Chapter Twenty-Two #2
He waved to the spot beside him. “Very well. Read.”
As Cyrus continued perusing his titles, I sat at the table, on Domino’s right, and got to work, peering at the symbol on the cover. Like the symbol on the wall, this one opened fast and easy. Excitement speared me.
Trembling a little, I flipped through the pages. Code, code, code. One section captured my gaze for a second, third, and fourth time until I caught myself staring at the symbols. I probed every line and swirl, willing the words to open to me . . .
Nope.
Come on, come on. I stared and probed harder. Still nothing. Frustration set in, and even the code began to vanish, until the page was blank. But . . .
“Focus on our bond,” Domino commanded, and I flipped my gaze to his.
Snap. A magnetic force secured me in the quiet gravity of his presence.
“Better.” He nodded with satisfaction.
Wait. “Where’s Cyrus?” I was alone with Domino.
“Ember requested the pleasure of his company.” He leaned back in his seat and folded his hands over his middle. “It was never my intention to cause problems between the two of you.”
“My relationship with Cyrus is solid,” I stated. “But there’s a glitch in my connection to you. Sometimes I don’t feel you as strongly as other times. Or at all.”
Behind him, the emperor, Mr. Vyle, and Winslet approached the wall, and I stiffened.
“Pay them no heed.” Domino waved in dismissal. “You see through the Rock, which sees through the rift. The emperor senses my visit through the remnants of the fog, and he hopes to catch me coming through the doorway. He cannot see or hear us.”
I relaxed, but only a little. “The woman beside him.” I pointed to Winslet. “CURED healed her, the way Soal healed me.”
“No, not the same way. Her body currently hosts several shadows. Within minutes of their departure, she’ll acquire her injury again, only worse because the wound will be festered. She’ll die in a matter of seconds.”
His words whirled inside my head, flinging sorrow and anger. Dead without the essence of Astan. “Can a conduit of Soal heal her?”
“Only if she allowed it, and most Astanians will not.”
Astanians. I’d known that was a word.
“About our connection,” he said. “It weakens when you are entertaining Astan’s thoughts. They produce a frequency.”
“I haven’t entertained Astan’s thoughts,” I retorted, offended by the very idea.
Domino didn’t argue, just motioned to my book. “Fear is a lock, not a key.”
“I’m not afraid,” I growled. But wasn’t I? Riotous thoughts churned at the fringes of my mind. I was now engaged to Cyrus, even though I’d read a snippet suggesting we would soon become enemies. What if I read something worse?
“The pain you experience following the right path will never compare to what you endure when you don’t.”
Okay, so, he obviously knew about the engagement. “You’re not helping matters.” I shoved the words through clenched teeth. “This is life and death, and you are spouting pearls of wisdom rather than answers.”
“You will never advance to victory if you cling to the defeat. Is that plain enough for you?”
I licked my lips, the hesitation a bittersweet tinge on my tongue. Victory meant trusting Soal, no matter what. Could I really break things off with Cyrus if the god demanded it? Love for the prince roared inside me, a savage, untamed force unwilling to surrender to time or reason. But . . .
To save his life, yes, I could break things off.
Forever, if necessary. So. I did it. I pulled the trigger and made the decision.
Whatever I read, whatever the book told me to do, I would do, even if I must part with the man I loved.
His life mattered more than anything else.
Better to have loved and parted than be the reason for his eternal undoing.
Determined, I refocused on my book and gave a little squeal. The code had returned. Guess I’d made the correct choice.
After drawing in a resigned breath, I concentrated on the symbols.
They morphed into letters and words, no struggle required.
Excitement came rushing back, twice as intense.
I set the book on the table and read. And read.
Page after page opened to me, recounting a scene from my past, filled with details I’d missed in the moment and threaded with hints of what the future held.
The more I read, the wider dread opened its jaws, preparing to gobble me whole.
When I came to the end, I sat frozen, blinking at Domino, my mind like a shattered mirror, with jagged pieces just out of reach, reflecting too much and too little all at once. However much time had passed, he hadn’t budged.
“You know what I read,” I croaked.
He didn’t attempt to deny it. “Yes.”
“Felix shot me.”
“Yes,” he repeated.
Tears seared my eyes as I read the passage again.
High Prince Summit shouts, “A high prince is dead, fall back, fall back.” His voice cracks with panic as he herds soldiers toward CURED’s vans.
My heart threatens to seize. Not Cyrus. Please, not Cyrus. The very idea nearly paralyzes me.
Domino finishes calling for more elites and charges back to the field, wind flaring his robe as he waves the newcomers to their assigned positions.
High Prince Felix spots me. He may be behind me, but his thoughts curdle the air between us. He raises his harbinger. Hesitates. And squeezes the trigger.
Agony sears my midsection. I crumple, the world tilting sideways. As I hit the ground, my blurred gaze snags on High Princess Lolli. In that moment, I’m certain. It had to be her.
“Why?” I croaked. I’d had an enemy, and I hadn’t known it.
“Felix’s reasons are his own, but I have permission to tell you he’s a Soalian who verges on reinfection. A rogue.”
“Felix is Soalian,” I echoed, shocked to my core. “And he decided to murder me.”
A tender sorrow crept into the librarian’s eyes. “Every human faction has those who are good and those who are bad. We are no different.”
But. Cyrus’s brother wanted me dead.
I swiped at my burning eyes and jumped to the end of the passage, where the true horror lurked.
As I stalk through the base, my focus remains on Lolli. I fail to notice the fury in Felix’s eyes as he reclines against the wall. He’s certain his bullet hit its mark. Knows I was healed supernaturally. But by Soal or Astan?
Felix shifts his concentration to my companion, his decision clear. If he cannot kill me, he must take out his brother before the coronation.
He doesn’t know Cyrus’s end is already set, and I’ll be the one to wield the blade.
Hands quaking, I pushed the book away. No more. “Is this tidbit about the future assured, written in stone as part of my new destiny? Can it be changed?”
“Your story can always be changed, but what you cannot do is go back and alter the decisions you made in the past. Wheels have been set into motion, and they’ll drag us down a certain path.
But you are looking at this wrong. The passage shows you thinking about running Cyrus through with your sword, not actually running him through.
The right question to ask yourself is this.
What will I do if he doesn’t change course? ”
I stiffened my spine. Cyrus would. And so would I. “I won’t kill him.” I shook my head for emphasis and got slapped by my own hair. “I won’t. Not ever. Not for any reason.”
All gentleness, Domino told me, “Then you won’t. So why worry about it?”
Frustrating man. “I joined this team to save lives, not destroy them.” Especially that of someone I loved.
“You’re worrying,” Domino pointed out.
“But this can’t be right. I didn’t know I would one day stab Cyrus, so I couldn’t have entertained such a thought before this moment. Therefore, this passage isn’t an accurate representation of what happened.”
“Your heart discerns more than you realize, especially when you read a passage of your book, which you had done before this event occurred. Far more was contained in the words than you can possibly fathom in one setting. It always takes a bit of chewing for your mind to digest everything. In that regard, you knew, and know, what’s to come. ”
I thought back, recalling the blip of sadness I’d experienced when I’d spotted the royals speaking with Mr. Vyle, Felix among them. As if I had, indeed, known what was to come.
“Why did Soal show me this?” Why?
As proud as he was grim, Domino told me, “You were finally ready.”