His eyes, dark as the void between stars, flicked to hers. “I told you I was no servant. I was not humoring you. And I’m considering the options. Both have merit.”

  She scoffed. “I’ll add ‘procrastinating’ to the list, then.”

  Osiris paced another circuit, his movements sharp, restless, like an animal caught in a snare. “I can’t remember everything,” he said suddenly, low and raw. “There are flashes–your face, your laughter, the way you used to look at me like I was the only soul in creation. Then nothing. Just . . . fire, chains, and the endless weight of the dead. I know I lost myself. I know I lost you. But,” he broke off, hands fisting at his sides. “What do you want from me, Kimba?”

  She stepped closer, refusing to let him pull away physically or emotionally. “I want honesty. I want to know what you want, Osiris. Because I can’t do this half-life any longer. My soul is your soul. It always has been, even when you forgot. Even when you let the darkness take you.” She let out a harsh breath as she shored up her defenses to prepare herself to reveal what she considered to be weakness. Kimba didn’t want to show him any vulnerability or weakness but that’s what soul bonded did. “Because I’ve asked for honesty, then I will honor you with the same. When you left, and I realized you weren’t coming back, I lost it. My sanity was slipping away, and it was hurting other soul bonded. So, Serpheron used his magic to give me the ability to shift and brought me into the dragon realm. Their magic shielded me from the pain of losing you. I had to give up my purpose because, without you, I couldn’t function. Now, all these centuries later, the pain has returned, but I know that I have the strength to at least fight for what light is left in this world. It will end me to do so. It will be my final act as the fifth elemental royal, but it will be worth it. It is not what I want, but I will do it nonetheless. So, I ask again, what do you want?”

  At first he seemed taken aback by her admission, but then his face contorted into the mask of indifference she’d come to be acquainted with. He snorted, lips curling into something like a sneer. “What do I want? I want peace. I want to be free of this . . . ache. I want to not care. I spent centuries without needing anyone, Kimba. I made myself that way. And you,” his gaze burned into hers, fierce and wounded, “now here you are, the only one who has ever broken through. The only one who has ever made me want more. You may be okay with needing me, but I sure as hell don’t want to need anyone. My strength and power come from my own will.”

  Kimba’s laugh was brittle, sharp. “You want peace? Then you should have stayed in the darkness. You can’t have peace and a mate, Osiris. You can’t have peace and purpose. You have to choose. Because while you sit here licking your wounds, the world burns and the bond that could save it, save us, weakens with every minute you refuse to accept who you are.”

  He moved toward her, something predatory and desperate in the way he closed the distance. “And what about you, Queen? You say you want me, but you walked away, too. You left me to the underworld. You let me forget.”

  She bristled, chin lifting. “Don’t you dare lay your mistakes at my feet. I would have torn the world apart to save you. But you locked me out, Osiris. You locked yourself away.”

  He was close now, their bodies nearly touching, the air between them charged and electric. “So what, Kimba? You want me to say it? To admit that I need you? That I miss you? That the only reason I chased after Shelly was because she was a pale echo of what my soul was screaming for?”

  She felt the words like a punch, and she was wounded and vindicated all at once. “I want you to stop running from me. From us. I want you to accept that you are my mate, and I am yours. Because if you don’t, if we keep going like this, we’re both lost. And the world goes with us.”

  He stared at her, breathing hard, the muscles in his jaw working as if he was swallowing every stubborn, prideful word he wanted to throw in her face.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” he admitted, voice rough. “I don’t know how to be who you need.”

  Her eyes shimmered, not with tears, but with fury and longing. “Then learn. Or let me go. But stop standing in the doorway of your own damn fate.”

  Kimba turned, every muscle taut with anger, betrayal, and a love that refused to die, even when it should have. She didn’t look back as she strode from the cave, but her words hung in the air, sharp, impossible, and true.

  “Decide, Osiris. Before there’s nothing left for either of us to save.”

