45. Chapter 45 #2
“All this time, we thought it was Alexander,” Adrian said, “but it’s you who will kill Salar.”
“Me?”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a seer, and you haven’t seen this?”
“I can’t see myself.” He searched Norah’s face, desperate to see if it was true. “I kill the Shadow King?” His next words stalled as another thought came. “Wait, you saw me?” That couldn’t be right. “I can be seen?”
She nodded.
Cyrus’s mind spun. That couldn’t be right. “You’re not supposed to see me. I’m not supposed to be seen.” Seers couldn’t be seen. He pulled his arm from her grasp and ran a hand over his face. “I can be seen?” What did this mean? What had they seen? Everything? His plans, his strategy?
He looked back at Norah. “So, you can see me in the visions. And I succeed?”
“Lucien,” she whispered, “I’m begging you to help me create a different future. You’re the only one who can.” She reached out again and took his hand. “Lucien. Please.” Her touch was soft and earnest.
He wished he could give her what she wanted. If it was anything else, he would. “I’m sorry, Norah. I can’t.”
Her fingers tightened around his, pleading.
Still, he shook his head. “It’s fate, Norah. If it’s been seen, there’s nothing you can do. And that means this is my fate too.”
“No.” She grabbed his other arm, clutching him tighter. “No. We can change it.”
He shook his head again. “I don’t want to change it. It’s my fate. I have to do it.”
“No,” she gripped him even tighter. “I won’t let you.”
Let him? “There’s nothing you can do,” he said again.
Her eyes welled as they darted back and forth between his own. Despite the exhilaration of this news, he did feel sad for her. He really had come to care for Norah, and he’d do anything in his power to help her with whatever she needed, but he couldn’t give her this.
This was fate.
A tear spilled down her cheek. Perhaps after her tears, after the emotion passed, she would see.
Her hands shook as they gripped him, her desperation cracking through. Desperation always came before acceptance.
Except she didn’t reach acceptance.
He almost didn’t catch her hand in time as she grabbed her dagger and tried to plunge it between his ribs. Of course she would fight him. She was fast. Almost too fast. He grabbed her wrist and twisted it away, making her drop the blade.
At the same time, Adrian pulled his sword and lunged toward them, but, drawing from the coven’s power, Cyrus threw out a bolt of pain. The blood bond still between them made it hit even harder. Adrian dropped to his knees as his hands flew to his head.
Norah struck with a hard kick to his inside thigh, nearly bringing him down, but he didn’t let her go.
He snarled as anger flashed through him.
Did she really think she could fight fate?
Did she think she could fight him ? She clawed at his eyes.
As he shielded himself, her hand dropped and flicked toward his own dagger at his waist.
She was good. But she wasn’t a bloodsport fighter. Not trained to kill. Not like he was.
He delivered a sharp blow across her cheek with his elbow, stunning her and making her stumble backward. But he grabbed her again, pulling her up and holding her by the neck.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said between his teeth. If she would only stop fighting…
“Then don’t do this,” she hissed.
“I don’t have a choice. Fate is fate, Norah.”
“I won’t let you!” She said it like he wasn’t the one holding her by the throat.
“How will you stop me?” Certainly not by herself. “With the Destroyer?” He could possibly be a problem, but… then his eyes dropped to the blood on her lips.
Blood that could tether.
“No,” he told her. “He’ll do nothing. Neither will your king.”
And he brought his lips to hers. As her blood touched his tongue, he willed the tether between them. He didn’t even need the spell, but he spoke it anyway, just to be sure.
Then he released her.
Adrian, partially recovered now, staggered to his feet and picked up his sword.
“You don’t want to do that,” Cyrus said.
Adrian bared his teeth. “Brother or not, I think I do.”
Cyrus pulled his dagger and ripped it across his palm.
Norah cried out as she clasped her own hand, her eyes widening in horror at the wound that matched his.
“We’re bound now, you and I,” he told her. “Tethered through blood. What happens to me also happens to you.”
She gaped at him in horror, then her eyes darted to Adrian, who stopped in his step. Her horror turned to anger. She snapped her gaze back to Cyrus.
“I won’t tell them,” she hissed. “So, all you’ve done is made me share your fate.”
She was a fighter. He’d give her that.
“You might not,” Cyrus said. Then he turned his eyes on Adrian. “But he will.” He knew that look of duty. Adrian wouldn’t let Norah be harmed—he wouldn’t keep this a secret if it allowed her to die.
Alexander. Cyrus. Adrian. They were all nothing if not committed to their duty. It was in their blood.
“Do your duty, brother,” Cyrus told him. “Protect your queen.”
Adrian trembled in rage, because he would protect Norah, which meant there was nothing he could do to Cyrus.
Cyrus glanced back at Norah. While it brought satisfaction to have the upper hand, it didn’t bring him satisfaction to hurt her. He hadn’t wanted it to be at her expense. “I’m sorry, Norah,” he said.
Whether she believed him, he didn’t know, but he really did mean it.
And now he had to go.
Cyrus didn’t remember leaving the tent, or pushing his horse hard to meet Essandra, Everan, and Kord back at the stone circle.
Only when he reached them did his senses seem to return.
Everan’s eyes traveled Cyrus’s lathered mount as he pulled it to a halt. “What happened?” he asked.
Cyrus slid down, panting as heavily as the horse.
“Cyrus?”
There was no turning back now.
“What happened?” Everan asked again.
“Write Gregor,” he said. “Tell him to prepare for war.”