CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE #2
Wisps of her straw-colored hair escaped from the bun at the nape of her neck, catching in her eyelashes as she blinked furiously.
They did nothing to stop the tears that ran down her cheeks, that dripped onto her hyperventilating chest. “I know you’re trying to distract me.
But it won’t work. You’re going to die, and we’re going to win.
You’re not going to feel a single thing.
I’ll do it quick, just like Clara taught me.
” Her left hand shot out from behind her back.
A branch lowered from the tree above us, looking everything like a sharpened blade. Ready to pierce through my chest.
“Is Clara your ally?” Just a little more. I could almost reach her feet.
A glance over my head. To the fight behind me. “I won’t tell her to spare him. No matter what you say, he will die, too. She said we can’t afford liabilities.”
My foot bumped hers.
“I have to admit, Clara is a good teacher.” There. “But you, I’m afraid, still have a lot to learn.”
In one swift movement, I sat up straight, and swung my dagger in a wide arc, slicing open her shin.
Her cry of pain rang throughout the clearing.
The branch faltered above her head, giving me the opportunity I needed.
I pounced, dagger slamming into her abdomen. The momentum sent us both flying, and my knees barked as they landed on either side of her, clamping tightly against her arms to keep them at her sides.
“You should have stabbed me with that branch the moment I hit the ground.”
She coughed. Blood splattered. “I know.”
Numbness had already taken hold of everything that mattered. Shadows wove through her hair, scraped at my periphery. But frustration screamed at me from a distant place. Guilt, even further away. “Then why didn’t you?”
“Because I was afraid.”
The admission was a whisper, riding along her final exhale. Blended with the sway of the trees.
My eyes squeezed tightly shut. Not yet. Not yet, not yet.
They burned and burned, but nothing spilled.
“Fuck.” The curse heaved past my lips on its own.
Because I knew I would hear that whisper again.
It would haunt my nightmares like another curse, worse than all the others that already resided there.
Because when I opened my eyes again, my blurry vision could only see my own reflection staring up at me.
My younger, grieving, afraid reflection.
“I’m sorry,” I choked. “I’m so sorry.” Then wiped my blade clean with moss, and pushed to my feet. The branch above our heads dangled aimlessly. But I couldn’t take any risks.
Ash fell around Kodhan like rain. His fire steadily ravaged everything aimed at him, but each deflection came slower than the last. With such little rest since that first night, he was already at his limit.
But he didn’t need to push any longer. We were the only remaining pair of allies left.
And yet, the puppeteer continued her weaving. The steady boom of wingbeats was right above us.
“Tell her to stop!” I shouted at the sky. To wherever Maverick was hiding. “We are the only allies left. It’s over.”
The woman unraveled herself from her cocoon, jaw hanging slack. She took all but one step forward before covering her wobbling lips with both hands. A sob leaked through her fingers.
More shimmering strings pierced through the trees.
Maverick’s voice came from nowhere and everywhere all at once. “Allies mean nothing if Wit has not yet been complete.”
Wings blotted out the stars above.
Panting, Kodhan turned his head to me. “I can handle the rest. Just stay hidden. And stay alive.”
“I will not be pushed again. We are both going to live.”
“This isn’t the same. You need to go—”
There was nothing, nothing I could do to stop the sharpened branch that struck, faster than any bolt of lightning.
Not a single thing as it plunged into him from behind, so deep it protruded right out of his chest.
The scream that filled my ears rang in tandem with a dragon’s approaching roar.
It wasn’t me—the only thing sitting on my lips was Kodhan’s name. Even then, no sound left me.
And it wasn’t Kodhan, who tilted his chin to look down at the sharpened wood protruding from his middle.
It was the earth-wielder, I realized, managing to tear my eyes away from Kodhan just long enough to watch her writhe in flames. She would be dead in seconds, her attempts to douse herself futile. She’d stepped out of her cocoon. Left herself entirely vulnerable to Kodhan’s magic.
But he’d been too late.
“No,” he rasped, holding up a hand to stop me.
I hadn’t even realized I’d staggered towards him.
“I’ll be fine.” He winced, and with a shout of agony, forced himself forward, sliding the branch out of him with a wet squelch.
His knees hit the mossy ground. Blood poured from between his fingers where they pressed against the gaping hole in his body.
So much blood in so little time. The moss around him was already coated with it.
The screaming stopped. I didn’t care to see what was left of her.
There was only him, his face a sickly sheen, contorted in pain.
He would not be fine. Not with a wound like that. And especially not after his body had already withstood the use of so much magic.
And Maverick would not intervene, I realized. No matter how angry it left the rest of the kingdom. He would rather let us all die than declare an early victory.
My frantic breathing echoed in my ears, along with the slow thump of my ravaged heart as my eyes slid to the puppeteer woman.
I would not let Kodhan die.
I wasn’t afraid of the snarls reverberating above my head. Nor was I afraid of the puppeteer as I stalked towards her. Her milky eyes didn’t even widen when I grabbed her by the throat. Too easily, I swept her feet out from under her.
She didn’t fight back. Of course not. Her biggest weapons readied to tear my head from my shoulders.
In the span of a breath, we both went down, her back on the ground and my knee digging into her stomach, pinning her there. The shape of wings reflected off the metal of the dagger before I embedded it between her ribs.
But nothing happened.
No gasp. No twitch of her stoic features. Not any change in those empty eyes as I waited precious moments for her to show any sign of death.
She kept pulling on her strings.
“No. No, no.” Impossible. I yanked the blade out of her ribs only to plunge it into her chest, right in the center. Not even a dribble of red leaked from the tear in her robes. I pierced her again. Again. Again.
And still, those fingers kept moving.
Wind whipped my hair across my face, but I knew it was no work of nature. The clearing was large enough for one dragon to land. And only one of them was enough to kill me.
The ground shuddered.
For the first time since I’d met him, real fear shone in Kodhan’s eyes. While I did not dare look behind me, he had a full view of the looming beast, snarling and snapping with impatience. His face was drained of all color because of the blood loss, leaving him as pale as the woman beneath me.
I choked on a gasp, snapping my attention back to her white, empty eyes. Soulless eyes. Her blue lips. Expressionless face, without a single trace of pain.
She couldn’t die—not if she was already dead.
I fought the urge to recoil. She wasn’t controlling the dragons at all. She wasn’t even controlling herself.
She was no puppeteer. She was a puppet. Along with the dragons, their matching eyes finally making sense. She was connected to them. Sever the cords, and they would all fall.
And I had one last chance to get rid of her.
“Kodhan, I need fire!” I raised the dagger again. Teeth reflected off it this time. Reeking breath chuffed at my back.
One final gamble. Life or death. It didn’t matter what Maverick had offered me up on that balcony. He would let me die here. Either I was smart enough to live, or I wasn’t.
Kodhan grunted, raising a hand caked in blood to aim whatever dregs of magic he had left. “I’ll burn you.”
“It doesn’t matter. Coat this blade on fire,” I growled. “Burn me or we both die!”
Flames sputtered in and out of existence along the edges of the blade. Blood sprayed from his lips as he coughed.
“More!”