Chapter 90
Eden
I jolt awake. Breath shallow. Heart slamming against my ribs. For a moment I think it’s the dream, but any doubt of this not being real life varushes like smoke when the first tremors come.
The palace is falling apart.
I can feel it in my bones before I hear it. The floor groans like it’s being torn in half. Magic screeches. The walls are shaking and the paintings inside my room hit the floor. The shadows no longer slither–they scream.
Azriel must be having another corruption episode.
Not long ago, I was in his arms. Now he is losing it somewhere.
It frightens me to think about. I might have magic, but the kind Azriel wields is darker, capable of killing,
If he is too corrupted, he might hurt me.
Still I get up to run barefoot down the corridor. Sharp stones cut into my soles with every step. The silk robe Azriel gave me whips behind me like a banner of surrender. My breath comes in sharp bursts.
“Azriel!” I shout. “Where are you?”
The throne room door is open, shadows leaking through like spilled ink. I push it open and stagger inside.
And there he is.
Collapsed on the floor. On all fours. Shaking.
He doesn’t look like the polished high–fae who kissed me. This is a broken version of the fairy I love.
His arms and legs are covered in thick black scales. His wings are being eaten by it too. It’s spreading like an infection. His fingers end in talons. His wings are too heavy to keep upright. His breath is ragged. Labored.
His face lifts slowly when he hears my footsteps. His violet eyes lock onto mine.
My heart stutters.
“Eden,” he whispers. His voice is hoarse. Broken. “Don’t come closer.”
I do anyway.
“N–no!” He tries to create distance between us and ends up backing into a pedestal. A vase shatters. “I’m losing control.”
“You’re still here,” I say, hand reaching out for him.
His wing lifts, slaps my hand away. “You shouldn’t be here!”
“I’m not leaving.”
The scales ripple over his shoulders. His claws dig into the floor, and I see him knitting his eyes together as if restraining himself.
“I tried to protect you,” he chokes. “But the shadows… they’re too loud. They’re angry. They think I’m weak when I’m with you.”
His chest heaves. Cracks split the walls around us.
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Chapter 90
“I didn’t mean to lock you away. I just wanted to keep you safe.”
My throat tightens. “Azriel, you’re scaring me.”
“I’m scaring myself.”
He tries to stand up, but sways. I run forward and catch him before he hits the ground.
But he is heavy.
જો ઇરાન હા
We wind up on the floor and there I am, sitting with his head in my lap. He is panting. Burning up. My hand trembles when I brush strands of dark hair away from his face.
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His skin radiates magic–raw, unstable–and his face… his face is still devastatingly beautiful, even twisted in pain. His violet eyes, not glowing white as they had been, meet mine. And for a moment, it’s like nothing ever changed. Like I have him back.
A lump forms in my throat.
“I almost crushed you like a grape,” he mutters, trying for a smirk.
His teasing tone pulls at my heartstrings. I want to laugh and sob and kiss him senseless.
“I took my chances,” I whisper, so overwhelmed with emotion that I nearly throw my arms around him.
He chuckles, a breathless, broken sound that still makes my heart flutter.
“You’re ridiculous for staying with me, you know that, right?”
“No,” I whisper, stroking my hand over his head. “You’re mine and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
He smiles, but it falters when more scales appear on his body. He groans and I cradle him until his breathing slows. He is shaking with his fingers curled in the fabric of my robe like I’m the only anchor he has.
Then-
The palace shakes.
Harder.
A chandelier crashes in the hallway.
Azriel inhales. “I can’t… I can’t control it!”
His eyes meet mine, but the purple is gone, replaced with the corrupted glowing white he has before. There are no irises. Just this haunting white color –and a cruel smile curling his lips.
“Eden,” he says in an inhuman voice that sounds like a thousand voices put together. I shudder and he smiles before lifting his hand to grab my throat. “Did you really think you could tame Azriel? Tame the shadows inside him?”
He is choking me and smiling while doing it, entirely corrupted by Mara’s heart.
He shouldn’t have eaten it.
But he did.
And this is the consequence.
Absolute madness.
Chapter 90
I place my hands over his. “St-…” I can’t get the word out.
This amuses him.
He cocks his head to the side. “What was that? Cat got your tongue?”
I make coughing noises and Azriel laughs.
“Can’t hurt to hear you speak,” he says and releases me.
I don’t waste a single second.
“STOP!” I scream and the world listens.
The palace jerks, then freezes. Ash is suspended in the air like snow caught in a photograph. Even the shadows hush.
Only I can move.
I rise slowly. A breath caught between now and never.
And then I see her.
My fox.
She steps out from the shadows. All nine tails blazing.
She doesn’t speak with words, but I feel them.
You’re holding time. But not for long.
I look around. At the broken palace. At the man I love, burning from the inside out.
“What do I do?” I whisper.
The fox brushes her muzzle against my palm.
Choose.
“I can go back?”
You can.
“But I’ll lose this. My power. This version of me.”
You’ll become who you were.
“But without you.”
Yes, you won’t have me… But the people you’ve lost? They will be there.
I close my eyes.
Axel. Elvira. Azriel. The pack… They will be there!
“I…I don’t know where to go.”
My fox doesn’t answer and I take a deep breath before realizing exactly where I need to go.
Mara. The dinner,
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Chapter 90
“I know how to stop it,” I say, “I can change everything”
The fox looks at me. Her tails wrap around me like warmth.
Then it begins.
Magic builds inside me, rushing upward. It’s like lightning, burning and blinding. I scream, and light explodes from my chest.
Time cracks.
And I fall.
The next breath I take tastes like spoiled wine.
I blink.
Candlelight. A long table. A feast.
Mara’s voice purring from the head of the table.
Axel beside me, chewing happily.
Azriel at my right, tense. Watching his sister.
My hand is already lifting a goblet to my lips.
I lower it.
Holy shit.
I’m here.
Back in my body. The past. No doubles. No ghost of me watching.
I remember everything.
And I feel it–an emptiness that echoes through my chest, a silence where power used to hum. My magic is gone.
My fox isn’t here.
It’s like someone took a blade and carved it out of me. No foxfire. No shifting. No tricks. Just me. Just Eden.
Human.
1 glance down at my hands. They’re trembling.
But I’m not trembling from fear.
Because I still have everything I need.
I have my memories. My mind. My fury.
And as I stare at the illusioned food, at the knife Mara placed on the table, I realize—
This isn’t just a second chance.
It’s the only one I’ll ever get.
Let her smile while she can. Because tonight, the fox she tried to devour has come back with teeth and I remember exactly where to sink them.
AIC
