“So you say.” Safire lifted her chin, eyes flashing. “Where’s your proof?”
What hurt the most wasn’t that Safire didn’t believe Eris. It was that she didn’t care what happened to her.
Of course she doesn’t care,thought Eris, setting Safire’s stolen knife down on the balustrade before turning to leave.
No one had cared what happened to Eris. Because she didn’t matter.
Twenty-Eight
Safire picked up her knife from where it rested on the cold, hard marble. Normally she could see a clear path and take it with decisive action. But ever since she’d met the thief known as the Death Dancer, the path had disappeared and she was stumbling through the murk.
No more.
Safire knew that to sound the alarm—alerting every soldier in the ballroom to Eris’s presence—was to bring a death sentence down on her.
She also knew that tonotsound the alarm was to let a dangerous criminal go free—one who cared more for her own hide than the lives of others.
When Dax promoted her to commandant, Safire took a vow to bring order where there was chaos. To protect innocents from those who wished to do them harm. She was a soldier, first and foremost, and her soldier instincts told her to detain Eris. To stop her from walking away and call for the Lumina soldiers in the ballroom.
So that’s exactly what she did.
Safire turned to find Eris now thrusting aside the curtain, about to step back inside. “The enemy of the Skyweaver is here!” Safire shouted, pointing her knife at the girl in a stolen Lumina uniform. “Arrest her!”
Silence fell over the grand ballroom. Eris froze in place as several soldiers turned toward them, the sound of their blades ringing free of their sheaths.
“If you so much as reach for that spindle in your belt,” whispered Safire, stepping close enough to smell the sea on Eris’s skin, “I won’t hesitate to put this knife in your back.”
“You’ve already put a knife in my back,” said Eris, keeping her gaze on the Lumina—swarming now, running for the balcony they stood on. “What’s one more?”
She let go of the curtain and stepped backward, closer to Safire and the balustrade, as if to put space between her and the enemies coming for her. But there was no escape. Nowhere for her to go.
Raif arrived well ahead of the others, his sword drawn, his mouth curling in a vicious scowl as he pushed back the curtain. He pointed his blade at Eris, his eyes cold and hard as she stepped slowly forward. “Palms up,fiend,” he barked. “Move away from the commandant.”
Several more Lumina arrived, halting behind Raif.
“Lock the doors!” he shouted as they all drew their swords. “The fugitive is on the balcony!”
But Eris couldn’t be confined by things like doors and locks.
She was the Death Dancer.
As the room beyond them exploded in panicked murmurs and shouts, Safire fixed her gaze on the spindle at Eris’s hip, keeping her knife trained on her. The moment Eris reached for it, Safire would have no choice but to...
“Maybe it’s time you took a good, hard look at your allies,” said Eris. She looked up, her gaze catching Safire’s. “Are they heroes or villains? And what does that make you?”
Safire narrowed her eyes.Manipulative until the very end. If Eris thought she could drive a wedge between her and those who’d come to Safire’s aid, she was dead wrong.
“At least I have allies. Who do you have, Eris? No one.”
She expected the thief to smirk. To say something sarcastic and cutting.
Instead, Eris said so softly, only Safire heard: “To think I fancied myself in love with you.”
Those words were like a blow, knocking her backward.
“What?” Safire whispered, lowering her knife.
With Raif screaming commands several paces away, with the soldiers at his back pressing onto the balcony, Eris shot Safire one last look. It was the Death Dancer stripped bare of her confidence and cockiness. It was longing and hurt and regret, all woven together.
