Neeve shakes her head in return and my heart stops for a beat as she lifts the vessel and drinks.
The pain that flashes across Darren’s face is too much to bear, and I tear my gaze from them, turning to Ezzy as she takes the large fruit from Neeve and passes it to me.
Holding out my hands I curl my shaking fingers around it, it’s smooth and warmer than I expected, heated by every palm that held it before mine.
Shit, this is it.
If I drink, there’s no undoing it. I either bond, or I die.
The reality of it crashing in all at once, and panic quickly follows, flooding my thoughts and twisting every possibility.
What if she sees? What if Ahria sees the fire? How it started...?
For one seemingly endless second, I think about passing it on, letting it leave my grip and walk down the mountain with the others who decided they’d rather keep breathing than gamble everything on a bond that might not even take.
But I didn’t climb this mountain to turn away now.
I didn’t survive the Citadel, leave Ashvale, leave Bren, lose Finn and Rowan, only to sit here with the power to make all of it mean something finally within reach and be too afraid to take it.
To make Serrane pay.
To make sure everything I’ve lost hasn’t been for nothing.
Fear churns in my gut, thick and sour, but I swallow against it, because this isn’t only about revenge. It isn’t only about power.
I’ve known since the first time I dreamt of Ahria, since the first time I saw her and felt something crack open inside me, a hollow ache that nothing else has touched since.
Something only she can fill.
There was only ever one choice.
Her.
With a forced exhale I pull to take the plant?—
But it stays caught between us.
Ezzy hasn’t let go; her fingers are still wrapped around the rim.
“Ezzy…” I mutter, tilting my head to look up at her. She doesn’t blink. “Hey, Ezzy, you’ve got to let go.”
I pull again, and this time, her eyes drop to mine and for the first time since she woke, something is there.
Not the blankness. Not the fog. Not that awful, empty place she’s been disappearing into whenever someone asks her to choose.
She’s looking at me.
Really looking.
My heart gives one hard, uneven beat, because I see it a second before I understand it. “No. Don’t?—”
But her decision has already been made.
The vessel lifts.
Her mouth touches the rim.
And Ezzy drinks.
