Standing in the ruins of the alliance stronghold and trying to process that we’d been gone three months while experiencing thirty subjective years was doing things to my sense of reality that probably weren’t healthy, but honestly after being sealed in a prison fighting primordial darkness my baseline for healthy was pretty warped.
The pack house was—gone. Just gone. Burned to foundations. The training yard was a crater. The dical building had collapsed. Bodies everywhere.
So many bodies.
"How many?" My voice ca out hoarse and I wasn’t sure if that was from screaming while we broke the prison or from the dinsional transition or from seeing this.
"Forty-three." Kael’s voice was hollow and I could feel him through the bond now—sohow the bond that had shattered when I’d fought him was intact again, solid, stronger than before. "Forty-three casualties during the Fae attack. They—" He had to stop. "They retaliated. For us breaking the prison. For Eirlys dying in the backlash. They destroyed everything before retreating."
Forty-three. Added to the ninety-three from the demon battles that made one hundred thirty-six total deaths across everything.
One hundred thirty-six people dead because I’d beco Hybrid Queen and drawn every threat in existence.
"Stop." Riven’s voice cut through my spiral and I turned to find all four of them standing there, and the bonds—all four bonds, even Kael’s—were pulsing steady and strong. "I can feel you catastrophizing. This isn’t your fault."
This isn’t your fault. Right. Except if I’d never existed none of this would have happened.
"The Fae chose to attack." Draven’s clinical assessnt. "We broke the prison. Eirlys died in the magical backlash. The surviving Fae retaliated. That’s their choice. Not yours."
Their choice. Right. Except none of it would have happened if I hadn’t sworn the fealty oath in the first place.
"You swore the oath to get strong enough to fight The Root." Thorne’s rough voice was certain. "Which we did. We killed it. Permanently. That was the right call."
The right call. Except the cost kept climbing and I was running out of ways to justify it.
"Selene." Kael moved closer and through the bond I felt his absolute conviction. "We survived. All five of us. Against impossible odds. The Root is dead. The Fae are gone. We’re together. Everything else—" He gestured to the ruins. "Everything else we can rebuild."
Rebuild. Right. Except rebuilding required people and we’d lost forty-three and the remaining one hundred seven were standing around looking at us like we were ghosts.
Which, fair. We had died and co back and killed ancient evil and shattered a Fae prison. Ghost comparison was valid.
"How is your bond intact?" The question ca out before I could stop it. "I broke it. Shattered it completely. You couldn’t feel anymore. And now it’s—" I reached through the connection and it was solid. Unbroken. "It’s perfect. How?"
"I don’t know." His voice was quiet. "When you broke the prison and ca back, when your body reford—the bond reford with it. Like it had never broken. Like the thirty years we spent separated were—" He couldn’t finish.
Were erased. Undone. The bond rembering what it had been before the oath forced to destroy it.
"All the bonds are stronger." Riven’s observation. "Not just Kael’s. All four. Like dying and anchoring through you into the prison and fighting together for thirty years—" He stopped. "Like it forged us into sothing new."
Sothing new. Right. We’d been five separate people bonded together. Now we were—what, a unified entity? Four mates who’d died and lived as consciousness for decades?
The taphysics were giving a headache.
"The survivors need direction." Morgana appeared looking exhausted and older than I’d ever seen her. "They’ve been without leadership for three months. The Fae attack happened six weeks ago. They’ve been rebuilding what they can but—" She gestured to the ruins. "They need to know what cos next."
What cos next. Right. Because I was Hybrid Queen and that ant being responsible for one hundred seven people who’d survived everything.
No pressure.
I turned to face the survivors—one hundred seven fighters gathered in what used to be the training yard, all of them watching with expressions that ranged from awed to terrified.
"The Root is dead." My voice carried across the clearing and I watched them process that. "We killed it. Permanently. It’s gone. It won’t co back. The threat is over."
The threat is over. I felt the relief hit them like a wave.
"The Fae are gone too." I continued. "Eirlys and fifty warriors died when we broke the prison. The rest retreated. We’re—" I had to stop because the word stuck in my throat. "We’re free. No more fealty oath. No more Fae control. Just us."
Just us. One hundred seven survivors trying to rebuild from ruins.
"We rebuild here." The decision ca out before I’d fully thought it through. "This is our ho. Our territory. We don’t abandon it because the Fae destroyed buildings. We rebuild stronger. Better. Together."
Together. Right. Because that was what we did. Survived together.
Through the bonds I felt all four mates’ support and that helped even though it didn’t change the fundantal problem that we had ruins and bodies and one hundred thirty-six reasons to feel like a failure.
"Who did we lose?" I had to ask. Had to know which of the forty-three were people I knew. "In the Fae attack. Who—"
"Marcus." Morgana’s voice broke. "He led the defense. Held them off long enough for others to evacuate. He—" She couldn’t finish.
Marcus. Marcus was dead. The wolf who’d coordinated our battles. Who’d believed in the alliance. Who’d stood by through everything.
Dead defending a stronghold while I was sealed in a prison fighting The Root.
The guilt hit so hard I actually swayed and Kael caught before I fell, and through all four bonds I felt my mates holding together while I tried to process that we’d won but lost so much.
"We honor them." My voice ca out broken. "All forty-three. All one hundred thirty-six total. We honor them by rebuilding. By making their sacrifice an sothing."
By making their sacrifice an sothing. Right. Because the alternative was admitting they’d died for nothing.
We had work to do. Ruins to clear. Bodies to bury. An alliance to rebuild.
But first—first I needed to not collapse under the weight of one hundred thirty-six deaths.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’d be the Hybrid Queen they needed.
Tonight I was just going to hold onto my mates and try to rember what it felt like to be alive in a body instead of consciousness fighting in eternal darkness.
We’d survived. All five of us. Together.
That had to be enough.
For now.
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