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“I would—” I stammered.
Her voice broke. “I thought you cared about me.”
“I do!”
Her lip trembled. “I thought you loved me.”
My heart broke as I thrashed against the ground. Seeing the hurt in Brenna’s face was worse than any of the pain pulsing through my body. “I did,” I whispered. “I did.”
Brenna’s shaking breaths stilled and her face fell into a cold mask of disdain. “And there it is.Loved.” She stepped back from me so I couldn’t reach out and touch her. “That’s all I am to you now? I get to be a scar on your arm while you move on withhim.” Her thin top lip curled over her teeth as she said the word.
Somehow I had gathered the strength to pull myself to my knees. “You’re dead!”
“Because youkilledme.” Brenna pounced and grabbed me by the throat.
My body went limp with guilt. The cut of her robe showed a deep wound along her chest where my blade had ended her life.
I hung my head in defeat as the shadowy figures surrounding us started to move and whisper. Soon their whispers grew into chants.
Drink, drink, drink.
I shook my head. Tears splattered the dark ground. Brenna’s finger looped under my chin as she forced me to meet her gaze. “Keera the disappointment,” she whispered as a shadowy figure of Hildegard stood beside her.
I choked on a sob. “I’m sorry.”
Brenna shook her head and held the goblet of wine to my lips. “Keera the promise breaker.”
I bit them to keep from drinking it even though I agreed with the disgust and rage on Brenna’s face.
She lifted the cup, wetting my lips but I didn’t open them.
And then she said the words that had haunted me most of all.
“Keera the killer.” The shadowy figures of Collin’s family appeared beside her. Then the Shades I’d killed in Silstra. Hundreds of them flashed before me as Brenna cruelly smiled down at the crumpled pile I’d become, rejoicing in their new chant.
Killer.
Killer.
Killer.
I covered my ears, trying to drown them out. I rocked back and forth on my knees but nothing could block out that sound. My teeth chattered together in pain, pushing me beyond any limit I had evertested. Then like the string on a bow pulled too taut, too many times, I snapped.
“Enough!” I pulled myself onto unsteady feet. “I will not drink.”
Brenna’s hand slipped from the goblet, it crashed at her feet and stained the skirt of her dress, but she smiled. She stepped toward me and I flinched at her touch, but the moment her hand pressed against my cheek the pain in my body vanished.
The shadowy figures were no longer made of darkness, but fully realized memories of the ones I couldn’t save. All of them were smiling at me with looks of relief.
I huffed a laugh, realizing that everything that had happened my mind had done to itself. It had tried so hard to keep a grip on my craving, to keep a grip onme, that it had created a lie to keep me in its hold.
But now I was free.
Brenna wiped the stream of tears along my face with her sleeve. She pressed the softest kiss between my brows and leaned her head against mine. “Don’t feel guilt for something I did, Keera.” She grabbed my arm and traced the letters of her own name along my skin, sending shivers through my body. “Let go and be happy.”
She leaned in and pressed her lips to mine. They were softer than a pillow after a month’s ride. I leaned into the kiss, savoring that sweetness that I had never tasted anywhere else. Brenna was branded on my tongue just like she was in my memory.
I opened my eyes and she was gone.
