CROWNED BY BLOOD
And then, darkness took me.
I collapsed, My strength was gone, drained completely. My vision blurred to pinpricks of fading light.
"Protect them," I whispered to the wind, to the spirits, to anyone who might listen. "Protect... them..."
And then, impossibly, I saw him.
Kai.
Not in memory, not in the fevered dreams of a dying mind, but standing there beside me, radiant with the love that had once held me through the longest nights.
"You did it," he said, kneeling beside me, his presence warm and real and impossible.