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He inhaled sharply, shifting on the spot. I could sense his power from here, the steady hum of magic in the surrounding air. “We’ve all made mistakes. You’re no saint either, but we evolve.”
“I don’t pretend to be a saint, unlike you.”
“If you try to stop her from killing Salenia, then youwillbe signing her death sentence. This is bigger than all of us.”
My shoulders tensed, the muscles under my shirt bulging as I thought about punching him for thinking about it. “So, you do know something.”
“The gods want this.”
“Fuck the gods.” I clenched my jaw. The morning sun beamed through the window, creating dancing, shifting shadows around us. It was time to go, but I refused to let anyone out until I had the information I needed. “Tell me what you know, or I will take her away from here right now, and I swear I’ll hide her so well no one will find us.”
He lifted his chin. “I could stop you.”
“Perhaps,” I admitted. “But do you think Olivia would blindly follow you if you did? Despite her plans to go behind my back, she loves me. She won’t leave me behind.”
“You underestimate what she’ll do.”
“For me!” I shouted. “We both know she’d sacrifice herself for all of us and I won’t allow it.”
“Calm down,” he hissed. “I’ll tell you what I know, but I hope you are open to being reasonable.” He examined my expression, then then huffed. “Although that seems unlikely.”
I gritted my teeth. “It depends on how truthful you are.”
He pointed a finger at my chest. “If I didn’t need you to help us, I’d spell your mouth shut for speaking to me like this. Now, are you going to come to the office so we can talk?”
I relented, but watched him carefully as I followed him down the short hallway. I closed the door behind us, thankful knowing that I had Zach on my side, in case Azia tried to trap me in here.”
Azia shot me a look. “Tea?”
“No,” I growled. “Now, get on with it.”
He shook his head, disappointment etched onto his features as if it would have any effect on me. He turned his back, staring into the unlit fireplace, the smell of burning coal still lingering from the night before. “There are hundreds of timelines,” he explained. “But they can change in an instant.”
“What timeline do you see now?” I questioned, my brows drawing closer. “Azia.”
“She will die,” he said, and every muscle in my body tensed, my heartbeat galloping into a race. Before I could turn for the door, his words echoed throughout the room, stilling me. “If she goes with you. If she goes to the castle. If she escapes. The timeline all ends the same way. He fate is sealed.”
“I refuse to accept that.”
“It’s true.”
An icy chill spread over my arms and neck, and the world seemed to drop away from me. “So that’s it? She will die then, no matter what?”
“That is one timeline, the one we are on now. But I believe there is a way to stop it from happening. If you try to escape with her, Salenia will always find her. She’s determined. Olivia will end up dead. I care about her, Vangard,” he said, calling me by my last name, the one most called me at the castle. “I have been looking for ways to save her, and I am telling you, without all of us together helping her, she won’t have a chance. I need you to trust me, for her sake.”
“I’m getting her out of here.”
“She’ll be dead in a week.”
I wanted to not believe him, but if he was right, I couldn’t take the chance. “Then what’s your plan?”
“We go up against Salenia together.”
I inhaled deeply, holding the breath in my lungs as I worked through the sheet of numbness in my mind. “If she’s the only threat,” I said on an exhale, “then I will kill her.”
“Nobody can kill her, but Olivia.”
“Bullshit. Fuck the prophecy. There has to be another way.”
