Page 70 of Fallacies

Alaric’s brows rise as if he interprets my offer as a challenge. The flames in front of me lower, Pax and Phoenix likely thinking I’ve got some escape plan drummed up and just need clearance through the flames, but all I have is a willingness to burn this whole place to the ground. This whole world.

I have a willingness to trek through Onyile, find Alaric’s physical body, and skin him alive. If I could mess with Rogue minds the way I can do the Sol, I’d take every memory of his away except for the feeling of his death and me being the last face he saw. If he takes her from me, I will find a way to end his miserable, immortal existence. I’ll make sure he spends eternity paying for it.

“Anything?” Alaric taunts, yellow eyes raking over Lucina with an edge of curiosity that boils my blood. “You’d pay the price of anything for…this?” His laughter is dark and wicked as it rumbles from his chest. Looking over at her again, Alaric tsks, “You’ve got them all fooled, don’t you?”

She doesn’t say a word, but her eyes lock with mine across the low line of flames.

“Anything,” I repeat, my pulse thumping in my ears, the beat of my heart wild behind my lungs. “Name it.”

The dagger twists, a hairsbreadth away from the beading of her dress, and still she doesn’t blink. It’s as if she’s accepted it, but I simply won’t. Can’t. There’s no world where I survive the slip of that dagger.

“Chaos,” I plead with her, my voice breaking. I’m not even sure what I’m begging her for, but I know it hurts. I know it will be a million times worse if that smoke breaks her skin. The dagger sharpens, and Alaric’s smile grows wider.

“Anything!” I scream, but all it serves is his amusement, another laugh on his pale lips. “You can have anything!” Just not her.

“Yes, yes, I know,” Alaric drawls, nodding as if the statement is redundant. I’m forced to watch—completely powerless—as he prowls behind Lucina. “But what I want, Captain, what I really want.” He pauses just behind her shoulder, raking his gaze down her figure before looking back at me. “Is her.”

My heart drops.

“As foul as she is.”

“Lucina,” I beg, but her expression remains solemn, her vacant eyes avoiding mine. “Fuck.” Shrugging off my jacket, I find that I’m still being suffocated. I still can’t fucking think.

She’s right there. Right in front of me. And I can’t get to her.

I should have known she’d do anything to save Kimber. Lucina would never hesitate for her friends. Maybe not even for a stranger. But I hate that the thing I love the most about her might be the very reason I lose her.

“Baby,” my voice breaks, “what—” I look around as if I might find some last-minute way out of this, “What have you done?”

As soon as the words leave my lips, Lucina…evaporates.

The image of her fades, leaving the dagger poised at nothing. Alaric roars, a grating sound that splinters through the Yard, and then his body slumps lifeless to the ground.

By the time he hits the dirt, it’s Ceres that lies there instead. And Lucina, my Lucina—her flesh and bones—stands behind her, chest heaving as she looks back at me.

“I was buying us time,” she exhales.

An illusion.

A fucking fantastic one.

My gaze drops to her outstretched hand, to what she’d pulled out of Alaric’s grip, and I almost don’t believe what I’m seeing. The blue of the stone is unmistakable, even as it reflects off the orange hue of the flames around her.

Ceres had an Eldral? The thought is incomprehensible. How?

Tears well in Lucina’s eyes within the three steps it takes to get to her. Pax and Phoenix cut the fire, the former taking off in the direction of Lucina’s friends while I surge across the last of the dying embers and yank her towards me as soon as I’m close enough.

She’s warm in my arms, heart beating in her chest, but she’s safe and alive and out of harm’s way. Away from that knife and the monster threatening to use it.

“I thought that was you,” I breathe against her forehead, a hand fisted in her hair as I walk her away from Ceres’s body. “Gods, Lucina, I thought that was you.”

“That was kinda the point,” she says softly, pulling out of my grip to wipe her tears away. She stares down at the wetness on her fingers and scowls.

Taking her face in my hands, I rush to kiss her, needing the familiarity of it. Needing to fill my senses with her smell, her taste, the bones beneath her skin. I’m so godsdamn tired of nearly losing her.

My hands slide from her face to her neck, breaking the sweet contact to check the dilation of her pupils. “Are you okay?” I scan her trembling frame. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” she replies, but her voice is shaky. “It’s adrenaline, I think. I’m okay.” Lucina’s teeth begin to chatter, her stunned stare falling to the large sapphire in her hands. She keeps her palm open, as if she’s afraid to even wrap her fingers around it.