Chapter 194 Chapter 194

Chapter 194 Chapter 194
Merrick
I’m covered in warm, dark blood from my elbows to my shoulders when it hits me.
It doesn't start as a thought. It smashes into me like a physical blow to the chest. The heavy, muted wall I’d forced up across our mate bond shatters into a million glowing shards, and a sudden, violent wave of pure, golden light floods my veins. 
It tears through my chest, searing through the exhaustion and the iron-scent of the cavern, anchoring itself right into the center of my soul.
A new tether. Wild, golden, and unbreakable.
She’s here.
My daughter. Hope is here.
My knees buckle, my heavy boots sliding in the gory mud of the mine floor as I drop to one knee. My broadsword slips from my fingers, clattering against the stone. I grab my chest, gasping for air as tears cut clean tracks through the black soot and blood caked on my face. Through the brand-new bond, I feel it- a tiny, fragile heartbeat fluttering like a bird's wing, wrapped in Jo’s exhausted, fierce warmth.
"Merrick?" Julian snaps, rushing over and grabbing my shoulder armour, his eyes wide with sudden alarm as he scans the dark cavern. "What is it? Did a shadow caster catch you?"
"She's born," I choke out, my voice thick and raspy, a breathless, hysterical laugh tearing from my throat. I look up at him. "She's alive and well, Julian. Jo did it. Hope is here."
The vampire’s harsh, hard eyes soften, a broad, relieved grin breaking across his pale white face. "A princess of the North. Go on then, King, get back to the palace, we can finish up here."
Enoch is howling in my head, a triumphant, deafening roar that demands I run through the mines, and slog in the mud straight back to the Moon Temple. Every cell in my body aches to drop my blade and sprint for the palace doors.
"No. I cannot go back until I know my daughter will be safe. We’ll finish clearing the cavern first," I growl, forcing myself back onto my feet, my hand gripping my sword hilt so hard the iron groans. "I am not leaving a single one of them alive."
We move through the mines like a storm, but the fight has already gone out of the enemy. 
The moment Nathaniel’s Vanguard breached the upper shafts, they realised the same thing we did. The humans couldn't be saved - the magic had eaten too deep into their flesh, corrupting their cores beyond repair. 
It was a mercy when my warriors put them to the sword, cutting the living batteries free and severing the catalyst's power source in one swift, bloody stroke.
Without the human life force feeding the well, the purple vortex imploded, leaving the vast stone chamber reeking of ozone and dead magic.
At the far end of the cavern, huddled against the collapsed iron ore of the rear wall, we find him.
Lysander.
The ancient Fae lord looks pathetic. The arrogant, untouchable creature who has tormented my mate and haunted my realm is on his knees, clutching his chest. He’s utterly drained, weakened by the sheer volume of dark magic he funneled into the catalyst, his skin grey and translucent, his once-brilliant silver eyes dim and hollowed out, his white hair has gone grey, and deep wrinkles cut into his once youthful face.
I step toward him, my heavy iron boots crunching over shattered stone. Enoch snarls low and dangerous, demanding I take his head off right here in the mud. I raise my broadsword, leveling the point directly at his throat.
"Do it, Blackwood," Lysander sneers, a weak, bloody cough shaking his slender frame. "Strike me down. You know as well as I do that my soul will simply slip into the ether and reform in another body. I will come back. I always do."
It will buy us time. Maybe even generations. Hope will be safe for a while.
Before my blade can sever Lysander’s neck, a sharp, golden flare of light illuminates the cavern entrance.
Atlas steps into the chamber, flanked by Apollo and Astraea. Walking directly behind them is the old, hooded sorcerer, the rogue magic caster Atlas brought to unweave the brand from Jo's womb.
"Hold your blade, King," Atlas commands, his deep voice echoing off the vaulted stone ceiling.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't take his head off right now," I snarl, not dropping my sword an inch. "He’s weak. It ends here."
"It doesn't end, Merrick, you know that," Apollo says softly, stepping up beside me, the heat radiating from his skin drying the blood on my armor. "A Fae lord of his stature cannot be destroyed by iron or silver alone. If you sever his head, his essence will wander and find a new host."
“It will buy us time,” I say.
"We have a way to kill him permanently," Astraea adds, her bell-like voice ringing cool and absolute in the dark cavern. "The sorcerer has mapped the binding runes. Together, the Ultimas and the sorcerer can unravel his immortal tether once and for all. But we are missing something."
I narrow my eyes, glancing at the ancient, silent sorcerer hovering at Atlas’s elbow. "What is it?"
"Athena," Atlas says, his jaw tightening with dark annoyance. "We need our sister. Athena. It takes all four Ultimas working in unison with the sorcerer's unweaving spell to permanently destroy a Fae Lord.”
“Athena is hiding with the Cabal,” Apollo informs me, “but we are linked and we will find her, then we will drag her back with us."
"And in the meantime?" I ask, glaring down at Lysander, who is watching us with a faint, nervous twitch in his jaw.
"In the meantime, he goes back to your dungeons," Atlas smirks. "The sorcerer will bind him in his cell. It will take Lysander years, decades even, to recharge his magic. He won't be escaping this time."
The sorcerer steps forward, raising a thin, gnarled hand. A series of glowing, pale blue runes erupt from his fingertips, wrapping around Lysander's neck and wrists like heavy, suffocating iron chains. The fae gasps, collapsing flat onto his face as the magical bind locks his remaining power away.
"Put him in iron," I order Julian. "Just to be sure.”
At long last, we march out of the hollowed mountain into the crisp, freezing air of the valley pass.
Halfway down the ridge, we meet up with Nathaniel and Valerius. Nathaniel’s warriors are bloody but intact, and Valerius stands at the treeline, his fox-fur cloak dusted with blood, his broadsword resting over his shoulder. The Eastern pass is clear. Not a single shadow-caster escaped.
"The mountain is ours, boy," Valerius rumbles, offering a grim, approving nod as he sees the bound form of Lysander behind us. "And I hear congratulations are in order."
I don't waste time boasting, and I can leave the cleanup to my warriors.
With the bound Fae lord secured in iron chains between four Vanguard warriors, we start to march back through the thawing pines toward the palace. The sky above the eastern peaks is just beginning to streak with the faint, golden pink of dawn.
Every stride brings me closer to the palace, closer to the Moon Temple. The blood on my skin, the war at our gates, and the threat of the Cabal fade into background noise against the roaring, beautiful heat of the new bond pulsing in my chest.
We have won this day, and I can bask in the glory of a beautiful, bright new bond forming in my heart.