I stop torturing myself, closing my eyes so she doesn’t have to bear the brunt of my vacant stare once the deed is done.
“Do it,” I growl, leaning into the cool press of the blades.
I don’t bother begging her to love Raeve. To care for her or protect her. The fact that she’s taken this burden upon herself tells me she’ll do everything in her power to keep Raeve from shattering.
“Look at me, mate of my Precious One …”
A pained lament moves up my throat, but I do as she says. Only to see those flaming wings stretched so wide and proud I can almost picture her asherself.
“When you see Raeve, tell her that my heart still beats with hers.” Her cheeks fill with a melancholy smile. “And that I’m waiting for her to come to me.”
“Wh—”
Slátra closes her eyes, and those flaming wings sputter before a silver shimmer tangles around both her hands. Something I’ve seen before … when we were in Bothaim.
She jolts, then gasps; the heaved breath of someone starved. When she opens her eyes again, they’re bold, startling blue—focusing, scanning me with frantic haste, slitting across the arena, the crowd.
Me again.
Relief softens her gaze, warms her face. And ithurts.A punch to the ribs that almost caves them in. Because although this iseverything—seeing Raeve iseverything—I’d hoped she wouldn’t be the one to have to end me.
She drops the swords to the heckling tune of a disgruntled crowd, and panic flares.
“Raeve—”
She steps close, grips both sides of my face, then kisses me—hard.
Soft.
Everything in between.
Her lips and tongue taste like embers—something I don’t question as I fall apart beneath her spell, like being serenaded during a war.
Quietly, I pray she’ll do it now. Slip a dagger through my heart while I’m tangled with her, in the only spot I’d happily die.
She pulls away, tilts my head until our foreheads are pressed together, then looks at me with an aching abundance of …of—
“I love you, too,” she pledges with such assertive poise, it’s like she’s slamming a stake in the ground and hoisting a flag atop it. “And you havenothingto be sorry about.”
I struggle to catch any air in the wake of her declaration, opening my mouth to speak—
Everything shudders, rumbling in synchrony with panicked screams from the crowd, like something huge just hammered the mountain from above.
Like amoonfall.
Raeve’s eyes widen, and I look over her shoulder, up past Arkyn’s terrace. Even he scans the distant ceiling etched in glowing runes supposed toprotectagainst the moonfalls.
Another full-mountain shake causes a storm of squeals and cries.
I push to my feet, wobbling. Frown when I sense a flicker within myself, right where Rygun’s flame sits. A single pulsing flicker that seeps through my veins like a glug of warmth.
The tonic’s burning off again …
Raeve spins, giving me her back. “Put your arms around me.”
I do as she says, flattening my hands against her abdomen, aching with the closeness as I ask against her ear, “What are you doing, Moonbeam?”
“Ending this,” she grits out—confident.
