Zarek winced as he remembered all the times Ash had asked him to make it easy on him. All the times he had told Ash to burn in hell.
Sasha made his way to Thanatos.
"What's to become of him?" Zarek asked.
Themis shrugged. "It's up to Artemis. He belongs to her."
Zarek sighed at that. "Maybe I should have killed him after all."
Astrid used her sleeve to blot at the blood on his face.
"No," her mother said. "What you did for Simi and my daughter along with the mercy you showed Thanatos is why I'm allowing her verdict to stand even though she violated her impartiality oath."
Astrid smiled up at him, but he didn't feel happy with the way things had turned out.
"Come, Astrid," her mother said. "We need to go home."
Zarek couldn't take his eyes off her as those words wedged into his heart like a knife.
Let her go...
He had to.
And yet every molecule of his body was screaming at him to keep her. To reach out and take her hand in his.
"Have you anything to say about that, Dark-Hunter?" her mother asked.
He did, but the words wouldn't come.
Zarek had been strong all his life. He would be strong tonight. He would never bind her to him. It wouldn't be right.
"Sometimes stars do fall to earth."
He heard Acheron's words in his mind. It was true. They did and then they became commonplace like the rest of the dirt on the planet.
His star was one of a kind.
He would never allow her to be like any other. Never allow her to become common or sullied.
No, her place was in the sky. With her family.
With her stinking pet wolf.
Never with him.
"Have a nice life, princess."
Astrid's lips trembled. Her eyes were filled with unshed tears. "You too, Prince Charming."
Her mother took her hand while Sasha collected Thanatos. In the blink of an eye they vanished.
Everything was the way it had been before she came.
And yet nothing was the same.
Zarek stood in the middle of his yard alone. There was no wind. Everything was motionless.
Still.