“I brought them here! It’s nearly time, old friend,” I admitted.
A muscle in Rohak’s jaw feathered, and I swore I heard a tooth crack.
“I am no friend of yours, traitor,” he growled, and I smiled.
Good. He needs to hate me. Though the hate cracked a piece of my heart—the only soft piece I kept alive strictly for Rohak d’Alvey.
“I am. A traitor, that is,” I pushed, needing to goad him into fighting me. “I was never loyal to you, never loyal to Vespera. My loyalty has always belonged to Fate and his machinations.”
Rohak frowned hard, his hand clenching and unclenching around the hilt of his sword.
“Fight me,” I whispered. “You know you want to.”
“I don’t wish you harm,” he spat.
My smile faltered slightly, hearing the truth in his words. Hedidn’twant to hurt me, but I needed him to.
“Faylinn dies if you don’t,” I said and saw the color drain from his olive skin before he schooled expression again.
“I don’t care,” he said, and I didn’t even need to use my power to hear the falseness of his words.
“Lie,” I whispered, and Rohak roared in rage, pushing himself back from me as he raised his sword.
I swept my own from my scabbard, the metal ringing through the night, as I fell into a relaxed but ready position. It was like the thousand times Rohak and I sparred at the Academy. But this time, there were no blunt edges, no Mages to step in and halt the fight if it became too much; only the hurt that hung between us and the promise of blood and death.
I love you, Rohak, I thought as he raised his sword above his head and brought it down to meet my own, the strength of his strike reverberating through my arm as the clash of steel on steel mixed with the cacophony of magical battle.
I had to die tonight, but not yet.
Just a little bit longer.
Chapter 91
Ellowyn
Until the day I die, I will remember the absolutely terrified look on Torin’s face. My petty rage at his disappearance evaporated in an instant when I saw the widening of his eyes and the shake of his hands.
The former general of the Last Keeper’s army, the king of the rebellion, agodling—if Faylinn’s assumptions were correct—was afraid of what would happen if Solace or Kaos caught me.
Something traitorous and forbidden warmed my heart—he feared for me.
Not for himself.
Not for the lives of the rebels he so carefully cultivated and trained.
For me.
Aside from my brother, he was theonlyone who had ever worn that expression, had ever put my safety first.
So when he told me to run, I didn’t think twice. I simply ducked my chin to my chest and sprinted away from the front line as fast as my feet would carry me. Leal, Talamh, and Tine were in hot pursuit, each of us leaping over the bodies of the fallen and dodging the active fighting happening around us. Igot hit with a wayward water wave, the remnants of the attack sweeping me momentarily from my feet, and I hit the bloodied concrete with an audible smack, my head bouncing off the unforgiving surface.
I lay still for a moment, my ears ringing with the telltale feeling of blood seeping from a wound in my forehead, and tried to get my bearings. Only, I opened my eyes to stare into the lifeless orbs of a young cadet. Her eyes stared unseeing, her throat slashed, blood still oozing slowly from the wound. Gasping, I scrambled away from her corpse, only to lose my grip again, the dark pool of blood underneath me causing my limbs to slip and slide.
Fuck. Fuck.
I didn’t know her well, but we worked together a few times when first learning to control our magics. She was young—forcibly Awakened at the age of seventeen—and my heart hurt for her, but I couldn’t let the pain occupy any of my thoughts. If I did, I was sure I’d succumb to the emotions roiling just beneath the surface.
If that happened, I was worse than dead.
