“Can I get some time?” I ask. “I-I need to read this by myself.”
For a second, they don’t answer, then they file out together.
The door closes behind them with a gentle thud that’s drowned out by my pounding heart. Once I open this journal, I’ll know how Malach feels about me, and I’m fucking terrified.Don’t be a coward.
Determined, I activate my runes and trace the cover. It becomes pliant in my hands, and I open it with shaking fingers.
My truth,
I don’t know how to journal, but there are many things I long to tell you. For both our sakes, pretend that I wrote and sent these letters long ago. Imagine I was strong enough to tell you this story when it would have mattered. Braver, cleverer. The partner you deserved. But whatever you do, Celine, I beg you, cling tight to this—the truth that remains as unchanging as the eternal beyond:
I love you.
More than our homeland.
More than my radiant word.
I love you morethan life itself.
I’ve failed us in many ways. In knowing who to trust. How to fight back. When to follow the old ways and when to forge my own path.
But gods alive and dead, my truth—I have loved you every day since we met, and I will love you when no more days remain. After the stars burn out, when our names are long forgotten, and when time itself disappears—I will love you still.
And because of that, I must tell you this: the story of the only lie I ever told you.
“Damn you, Malach.” I brush my tears away and turn the page, my heart and mind racing.
There’s a drop of blood on the bottom right corner. It seeped through the paper, staining the next sheet, too. Holding my place with my finger, I flip through the rest of the journal quickly, a sinking terror settling within me.
The deeper I go, the more bloodstains I find.
Gritting my teeth, I return to the beginning and read, noting everything Malach wrote down and everything he didn’t have to. The drops of blood, the way some words are carved so deeply into the page that they almost tore through the paper.
A chilling rage builds inside me.
My wings burst from my back, and I stand, pulling them away from the upholstery before I can repay Sheena’s hospitality by setting her home on fire.
Malach is absurd. He’s more than brave enough. More than clever enough.
As I feared, my second worry is the one that came true: I’m not good enough for him. But I’ll be damned if he ends up like my mother and becomes another casualty to my father’s brutality.
I reach the end of the journal, place it carefully on the end of the bed, and charge toward the door. I no longer care aboutLyklan’s intentions; all that matters are mine. My purpose is unchanged. I finally have the means to get it done, and I won’t waste another second.
I find them in the hall, waiting for me.
“Well?” Alistair asks, the blue of his eyes replaced by boiling red as he tracks the tearstains on my cheeks.
“I need weapons and a ride,” I say. “And I need them now.”
TWENTY-NINE
Unspoken Rule of the Fringes #29:
Loyalty is earned. It can’t be bought.
LUCA
Celine is on fire. Smoke curls up from her wings; orange, hungry flames licking at the doorframe. If we’re not careful, we’re about to find out if this colossal compound has a working sprinkler system.
