Chapter Fifty
Nero watched as Nicholas cast out his mental arms, and wrapped them around the wispy madness, and drew the Entity into his body as if he were pulling in a soul. He did it so easily; he’d had practice wrangling this particular spirit.
The Challenger got to his feet as the king’s words echoed in his mind.
You win, brother.
Nero heard the words again, felt them reverberate inside. One word in particular. Brother.
And something inside Nero changed.
Several feet away, Nicholas Wargrave moved to the edge of the failing platform. Chunks broke off from beneath his boots and dropped away. His glowing eyes swirled from red to silver to white and back again. He was going to jump. Nero knew it suddenly and definitely.
“Nicholas, please no!” cried Adelaide, who had returned after depositing Mimi and was again hovering over the chasm. Her wings beat out a steady rhythm against the air. She must have come to the same conclusion Nero had, at the same time. Or maybe she’d already known. She was the queen, and she was a seer. Maybe now she only wanted to stop him.
But there was not going to be any stopping Nicholas. Nero knew this in his heart. The Nightmare King was going to end this here and now, once and for all.
Nero watched Nicholas fold in his wings. He watched him turn and look at his queen one last time. He watched him wink at her. And then he stepped off the ledge.
“Nooooo!” Adelaide’s scream of despair filled the edges of time and space.
Nero stood still, wing broken, body battered, and closed his eyes. He reached out with his Nightmare arms, with his will and his ultimate surrender. He found the soul he wanted in that darkness beyond, and he yanked hard.
It resisted only a fraction of a moment before it too surrendered. He kept pulling, drawing the wayward spirit into himself, into his body, where it settled in beside his own and began to mingle with it.
Two halves torn apart by time and space, by the whims of fate, were joined together once more. Gray and green. Silver and emerald. They forged like puzzle pieces made of steel, tight and strong and forever.
The platform gave out completely. It crumbled inward from beneath him, and clouds of dust shot into the air. Nero’s eyes opened, then widened. He extended his wings – but one was broken. They batted inefficiently against the air in an attempt to rise above the nothing, and they failed.
And then she was there, her arms wrapping solidly around him, her own strong wings picking up the slack he couldn’t reach. They beat once, twice, three times against the debris-filled air, and he rose as the ground caved in beneath them and the roar of its chaos echoed around them.
Adelaide was crying. Her cheeks were wet as she gritted her teeth and held tight to him and his arm slid around her waist, and she lifted them higher and higher. The wind moved through her hair. Time seemed to slow.
Nero looked down. There was nothing below. It was all gone, sucked up by never.
Along with Nicholas’s body, the Entity, and Nero’s Sleeper.
They moved over the chasm until the bridge reappeared, and soon the outcropping. Everyone was still there: Andros, Minnaea, Mimi the dragon, the Vampire King, and the young werewolf-witch Dannai. Dannai Caige stood at the edge of the outcropping, staring into the distance where the platform had tumbled into the darkness below. Amunet had been her mother. And now she was no more.
Nero supposed that even when your family was filled with anger and fury, even when you knew they were wrong, even when you were drawn to battle them again and again, there was still something there that connected you to them. He would know all about that, actually.
His feet touched down, and Adelaide fell to the floor beside him, her gorgeous wings folding in at her back as she clutched at the rock of the outcropping and closed her eyes, shaking uncontrollably.
“You saved me,” he said softly.
She turned her head where she was, silently and painfully mourning her loss. Her expression was stricken, her eyes glowing gold.
“I knew you would,” he said then.
She frowned and wiped fiercely at her face, trying to clear away the tears.
Nero transformed, allowing the Nightmare – Nightmares – within him to recede and leave behind his human form. It hurt a lot less. The broken wing would heal now, where it rested in secret.
He knelt slowly beside Adelaide, lowering himself gracefully to one knee and curling his finger beneath her chin. She let him. She was lost in his gaze.
“Your eyes…” she whispered, confusion playing catch with the pain in her features. “They’re changing.”
He knew that. He knew they were slowly shifting – green… silver… green… silver.
“Addie,” he said softly, “it’s me.”
Adelaide’s frown remained. She slowly pulled away and straightened. All around her, their companions had gone very still and very quiet, watching in hopeful fascination.
“It’s Nicholas,” he told her. And then he shrugged and smiled. “Well, sort of. It’s both of us, actually.”
“By the gods,” said Roman. “Nero drew Nick’s soul into him before Nicholas vanished beneath the nothingness.”
Adelaide looked Nero over, then glanced at Roman, then looked back at Nero again. She got to her feet, taking a step back. She was clearly uncertain and more than a little disbelieving. She reminded him of Belle from Beauty and the Beast when her Beast is turned back into a human.
“I don’t have to wear contacts now,” he told her, grinning.
She blinked. Her eyes widened. She took a cautious step forward.
“Nicholas knew you would save Nero,” said Roman. Addie looked at him.
Minnaea nodded. “You save everyone,” she added. Addie met her gaze.
“What he hadn’t expected,” said Andros, “was that Nero would save him.” Adelaide looked from Andros back to Nero.
“How do I know?” she asked softly, so softly. Her voice was filled with quiet hope and yet unshed tears.
But Nero could tell she already believed. He could feel it in her. She moved forward as if drawn in by gravity, and when she stood directly in front of him, she raised her hand and cupped his cheek. He placed his hand gently over it, lovingly, tenderly.
“Where did we make love?” she asked.
He grinned, flashing fangs. “If you mean, where did I have my wicked way with you again and again, that would be the Crystal Carousel,” he told her in his deep, dark sexy British accent. He laced his fingers with hers and brought her hand to his lips to place a kiss upon them, but he never broke eye contact, and his gaze told her he couldn’t wait to have his way with her a bunch more times.
Adelaide flushed bright red, and her amber eyes flashed. She matched his grin with one of her own. “It is you.”
“Well, this is awkward,” said Mimi Tanniym. “And is it really fair for you to use innuendo to ‘prove,’” she made the quotes sign with her fingers, “that you’re who you say you are?”
Addie laughed, and so did Nero. It was the first time he’d ever really laughed. It felt damn good.
However, Roman had a more permanent solution. “The names,” he said through his own smile. “Hesperos left us with three names that he would have to speak, like secret passwords, before he returned to his place at the Table of the Thirteen.”
“Yes!” said Minnaea. “The king’s real names! That’s perfect!”
But Nero could tell she knew already too. The names, which he now knew and would always know because he was the Challenger and the king in one, were just extra proof. Minnaea could sense her king before her. So could Andros. The two looked at him with wide-eyed expressions, and then they looked at each other.
They’re looking at each other, Nero realized.
They’re still here.
“You broke the cycle,” Minnaea said through her broad smile. Andros joined her, sliding an arm around her waist to pull her close. She wrapped her arms around him and leaned her head against his shoulder. He kissed her forehead.
Minnaea met Nero’s gaze. “We’re here to stay.”