“Why?” My voice breaks on the single syllable that carries so much weight.
“Theadora,” Vivien says, her voice cloying. “How kind of you to join us. For once, you get to be the center of attention.”
My knees hit the ground hard as the guard shoves me. A hand clamps around my jaw, yanking my face upward.
Gideon holds a potion, muddy green, thick and glinting in the low light. They hold me still as they force it to my lips.
“I’ve waited ten years for this,” Gideon murmurs, his smile triumphant. “Open up.”
I fight. I choke. But he keeps pouring until there’s no choice. Drink or drown.
The potion scorches down my throat.
Gideon’s smile widens as he straightens, eyes gleaming.
“Why?” I bite back the tears. “What did I do wrong?”
Vivien rests her hand on my shoulder, motherly.
“Oh, sweet Adora, we’ve been preparing you for this moment. It’s because we love you.”
“Love?” The word doesn’t make sense.
“Yes, love.” Anita joins her mother, her expression carefully composed. “We would never ask this of you if it weren’t necessary. Don’t you want to save me?”
“Save you from what?” I manage to ask.
“I’m dying.” Anita looks pleadingly into my eyes. “The only way to save myself... is you.”
“Me?” I’m becoming lightheaded.
“You can save Anita,” Vivien tells me. “Isn’t that what you want? To be worth something to us?”
“Sister,” Anita says softly, placing a hand on my shoulder. “You have a soul shard, you can save me. Isn’t that wonderful?”
There was a time when I’d have given anything to hear her call me sister. But now all I hear is the lie.
“Sister? Why did you put me in that dungeon? Why did you…” My voice falters.
“We tried to wait. Hoped you’d grow stronger. But time ran out. It hurt us more than you, but we had to. This is your destiny.”
“No,” I gasp, shaking my head to try and focus. “This isn’t my destiny. I have a life. I am… going to live.” The words taste foreign, like defiance is a language I was never taught.
Vivien cuts me off sharply.
“No, you don’t. This was always your destiny. You’re an orphan, Adora. No one wanted you. We took you in. Gave you purpose.”
I spent years trying to please them, clinging to the hope of earning their affection, believing that if I tried hard enough, I’d earn a place in their hearts.
“And now, you can repay us.”
The weight of their lies squeezes the air from my lungs. “Repay you?”
“Anita is dying,” Vivien says, her voice distressed. “She needs your soul.”
“No,” I whisper, yanking at the shackles as though they might finally break. “I need it… I need my soul.”
“You won’t need it when you’re dead,” Vivien taunts. No. No. “And we love you. This is how you can show us your love.” She leans closer. “Your soul is already free of your body. Now you just have to step away, and it will all be over.”
The weightlessness from the potion sharpens. It isn’t shock. It’s not fear. They’ve untethered my soul.
My heart thuds like it’s trying to warn me. I search their faces for the punchline, for mercy, for anything. Anita glances to her left and I follow her gaze.
A pyre.
The cold gnaws deeper at my bones as I realize the truth. I’m not just going to die. I’m going to burn.
“Don’t make this about you. Give us your soul and we won’t have to do this. We don’t want to have to hurt you. This isn’t about punishment, it’s about love.”
Vivien’s words swarm my mind, but this time they don’t land.
They did this to me.
Tortured me, untethered my soul.
They’re going to kill me.
Because I loved them.
I’m weak… but I stand.
“No,” I assert, finally accepting what’s been obvious all along. Anita isn’t dying. This was never about love. My whole life has been a manipulation. “You never loved me. You just broke me until I’d say yes.”
Pain blooms on my cheek, followed by the crack of a whip. My legs threaten to cave under its weight, but I don’t fall. Never again. The blood pools at my toes.
Vivien’s smile turns predatory.
“Enough,” Anita says. “This is how it has to be. Your soul shard belongs to me, and if you don’t give it willingly…” She pauses to savor the final blow. “We’ll help you.”
“I won’t give you my soul!” My voice is full of a courage I never thought I had.
“Your pain ends when you give your soul to Anita.” Vivien’s words drip with malice, each one burrowing deeper.
My heart plummets as they chain me to the stake. The shackles chafe my already tender skin. Lazlo’s voice comes through the connection in our minds. “Thea? Where are ya? What’s happenin’?”
“They’re killing me. I love you, Lazlo,” I send back.