  She shifted mid-stride, letting the dragon take her, and launched herself into the sky, leaving her mate, and her heart, behind in the cold, echoing silence.

  Osiris stood in the cave’s mouth, watching the horizon where Kimba had vanished, feeling the echo of her pain thrumming through his bones. The bond between them ached—raw, incomplete, louder now than it had been in centuries. He cursed himself for missing her, for needing her, for not knowing how to reach for her again.

  The air changed, growing thick, resonant, as if the world itself were drawing a breath. Light and shadow twisted, and then she came—Mother Gaia, the beginning and the end. She was a silhouette of a woman, every form of nature swirling around her like a cloak—petals, vines, sunlight, rain, feathers, and stone. She was the first memory of comfort, the last word before silence.

  “Osiris,” she said, and her voice was the rumble of mountains and the hush of the forest floor.

  He collapsed to his knees beneath the weight of her presence, all pride stripped away.

  He tried to summon his old bravado, but it slid off him like water on stone. “Why have you come?” he managed, his voice cracked and hollow. “To remind me of what I’ve destroyed?”

  “Not destroyed,” Gaia whispered, kneeling so her swirling form was nearly eye-level. “Forgotten. Let me help you remember.”

  She reached for him, and the world spun out from under his feet. He wasn’t the king of the underworld. He was young, wild, whole—his soul blazing in harmony with Kimba’s. He felt her hand in his, the bond between them as natural as breathing. There was a time when he had known his place in the world, when he and Kimba had danced in the heart of the elemental circle, the axis around which everything turned.

  “Remember,” Gaia said, and the word was a key in a rusted lock. “The fifth element—the soul—was not simply another power. It was the keeper. The cleanser. The one that brought balance, held the lines, kept every piece of the world where it belonged.”

  He remembered the feeling: how light poured through him when he’d stood with Kimba, how they had reached into places where the darkness had begun to take root—old battlefields, grieving villages, the underbelly of cities. Together, they had swept the shadows away, restoring what was broken. Only the soul bonded could cleanse corruption so deeply, only they could knit the world back together when it began to fracture.

  He saw himself, Kimba’s fingers laced in his, standing at the boundary between life and death. There had been two realms then, and the division was clear. Souls passed peacefully to their rightful rest, the darkness kept at bay by the power they shared.

  Mother Gaia’s voice grew sharper, edged with grief. “When you fell, Osiris—when you let the darkness seep in and forgot who you were, what you were for—the boundaries split. The underworld fractured, not by design, but by the loss of your purpose. Seven levels now, each a distortion, each a failure to keep evil contained and the innocent shielded. The undeserving suffer. The worthy are lost.”

  He gasped at the vision: places of torment layered atop one another, the walls between them thin and ragged, shadows bleeding through, souls trapped where they did not belong.

  “You were the axis,” Gaia murmured, her hand cool against his cheek, “the center that held everything in its rightful place. Without you and Kimba, the world cannot be whole. Only the soul bonded can heal what’s broken, cleanse what’s been consumed, restore what’s been lost.”

  She let him feel it—what it was to be half a soul, adrift, powerless. The ache of it was worse than any torment in hell. He saw the future, if he refused to choose: a world crumbling, darkness seeping into every crack, no gatekeeper to hold it back. Kimba’s light flickered in the distance, unreachable, and the bond between them was a wound that would never close.

  “Do you see, now?” Gaia’s voice was fierce, wild as a storm. “You were never meant to rule alone. The fifth element is the sum of all—life and death, hope and despair, the last defense against what waits in the dark. It is not a crown. It is a responsibility, a bond, and a promise.”

  Osiris shuddered, feeling the truth of it down to his bones. He remembered the feeling of Kimba beside him, the power they’d shared, the way the world had fit together when they were whole. The ache of her absence was a chasm, a hollowness he could not fill with pride or darkness or power.

  “How do I return?” he asked, voice rough with longing and shame. “How do I become what I was?”

