Ashes and Confessions

Hazel was back in her shop. The portal snapped shut behind her.

It had been three days, but it felt like a lifetime. She had boarded up the shattered windows, swept up the glass, and tried to brew her teas. But the apothecary was no longer a sanctuary. It felt hollow. The smell of cinnamon made her nauseous. The warmth of the fire felt superficial compared to the heat of Alaric’s touch.

She had made the logical choice. The safe choice. But as she sat in the armchair by the parlor hearth, holding the oversized sweater he had left behind, she realized she had let her fear of loss dictate her life. She was so afraid of being a fleeting moment in his eternity that she had sacrificed the only true happiness she had ever known.

She hugged the sweater to her chest, weeping silently.

A heavy, unnatural heat suddenly pressed against the boarded-up windows. The smell of smoke—not the comforting scent of a hearth, but the acrid stench of a structure fire—filled the room.

Hazel jumped up. She ran into the storefront. The boards on the windows were engulfed in dark, magical flames.

The assassins’ guild. They hadn't been tracking the soul-anchor. They had been watching the shop, waiting for her to return.

"Come out, mortal!" a distorted voice hissed from the street. "The King abandoned his pet. Now you burn."

The front door exploded inward in a shower of burning splinters. Three massive Shadow Fae, heavily armored, stepped into the burning shop.

Hazel backed away, grabbing a heavy iron fire poker. She was mortal, she was terrified, but she was not going to die cowering. "Get out of my shop!" she screamed, swinging the iron.

One of the assassins laughed, batting the heavy iron poker away as if it were a twig. He raised a glowing, venom-laced sword, bringing it down toward her head.

Hazel squeezed her eyes shut.

The air in the shop violently imploded.

The sound was deafening—a sonic boom of pure, unadulterated magical rage. The assassin’s sword never connected. Hazel opened her eyes to see the creature lifted off his feet, a spear of solid black shadow driven straight through his armored chest.

Standing in the center of the burning shop was Alaric.

He didn't look like a stoic king. He looked like a god of war. His silver eyes were blindingly bright, his face twisted in a snarl of absolute, murderous fury.

"I did not abandon her," Alaric’s voice roared, shaking the foundation of the building.

He moved with a speed the mortal eye could barely track. He ripped the remaining two assassins apart, his shadow magic tearing through their armor like tissue paper. The fight was over in seconds, leaving nothing but black ash raining down among the burning embers of the shop.

Alaric turned toward Hazel, his chest heaving. He took a step toward her, reaching out his hand.

But as he moved, his knee buckled.

He collapsed onto the floorboards, a harsh gasp escaping his lips.

"Alaric!" Hazel screamed, throwing herself onto the floor beside him.

He was bleeding. A deep, jagged slash marred his side, inflicted by the first assassin before Alaric had entered the fray. Because he had severed the soul-anchor, he had broken his own magical equilibrium, leaving himself vulnerable.

"Why did you come back?" Hazel sobbed, pressing her hands frantically against the wound, trying to stem the flow of blood. The fire raged around them, but the structural wards of the shop were holding the ceiling up for now.

Alaric looked up at her, his silver eyes filled with a desperate, agonizing vulnerability. He reached up, his bloodstained hand tracing the curve of her cheek.

"Because the Keep is a tomb without you," Alaric confessed, his gravelly voice breaking. "Because my eternity means absolutely nothing if I have to spend it in the quiet. I would rather live a single, fleeting mortal lifetime by your side in this chaotic, beautiful warmth than spend another thousand years as an immortal king. I cannot exist without you, Hazel."