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I’m dead—we’re dead—I know it.
My left arm is useless, hanging listlessly at my side. The soldier in front of me has bested every strike and parry, every feint and backhand.
Everything.
He raises his blade, and I realize my defeat. Slipping my eyes closed, I pray someone sends us on. I pray that when Aurelia and I are reborn, we start again.
That we do it better—be smarter—with less hate and more love. I don’t regret a second, because if one thing is certain, she is my Heaven.
She is my peace.
And if I get nothing else, I will know my Heaven is out there somewhere.
And I’ll find it.
AURELIA
Even in my subconscious, Rhys’ cry of agony reaches me. Stuck in my mind like a fly in sap, pinned in this Hell with a psychopath, his pain tugs at my soul. The skin of my shoulder splits, blood running the length of my arm as my heart nearly shrivels in my chest.
Oh, no.
I’ve had about enough of this shit. I’ve got somewhere to be.
Iva’s not as composed as she was before—her hair disheveled and falling from her chignon. Her lipstick is smeared, bleeding into the skin of her cheek.
She comes for me again, but with renewed vigor, slashing and stabbing wildly. But she’s making mistakes.
Mistakes she shouldn’t with someone like me.
Someone who can kill her.
If she’s in my head, I know I’m in hers, too. If I kill her here, maybe, just maybe it will kill her in the real world.
Stepping to the side, I barely miss a wild slash, before reaching up and latching onto her hair—wrenching her head as I sweep her legs out from under her.
Her blade goes flying, shattering into five smaller pieces, skittering across the parquet floor. I use the distraction to flip her body over and smash her pretty little face into the ground. Satisfaction fills me at the sound of her pert nose crunching against the floor. Scrambling off her back, I tag a shard of the broken blade as Iva staggers her way back to standing.
The front of her white dress is liberally splashed with the crimson running from her nose and mouth. She spits, teeth and blood hitting the floor, and I can’t help the gleeful smile that stretches across my face.
Shrieking, she races for me, fingers descended into blunted claws, broken teeth bared. Her scream is cut off to a gurgle as the shard in my hand slides through the smooth skin of her throat.
Bet she didn’t see that coming.
Her eyes widen as her lifeblood leeches from her body, running down her chest, soaking into her dress, and pooling onto the floor of my mind. She staggers, collapsing to her back.
She gurgles a gasp once, twice, and then stills.
She’s not breathing, but I don’t trust it. To be sure, I take the sliver of Morganite in my hand and saw through the remainder of her throat. Undeterred by tissue and bone, I take her head. The jagged, double edge slices into the flesh of my hand, but I don’t care.
I’ll wear those scars with honor.
RHYS
I wait for a strike that never comes. When I open my eyes, the soldier—who only moments before was ready to take my life—stares, dumbfounded, at the blade as if he has no idea how it got there. The remaining soldiers—at least the ones still standing—have similar expressions on their faces.
It’s as if a veil has been lifted, and now they see the truth.
I wonder how many minds Iva controlled to do her bidding. How many poor souls were used to perpetuate a war that no one wanted? It makes me sorry we killed them true dead, but the good ones we’ll send on.
