Chapter 64 #2
Darian grunted but didn’t cry out. His shirt darkened instantly, blood soaking into the fabric.
“Wait,” Isara choked.
She took a step forward. Then another. Her body moved like it didn’t quite belong to her anymore.
“I’ll choose,” she whispered.
Darian’s head snapped toward her, wild and furious. “No.”
Isara looked at him, eyes wide and glassy.
“Save the girl,” Darian shook his head. “Not me.”
“No—”
“Save her,” he said again, louder this time. “Don’t you dare pick me. I’m already dead if you do this.”
Another slash, fast, across the other shoulder this time. Darian hissed.
“It’s not your choice to make,” Xyliria said coldly.
The girl sobbed behind them, high, keening sounds of undiluted fear. She was shaking all over, curled into herself like that could stop what was coming.
Isara cracked. Not all at once. It was slower than that. Her mouth trembled. One hand lifted toward the girl, almost instinctively, as though she could reach through this, find a different answer.
Isara’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
She couldn’t seem to breathe properly, each breath uneven. Her gaze darted to the girl, then to Darian, then back again, caught in the endless loop of an impossible decision.
Ashterion had seen this before. That desperate calculus of survival—what could be lost, what must be spared, what might be forgiven.
And he could see it. Already.
The decision had been made.
It hadn’t reached her lips yet, but it was there. Written in the way she looked at Darian, pleading, apologetic.
Something that said, I’m sorry I’m choosing you. I’m sorry you have to live with this.
“Darian,” she whispered. “I want him to live.”
Ashterion’s chest tightened.
Fuck.
“No, no, no,” Darian rasped, but the words were futile.
Xyliria smiled. “You want him to live?” she said. “Then say it properly. Say who dies.”
Isara stood frozen.
A tear slipped down her cheek. “The girl.”
Xyliria turned, eyes already on the girl. “Very well.”
The girl screamed. It was shrill, pure terror. She thrashed against the guards holding her—kicking, sobbing, yanking at the restraints with everything her too-small body had.
Xyliria smiled. “One more thing,” she said, sweet as rot.
Ashterion’s stomach dropped.
He’d forgotten. This was a test for him too.
What the fuck was she about to ask?
“You get another choice, my dear,” Xyliria said, sauntering back to her throne. “You can kill the girl yourself—or you can let my husband do it for you. He’s well-practiced, after all. Blood suits him.”
Ashterion’s lungs locked.
Gods.
Of course. Of fucking course.
If Isara was truly becoming his pet, she would do it herself. She would please him. Serve him. Bleed in his place. But if she still saw him as a monster, if she still believed that all he was good for was death, then she’d hand him the blade. And let him do what monsters do.
Ashterion didn’t care about the consequences anymore. Didn’t care what Xyliria would do.
Please, pick me. Let it be me.
He looked at her, looked hard, locking eyes across the space between them.
Pick me, he begged silently. Don’t let this stain you. My soul is already gone. Let me carry this one.
His mouth opened. He didn’t know what he was going to say. Didn’t matter.
Because the moment air touched his tongue, Xyliria’s magic tore up his spine. He choked on it, on the fire, the burn, the unmaking.
Centuries of discipline locked him in place. Centuries of pain taught him how to make silence out of torment.
He snapped his mouth shut.
Xyliria was all false concern. “Oh, my love. No need to speak. It’s her choice to make, after all.”
Isara looked moments from collapse. Her hands were shaking. Her lips bloodless. Her eyes wide and hollow, flicking between Ashterion and the girl as if either could save her.
Neither could.
Finally, she spoke. Barely more than a whisper.
“I’ll do it.”
No.
His hands twitched where they rested against the armrest. He wanted to stand. To cross the distance between them. To rip the blade from her hands before it could ever touch that girl’s skin.
He wanted to scream at her. Let me do it. Let me be the monster.
But he just watched her walk toward the girl. Watched her take the blade.
Watched her prepare to tear apart her own soul.
The blade looked heavier in her hands now. Or maybe it was her body that had gone slack. Sagging beneath the weight of what she was about to do.
Isara moved slowly. Her fingers curled tighter around the hilt with every pace forward.
The girl was screaming.
“Please,” she cried. “I have a little brother. And a sister. They need me—please, they don’t have anyone else. My mother’s waiting. Please, she’ll be so scared. Please, don’t do this—”
Something snapped in Ashterion’s chest.
The girl sobbed harder when Isara knelt beside her.
“I’m sorry,” Isara whispered. And gods, her voice was already broken. “I’m so sorry.” Tears streamed down her face now, silent and steady.
She reached out with one trembling hand and cupped the girl’s cheek. The girl flinched but didn’t pull away. There was no more room to run.
“I didn’t want this,” Isara whispered. “I didn’t—”
The words choked.
She plunged the blade into the girl’s chest.
A gasp. A high, sharp breath. The girl stiffened, body jolting against the restraints, and then collapsed.
Ashterion’s hands clenched into fists so tight his nails split the skin of his palms.
Isara clung to the girl as she died. Held her long after her breathing stopped.
She didn’t let go. Not even when the blood soaked through her sleeves, through her pants where she knelt in the spreading pool of it.
Isara cradled the girl’s body, fingers tangled in dark, blood-slick hair, her own forehead pressed gently to the girl’s temple like they were sisters, like they’d known each other before this.
And then, faintly audible above the echoing silence—
She began to hum. A lullaby. Soft. Crooked. Tattered with grief.
It took him a moment to place it. An old song, meant for rocking children to sleep when the nights were long and cold and full of wolves.
Her voice cracked on the third line. And still, she didn’t let go.
Just kept singing.
Until Xyliria finally sighed. “Oh, enough.”
She waved her hand lazily, and the guards moved in. Isara didn’t fight when they dragged her away. Her arms slipped from the girl’s body, falling limp at her sides. Her head lolled slightly forward. Eyes open. Empty.
The blood on her knees left smeared prints across the marble as they hauled her past him.
Xyliria let out a delighted sigh as she sank back into her throne, wine glass swirling casually between her fingers.
“Well,” she said, “you’re not as useless as I thought.” She turned her smile on him. “It seems you are breaking the thing after all.”
Ashterion said nothing. Because if he opened his mouth, something would crawl out that wouldn’t be compliance. And once it escaped, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to put it back in.