Chapter Forty-Two

Solmir

He should’ve known.

That day in the grove, the day he pulled her into the Shadowlands—it was a precursor to this, a ghost of something that hadn’t happened yet. She’d pulled the magic into herself instead of expelling it, and why had he ever expected that to change? He’d tried to hold the Kings’ souls, and wasn’t strong enough, so Neve shouldered the burden instead.

Even now, trying to pick himself up after being thrown back by a wall of shadow, he felt his own soul like a sentencing.

A terrible thought then, though terribleness from him should come as no surprise—at least she hadn’t made him kill her. At least it had been her sister, one draining the other, mirrored love and mirrored lives and mirrored death.

He couldn’t have killed her. Even if she asked, even if she begged, even if it meant the world fell into howling hell. He’d let it before he hurt Neve.

He’d always been weak.

When the storm of shadows stopped, Red and Neve lay head to head, blond hair mingling with black. All vestiges of magic had left them in death. Just two young women in the snow.

The Wolf howled. He reached them before Solmir did, knees on the ground, one scarred hand on Redarys’s brow and the other curled over his face, his shoulders bowed forward like he could squeeze the life out of himself and into her. One racking sob, harsh enough to make his throat sound bloodied.

Solmir hadn’t cried in eons. He didn’t know if he even remembered how. But his own throat felt tight, his hands opening and closing into useless fists. He wanted to hit something. Wanted to fight something. Wanted to run and run until he collapsed and was back to not feeling anything, damn her for making him feel.

How dare she make him feel something other than rage or sorrow or guilt for the first time in centuries and then die?

So when Eammon lurched up from the ground, snarling and wild-eyed, and launched his scarred knuckles at Solmir’s jaw, it was almost a relief.