95

THEA

The air here is strange.

It tastes like smoke. Like grief bottled and distilled, then poured into my lungs with every breath I take.

Like death is sitting inside my chest… waiting.

I’m not built for this world. I feel it in my blood, in my bones, in the way the air here scrapes against my skin like sandpaper. It doesn't want me here.

But I keep walking.

Because I want him.

My knees shake. My hands tremble. Something warm drips from my nose and face—I think it’s blood or tears, but I can’t even tell anymore. Everything hurts in a way I’ve never known. Like I'm dying.

And maybe I am.

But when my eyes land on the figure on the podium—

God.

I shatter all over again.

Ezra.

I whisper his name like a prayer to a god I stopped believing in.

He’s—

He’s not the man I knew.

He looks like something torn out of the pages of a nightmare. A creature carved from ruin and rage.

Veins black and clawed hands curled in agony. Wings, if I can still call them that, shredded and soaked in blood that shines dark under the yellow skies. As I continue to walk closer, his eyes are no longer red or pale blue. They are black. Empty.

Like someone turned off the light in him and walked away.

I don't know if he's staring at me or staring through me and he looks like a monster.

A beautiful, devastating one.

Frightening. But still… beautiful.

And it wrecks me when he glances away as if he can't bear the sight of me.

But I know.

Isla made sure of it—her words laced with venom, dipped in smugness, said so easily like she was swatting a fly when we were on our way:

“He did it for you, darling. Broke the pact. Turned on his own blood. Lied through his teeth. He was going to tell you, but then… maybe poor timing. So whatever version of Ezra you meet?

He exists because of you.”

I didn’t argue.

Because it’s true.

I know it’s true.

And maybe I hate myself for it.

Because I begged him to take me that day.

And when he finally did… it broke him.

I take a step closer, only seeing him.

My throat is raw, my heart is shredded. But I want to touch him. I want to reach for his cheek and rub the blood from his skin like that will fix this.

Like I can will him back to me.

“Ezra,” I whisper again, this time louder as I stop a few feet away from the podium, tears climbing up my throat. “Please.”

His head jerks toward the sound, slow and pained. His lips part—barely.

He groans my name.

Not sweetly.

Not like before.

But like it hurts to say it.

Like I hurt him just by being here.

“Back off,” he rasps.

His voice is wrong.

Thinner. Cracked. Weak.

He was never weak.

Not Ezra.

Not the man who held me like I was worth more than kingdoms.

“Leave.”

He groans again.

Still not looking at me fully. Like if he does, he’ll break.

“You don’t belong here, Thea. You still have a second chance. You can leave this place. Please—”

He coughs, blood slipping down his chin.

“Run. Before it’s too late.”

I want to scream.

But instead, I step closer. One step. Then another.

“I’m not leaving you.”

He still doesn’t meet my eyes.

I climb the first step.

He flinches.

“No.”

I ignore him. I’m almost there. Almost able to touch him.

And that’s when he speaks again—voice shredded, breathless.

“Thea.”

He finally looks at me.

And for the first time… something human flickers in those black eyes.

Something familiar.

Something mine.

His next words fall like a curse.

Or maybe a benediction.

Words I begged for once, silently. Words I’d kill to hear again.

“I love you.”

It shatters me.

Not because I didn’t know.

But because it sounds like a goodbye wrapped in a gift I can’t return.

I shake my head wildly.

No. No. No.

Don’t end it here.

Say it again. Please, say it again. Say it until the world forgets how to punish you.

Say it until I believe it without ache.

My knees hit the next step.

Then the next.

Tears streak down my face, warm against the cold poisonous air.

The steps blur, my vision splitting.

I reach for him.

Just a touch.

Just his skin. His face. The warmth I remember even if he’s maybe cold now due to losing too much blood.

“Ezra—”

“Stop.”

The voice comes from behind him, not his.

My eyes dart to the source of the voice just to find him.

