Page 19 of To The Final End
“She did it,” he breathes. “She actually—”
“Yeah.” I watch her move from Gray to Jace, accepting embrace after embrace. “She did.”
I never thought I’d be helping him stand. But after today…
He’s one of us now.
Bree finishes with Thane—his arms around her longer than anyone else’s, his face buried in her hair—and finally steps back. She’s steadier now. Still exhausted, still tear-streaked, but something in her spine has straightened.
She looks at me.
I tilt my head toward the watching Feeders.
“They’re waiting for you.”
Her gaze sweeps the courtyard. Takes in the scope of it—hundreds of faces turned toward her, silent and uncertain.
“All of them,” I add. “They saw what happened. They need answers.”
She nods slowly. Wipes her face with the back of her hand.
Then she sees Seth.
He’s upright now, leaning on my arm, still pale and shaky butawake. Clear-eyed. Looking at her like she’s the only thing in the world.
She runs.
Not walks. Not moves toward him carefully. Sheruns—tears still wet on her face, exhaustion forgotten—and slams into him hard enough that I have to brace them both.
Seth catches her. Barely. His arms wrap around her and he buries his face in her neck, and the sound he makes—raw, broken, relieved—is the same one I was choking back five minutes ago.
“You’re okay,” she whispers. “You’reyouagain.”
“Because of you.” His voice cracks. “Bree—”
“I know.” She pulls back just enough to cup his face, thumbs brushing his cheekbones. “I know.”
The Feeders are watching. Hundreds of them. Waiting for their queen to address them, to tell them what happens next.
And she’s standing in the wreckage of a battlefield, holding a man with magic from the Void, crying into his shirt like nothing else matters.
Because to her, it doesn’t.
We come first.
The politics can wait.
She kisses Seth’s forehead. Whispers something I can’t hear. Then she steps back, squeezes his hand once, and finally turns toward the crowd.
Now she’s ready.
She walks forward.
We fall into formation without discussing it. Gray on her right. Me on her left. Stellan at her shoulder. Thane opposite. Wes and Jace flanking Seth, helping him stay upright. Theo between groups, watching everything with those Seer eyes.
The Feeders part as we approach. They don’t kneel, but they don’t run either. They just… wait.
Bree stops at the center of the courtyard. Looks around at the faces watching her.
