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“What if it turned on you—what if you took too much and ripped yourself to shreds instead?”
“I was working on getting my hands on an antidote.” Hunt shrugged. “But I’ve already confessed to everything, so spare me the interrogation.”
Isaiah banged a hand on the cell bars. Wind howled in the corridor around him. “You couldn’t have let it go, couldn’t serve and prove yourself and—”
“I tried to stop it, for fuck’s sake. I was on that barge because I realized …” He shook his head. “It makes no difference at this point. But I did try. I saw that footage of what it really did to someone who took it, and even with an antidote, it was too fucking dangerous. But Justinian and Vik refused to quit. By the time Vik gave the Viper Queen the gold, I just wanted us to go our separate ways.”
Isaiah shook his head in disgust.
Hunt spat, “You might be able to accept the bit in your mouth, but I never will.”
“I don’t,” Isaiah hissed. “But I have a reason to work for my freedom, Hunt.” A flash of his eyes. “I thought you did, too.”
Hunt’s stomach twisted. “Bryce had nothing to do with this.”
“Of course she didn’t. You shattered her fucking heart in front of everyone. It was obvious she had no idea.”
Hunt flinched, his chest aching. “Micah won’t go after her to—”
“No. You’re lucky as fuck, but no. He won’t crucify her to punish you. Though don’t be naïve enough to believe the thought didn’t cross his mind.”
Hunt couldn’t stop his shudder of relief.
Isaiah said, “Micah knows that you tried to stop the deal. Saw the messages between you and Justinian about it. That’s why they’re in the lobby right now and you’re here.”
“What’s he going to do with me?”
“He hasn’t declared it yet.” His face softened slightly. “I came down to say goodbye. Just in case we can’t later on.”
Hunt nodded. He’d accepted his fate. He’d tried, and failed, and would pay the price. Again.
It was a better end than the slow death of his soul as he took one life after another for Micah. “Tell her I’m sorry,” Hunt said. “Please.”
At the end of the day, despite Vik and Justinian, despite the brutal end that would come his way, it was the sight of Bryce’s face that haunted him. The sight of the tears he’d caused.
He’d promised her a future and then brought that pain and despair and sorrow to her face. He’d never hated himself more.
Isaiah’s fingers lifted toward the bars, as if he’d reach for Hunt’s hand, but then lowered back to his side. “I will.”
“It’s been three days,” Lehabah said. “And the Governor hasn’t announced what he’s doing with Athie.”
Bryce looked up from the book she was reading in the library. “Turn off that television.”
Lehabah did no such thing, her glowing face fixed on the tablet’s screen. The news footage of the Comitium lobby and the now-rotting corpse of the triarii soldier crucified there. The blood-crusted glass box beneath it. Despite the endless bullshitting by the news anchors and analysts, no information had leaked regarding why two of Micah’s top soldiers had been so brutally executed. A failed coup was all that had been suggested. No mention of Hunt. Whether he lived.
“He’s alive,” Lehabah whispered. “I know he is. I can feel it.”
Bryce ran a finger over a line of text. It was the tenth time she’d attempted to read it in the twenty minutes since the messenger had left, dropping off a vial of the antidote from the medwitch who’d taken the kristallos venom from her leg. Apparently, she’d found the way to make the antidote work without her being present. But Bryce didn’t marvel. Not when the vial was just a silent reminder of what she and Hunt had shared that day.
She’d debated throwing it out, but had opted to lock the antidote in the safe in Jesiba’s office, right next to that six-inch golden bullet for the Godslayer Rifle. Life and death, salvation and destruction, now entombed there together.
“Violet Kappel said on the morning news that there might be more would-be rebels—”
“Turn off that screen, Lehabah, before I throw it in the fucking tank.”
Her sharp words cut through the library. The rustling creatures in their cages stilled. Even Syrinx stirred from his nap.
Lehabah dimmed to a faint pink. “Are you sure there’s nothing we can—”