“You’re in the clearing, aren’t ya?” His voice stays steady, but I can feel the tremor underneath. “I’m nearly there. Hold on, love.”
“Don’t come. I don’t want you to see,” I tell him like he has any control.
“You have nothing to live for.” Vivien steps closer, her eyes cold as ice. “Give Anita your soul, and you’ll be forever remembered. Forever honored by our coven.”
“No.”
“Light the fire,” she commands. Miriam steps forward, calling on her magic. Flames dance across her hand and a small smile plays on her lips before she sets the pyre alight. She drove me home for Thanksgiving break. Made cookies with me at yule.
The fire surges, roaring to life, its heat blistering at my skin. The jeers of the crowd fill the clearing, their voices rising and falling like a chaotic symphony. Pain explodes through me, searing and all-consuming. I try to shove it into the nugget inside me. The place where I keep the pain. But it’s too much. It spills over. I scream, like it will save me.
“Bring the banshee forward!”
I freeze, the heat of the flames forgotten for a moment as the crowd splits. He’s jerked into the clearing by a guard, stumbling. His gaunt frame, the bruises shadowing his face, and the way his head barely lifts. And yet, it’s him.
“Lazlo,” my voice is a prayer, inaudible over the roar of the fire. The moment is suspended. It’s us, finally seeing one another. This, it’s all that matters, not the fire, not the searing metal shackles biting into my bones, not the crowd’s howling.
My mate.
Even battered, even broken, he is beautiful. He is mine.
“Thea, I’m here, I’m with ya, love.” The sound of his voice steadies me. I focus only on him, escaping the pain. The crackling of flames fading, though the lingering heat still claws at my skin. All I can feel is Lazlo, his presence tethered to mine: intense, unyielding, and desperate.
He lets loose a cry, but I don’t let go.
“Give it to me, love. Let me guard ya soul,” Lazlo pleads.
Vivien’s words slice through his, sharp and venomous, twining with his like a dark shadow.
“Give it up, Thea. You know you have no choice. What’s a soul to you? Nothing but a burden, a weight that will only drag you down. Let go. Let us take it.”
“No!” I cry aloud, my voice scraping my throat as I cling to the last threads of my soul. “I won’t let Anita have it.”
“She’ll not have it, I swear on me life.” Desperation taints his plea. “But ya gotta let go, love. Ya don’t deserve this.”
He tries again, his cry echoing into the night. I persist.
“I can’t,” I whisper, the tears drying faster than they fall down my face. “You already have my soul, Lazlo.” The flames lick at my skin, the heat searing my resolve into steel.
Through the roar of the fire, Anita’s voice rises.
“Fix this!” she spits. “Free her soul! Do something, or we’re all doomed!”
“I can’t. She’s too strong,” Lazlo tells them. Panic spreads through the clearing as Anita’s facade crumbles.
“Do it, or I’ll kill you!” she shrieks, clawing at him.
His no is defiant. I feel the whip as it hits his flesh.
“Why? They’ll kill you!”
“Thea…” His accent deepens with helplessness. “If ya goin’, I’m goin’ too. We’ll die t’gether, love. I’ll find ya again — that’s a promise.”
They’ve lost.
The fire surges, devouring me whole, tearing at my flesh and soul until I feel like nothing remains but a burning, endless ache. Their voices fade, drowned by the roar of the flames and the relentless thud of my heart. I’m dying. All I have to do is let go. Lazlo will catch me. He’ll shield my soul with his own.
And it’ll destroy him.
If I give in, we won’t be saved. We’ll die together. Two souls bound in ruin, scorched by a world that never wanted us.
“Thea…” His voice splinters. “Please, love... don’t make me watch ya suffer like this.”
“No beginning.”
“No end.“ The words echo, full of grief. “I love you, Thea.”
“I trust you,” I cry.
“Until the next life.”
His keen yanks on my soul and I let go, feel myself torn away. My soul goes to Lazlo. It’s strange, like stepping into a memory of warmth and light, a feeling of home.
“No!” The word comes from everywhere. Even without ears, I can hear them. “Give me her soul!”
“Never,” he tells them without fear. Defiant forever.
He wails, releasing me.
A crack, sharp and unmistakable, follows.
Lazlo’s lament echoes through the void, a jagged knife that rips through the tether holding me to the present. The pull is sudden, violent, and absolute. My soul cast into a vortex of cold, unrelenting nothingness. A stillness so profound it feels like the breath of time itself has stopped.