Malik.

Chained, looking battered but not as worse as him. I didn't even notice him earlier.

“Don’t come closer.” He says. “There’s a rune there. You cross it, you die. Simple math.”

I freeze.

As if those words snap me out of something—like someone just poured water on a dream I was drowning in.

My eyes blink wide, my head moving so fast and faster than this, I would have snapped my neck.

And for the first time, I see.

Not just him.

The court.

The crowd.

The things that fill it.

Monsters.

But beautiful.

Wrong in ways that make me forget how to breathe.

Two heads, wings made of bones, eyes where mouths should be, too many limbs, not enough humanity.

Things shaped like men. And not.

My breath catches in my throat. I've been too focused on him, moving towards him like a marionette that I didn't even take notice of my surroundings.

And then—down below.

Three men. Standing at the foot of the podium. Isla is behind them, eyes gleaming like she's waiting… for me to slip?

They don’t speak. But I feel them.

Like pressure on my lungs.

Like the weight of history and the unknown pressing into the marrow of my bones.

And I just know it.

They’re why Ezra never said anything.

They’re the ones who made him choose silence. Choose pain. Choose me last.

They're here now.

To definitely make sure his punishment is sealed.

And suddenly—I feel cornered.

Small.

Insignificant.

Lesser.

Human.

“Don’t try anything funny, Human.” 

The voice slices through the air. It belongs to the one in the center, the tallest. His robe flows in the wind I couldn't even feel.

“The Eternal Slumber still stands. Back off. Go back to the surface while you still can.”

Eternal slumber?

Even without him explaining it, I could already guess.

No. I think to myself as I shake my head, tears falling faster now.

“No.”

It bursts from my lips like something feral.

“No. I won’t—I won’t let you take him. You can’t—he’s not just someone you can lock away. He’s not just a punishment. He’s—”

My voice breaks.

But I keep going.

“He’s mine. My mate. He’s his own. You don’t get to… erase him like this.”

I know I sound desperate.

I am desperate.

It’s gullible, it’s foolish—it’s love.

And I don't have anything else to fight with anymore.

When the screaming breaks into sobs and they just continue to watch me like it's strange, I drop to my knees.

Hands clasped. Voice shaking.

“Please.”

“Release him. I’ll give anything. Do anything. Just—please. Not this.”

“Thea,” Ezra growls behind me like he’s trying to warn me.

To protect me, even now.

But I ignore him.

Because this is the only thing left I can do.

The last thing I have.

“That’s not how bargaining works here,” Malik mutters from the side, his voice hoarse. “Careful what you say, Thea. And don't grovel, the underworld hears everything.”

“Let me trade.” I whisper-yell.

“I mean it.”

I rise.

Steady this time.

Even if my heart’s breaking.

“I’ll give anything. Take anything.”

“My place. My peace. Take it all.”

It's silent. Deathly.

“Even your memories of him?”

The question comes from the third man, his voice is like wind through glass.

And time stops.

My mouth parts.

But nothing comes out.

Because I didn’t think that far.

I thought of giving for him.

I didn’t think of losing him.

And isn’t that what it means?

To love someone so deeply, so stupidly, that you’re willing to forget them if it means they get to live?

Even if it means I’ll wake up not knowing why my chest aches when I look at a full moon.

Why coffee feels like a memory.

Why every dream ends with someone I can’t name.

Even if it means seeing him on the street one day and not feeling it—what we had.

Even if it means Lyra will tell me about the man who once held him like the whole world was safe—and I won’t remember the sound of his voice.

Even if it means living empty… so he can live full.

Is that love?

Or is that madness?

Maybe both.

But it’s too late.

I know what I’ve already decided.

“Yes,” I whisper.

My voice breaks.

“Even that.”

And as the words fall into the silence, I feel something inside me splinter.

Like a goodbye I’ll never get back.

Like a goodbye I won’t even remember saying.

But God. If only I had known.