  Mother Gaia smiled, sad and bright as dawn. “You do not return. You move forward. You choose. You reach for her. Love is not a reward. It is a gift. One that you choose to exchange with one another. You let the bond heal you, and through you, heal the world. You remember who you were—not a king, but a keeper. Not a ruler, but a soul.”

  She rose, dissolving into wind and petals, her words curling around him like roots, like hope.

  “Only together can you cleanse the darkness. Only together can you make the world whole.”

  And as she faded, Osiris felt the first stirrings of the fifth element within him—a light, fragile and fierce, calling for its other half.

  He pressed a trembling hand to his heart, and for the first time in centuries, he knew what it was to want—not power, not dominion, but wholeness. The world needed him. Kimba needed him. And, finally, painfully, he needed her, too.

  He let hope burn, small and stubborn, in the shadowed hollow of his soul.

  CHAPTER 6

  “It seems that no matter how old I am, I continue to learn new things. And just when I think I know everything I need to, I am proven wrong.” ~Nasima, light air queen.

  Two days had passed since the meeting with the council, and Nasima was already exhausted. She and the rest of the royals had been sent back to their realms to prepare for war. Her mate, Beval, was currently working with the air elemental warriors. Her own task was different, but every bit as important.

  Nasima didn’t have to guess where she’d find Collin, her current human guest. The brother of the now deceased witch, Danni, had grown quite fond of Nasima’s servant, Cybil, a charming and beautiful air elemental. Collin often followed the woman around like a faithful puppy. His infatuation was cute, but any union between the pair would be ill-fated. Collin’s mortal life would end long before Cybil’s immortal one. Only pain could come from such a relationship. Cybil would be forced to watch the male she loved grow old, or face illness and disease to which she was immune. And while Collin aged, Cybil would remain vibrant and beautiful, untouched by the hands of time. He would gradually begin to look like her father, her grandfather, and if he lived long enough, her great grandfather. No. It wouldn’t do for them to take their feelings any further than friendship. There was enough anguish in life, especially for humans. Collin didn’t need to add to his own by chasing after a piece of forbidden fruit.

  Pushing away her somber thoughts, the air queen sought the mind of her servant. Nasima found Cybil in the room of history. She opened a portal to the room and entered silently. She smiled when she saw Collin flipping through an ancient manuscript while surreptitiously stealing glances at the female air elemental who was practically floating about the space. The woman moved with inhuman grace as she walked from one side of the room to the other, searching the shelves for books that could hopefully shed light on the rightful ruler of the underworld, and possibly what they could expect from the demons running amok in the human realm.

  Nasima cleared her throat, and Cybil immediately turned to face her.

  Cybil bowed her head. “My queen.”

  Collin quickly stood, shoving his chair backward so hastily that it almost toppled. He, too, bowed his head. “Queen Nasima, it is good to see you again.”

  “Likewise, Collin.” She offered him a small tilt of her head. “I see Cybil has recruited you to assist in her research.”

  His face flushed as his eyes shifted to the elemental in question and then flicked back to Nasima. “I, uh, figured I had nothing going on at the moment. Might as well help where I can.”

  The air queen nodded. “I am sorry you cannot return to the human realm as we’d planned.” She moved to the table where he’d been sitting. She counted fifteen books stacked on the table, several of them lying open with their contents on display. Nasima noted the dates on some of the pages, not surprised to find that Cybil had gone far back into their history, no doubt hoping to find information from before Osiris took over the underworld. She looked back up at Collin and clasped her hands in front of her. “With the release of the demons, it is not safe for you in the human realm. And when we brought you here, it was to ensure your safety.”

  He nodded and shifted from one leg to the other. “I understand. But I can’t just sit around doing nothing,” he told her. “I may not be any help in saving the world, considering I don’t wield any magic. But this”—he motioned to the books—“is something I can do.”

