from this.
I was going to die.
By my father’s own hand.
For falling for an abomination.
For choosing right over wrong.
For not wanting to subject an innocent to the death penalty just because our archaic laws dictated it.
I curled into a ball, my soul weeping as the blood drained from my body, squeezing every bit of life left from my veins.
I’m sorry, I thought to Aflora. I’m so sorry I failed you.
And Zeph.
Oh, fuck, Zeph.
He would die, too. Not because of my death, but because the Council would require it.
All of them would pay the ultimate price.
Because I couldn’t protect them. Because I’d failed them. Because I’d missed what was right in front of me this whole time.
Tray, I whispered, my twin, my other half, weeping in the distance. He was inconsolable. His sounds pricks of pain against my ears.
I reached for him, my spirit longing for his familiarity. He’s gone. They’re all gone.
The Council was vile and depraved. So fucking corrupt. So horribly behind the times.
I can’t die like this! I thought, searching for the last of my reserves, needing to do something, anything, to hold on.
But there was nothing for me to grasp.
Everything had gone dark. So. Fucking. Dark.
No source.
No Midnight Fae essence.
No magic.
I was a shell of a fae. Left to wither and die alone. Because I’d never finished the mating bond. I had no one. Except Night.
A caw in the distance answered my call, black feathers touching my cheek as my familiar curled against me with the god-awful sound of death leaving his beak. It shattered the last of my reserve, knowing I’d failed him too. My sweet, loyal crow. So beautiful. So full of life. So… so… still...
No, I wept, clutching him to me as tears rolled down my face. Not you, too.
The injustice of it all curled in my stomach, my world disappearing in a cloud of torment.
“Nooo!” The scream pierced my ear. Aflora. I desperately tried to see her, to tell her to run. But I couldn’t move.
Aflora, I thought, trying to picture her beautiful face and failing. Why couldn’t I see her? Because we weren’t mated. Not fully. She was never mine. And for the life of me, I couldn’t remember why. It was a horrid twist of fate.
There would be no coming back from this.