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I clasped my hands over my mouth, a choked sob catching in my chest as reality settled over me.
Kazimir was finally dead.
He would never hurt me again.
“Sprite,” a voice said softly, and I ripped my gaze away from Kazimir to find Ruslan hovering nearby.
A heartbeat later, I threw myself into his arms, clutching at his bare skin as I tried to ground myself against the piercing pain. “Zuriel,” I managed to gasp out, trying to explain why even though Kazimir was dead, I wasn’t yet free of his torment.
He wrapped himself so tightly around me. I struggled to breathe, but in that moment, I needed it. Neededhim.
“He was my only family,” I sobbed, chest heaving with the force of my cries. Ruslan’s sweat-soaked skin grew saltier as my tears mixed in, but he didn’t relent.
“I know, sprite, I know,” he choked out, and then I wriggled free, swiping at my eyes to find Ruslan’s just as blurry. “Zuriel loved you very much.”
“He wanted to die so he could be with his wife,” I murmured, trembling from head to toe. Then, I clutched at Ruslan’s chest, a frantic energy overtaking me. “I want to be joined with you in every way, Ruslan. I never want to live without you.”
He crushed me against him, a growl rumbling from his chest as his tongue parted my lips and swept through my mouth.“Then you will fucking marry me the moment this mess is all cleaned up. You will have me in every way you want from this moment until our dying breaths. Because make no mistake, Izidora. There is no me without you, nor you without me. We die together or not at all.”
A fresh wave of hot tears tracked down my cheeks, but I couldn’t stop kissing Ruslan, desperate to be closer to him, to fuse our bodies as one just like our souls.“Us against the world.”
With that, he broke our kiss, his chest pressing against mine as we heaved down icy breaths. “Come, sprite. Let’s prevent any further unnecessary deaths.”
I glanced sidelong as Kazimir. “What should we do with his body?”
Ruslan did not deign to give him any attention. “Leave it.”
I accepted his outstretched hand, and together, we took to the sky, returning to the battlefield and preparing to usher in a new world for all the residents of Északi.
***
Bodies lined the sides of the steep mountains, some broken over boulders, others staining the snow red. The heat from the cooling bodies melted what laid beneath them, creating rivers of ruby to trickle down the slopes and join the one raging below. The cries had died down as the survivors granted mercy to those who could not be saved, though the healers’ tents overflowed with wounded warriors. Thousands of beating wings filled the air as bodies were collected on both sides, piled together for the pyres that would ferry them to the Goddess and the Fates.
A group of three sisters dressed in flowing black robes floated across from an ethereal lady in white. They surveyed the damage of one of the greatest conflicts to grace the shores of Északi – a conflict they had caused.
“Ezi, Kari, Riza,” the Goddess greeted the Fates. “Are you satisfied with how everything unfolded?”
“Yes,” they hissed in unison, their voices twining together in a haunting way.
On this plane, those below could not hear them, nor could they see them unless they chose to reveal themselves.
“My children are hurting,” the Goddess said, sweeping an arm to the side and pulling the sisters to hover over her prophesied ones. The chestnut-haired female sobbed over the body of the Angel who had waited nearly two millennia to carry out his task, while her mate rubbed circles in her back, pinching the bridge of his nose to stem his own grief.
How he had grown, the Goddess thought.
The Fates’ robes billowed on an invisible breeze, and they tucked their arms together, hiding their hands as they assessed the rest of the group. A female with chocolate brown hair was in a similar state of despair, thrown over her brother while his living friends sat in a ring around his body, tears flowing freely and without shame.
“Their pain will not last forever,” they replied. “They will have a happy life, eventually.”
“What’s most important is that the worlds will survive,” the middle one spoke, breaking away from her sisters and staring at the Goddess with an intensity that left no room for argument.
“As you said when we made our exchange.” She looked away from the three, surveying the rest of her creation. The mountains that pierced the air, the river that ran with blood, the clear blue sky that covered this entire world.
Shooting into the sky, the four studied the rest of the continent – the loving queen and king cradling their babe on the grassy plains, the burned fields in the realm of lakes and greenery, the churned earth between it and the wooded realm. Then, they turned their attention beyond, to the other continents of Ravasz, where millions of others remained oblivious to the carnage on Északi.
Stories would soon spread as the world began to change, prompted by what had happened there. With a sigh, the Goddess closed her eyes and breathed her last breath into the world, renewing it with the last of her strength. This would be hergreatest gift to her children, one that would prolong their lives here until the next prophesied ones were born.
She blinked slowly, the Fates coming into focus as she herself began to fade.