  “Actually”—Nasima smiled—“there is another way you can assist us.” She noticed Cybil step toward the human male. When Nasima looked at her, the queen saw worry in her servant’s eyes. “Do not fret, Cybil,” she told her softly. “I will not put him in danger.” The air elemental blushed but didn’t respond. Nasima looked back at Collin. “Rory.” She said the young witch’s name pointedly and paused, waiting for his reaction. He didn’t disappoint. Collin’s eyebrows rose, and his lips drew tight across his face. “How well do you know your niece?”

  He reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose as his eyes closed tightly. When he opened them again, she saw turmoil rolling in their depths like a hurricane. He started to speak, but his voice was rough, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “I honestly didn’t know her well. Danni, my sister, kept Rory isolated from those she deemed unhelpful to Rory’s upbringing.” Nasima didn’t miss the disapproval that filled his voice. “When the girl first showed up at the coven, I questioned Danni about her. I mean”—he shook his head—“she went from being childless to suddenly having a ten-year-old daughter overnight.”

  “And what did she say when you inquired about the child?” Nasima asked. She leaned her hip against the table and folded her arms across her chest.

  He chuckled bitterly. “She told me to mind my own business.” Collin’s posture grew rigid. “Danni enjoyed putting people in their place. Considering she was the high priestess of the coven, that meant everyone else’s place was beneath her.”

  “Was Rory confused?” Nasima asked. “After all, by ten years of age, a child knows who her family is and where she should live.”

  “Every now and then, on the rare occasions I saw her, she looked lost. Like a kid in a store suddenly realizing her parents were nowhere to be seen. But Danni was never far away. And as soon as she noticed the look on Rory’s face, she would suggest that Rory wasn’t feeling good and that she needed some warm tea to help with the supposed ailment.” He frowned. “It was as if my sister’s words held power over the girl. And,”he pursed his lips and appeared to be searching his mind,“there were times I wondered if there was something in the tea that affected Rory’s memory.”

  The air queen narrowed her eyes on him. “Why didn’t you intervene?” Nasima hadn’t tried to sound so accusatory, but her tone was a bit sharp even to her own ears.

  Collin’s jaw clenched as he met her gaze. “Do not mistake my inaction for lack of empathy. I was concerned. But going against Danni was akin to declaring war on the coven. She was ruthless. Her thirst for power mattered more than any relationship, blood or not. My sister would have cursed me if I’d attempted to step between her and the plans she had for my niece.” He shook his head and then abruptly slumped down into the chair behind him. “I’m not proud of myself. She was just a kid, and I left her in the hands of a monster.”

  Nasima pulled out the chair across from him and lowered herself into it. She rested her forearms on the top and leaned forward. “How old were you when Rory was ten?”

  “Eighteen,” he answered.

  “You were just a kid yourself then,” she pointed out. “I should have considered that before I asked you about your involvement.”

  “It doesn’t matter how old I was,” he snapped. “I should have done something. I knew Rory wasn’t her child. Unless she’d shacked up with some random guy ten years prior, had a kid and left it with him, there was no way she belonged to Danni.”

  Cybil walked over and took the remaining chair next to Collin. She rested a hand on his shoulder. “You cannot change the past,” she said in her soft voice. “But you can make different choices for the future.”

  “When I returned yesterday, I mentioned to you that Rory was in the dragon realm during the Dark Heart battle,” Nasima said. “I didn’t have time to discuss her then, but now, I need to know if there is anything you can tell us that might shed some light on what she actually is. Rory was raised and trained as a witch, but there is more to her than that, more to her story.”

  His brow drew low and his face took on a look of pain as he grimaced. His hands fisted where they rested on the table. “The more I think back to that time, the more I feel like there’s something I’m missing,” he admitted. “It’s like there’s blank spots in my memory. Maybe that’s why I didn’t ask you about Rory yesterday. When you said her name, it honestly barely registered. But now that you’re speaking about her, and asking me questions,” Collin hissed and grabbed his forehead, “my brain feels like bolts of lightning are raining down on it.”