Chapter Forty-One
My shadows won’t come to me, even with Titus carrying me to my doom, and I suddenly realize why.
Ronan isn’t here. Every time my shadows have taken form, Ronan has been nearby.
That has to mean something, but I don’t have time to contemplate what. I have to find another way out of this situation.
And I have to stop Ronan from following me. If he follows me to Adria, she’ll kill him.
I have to let him think I’m okay.
I let my body relax against Titus’s back. I force my heart back down my throat. I breathe deeply, trying to think of anything other than everything that’s happening right now.
I think of Ronan. I think of him in the library, recording all my dreams into a book. Making a list of them, making a promise to me to fulfill them.
“I didn’t think you’d give up so easily,” says Titus. “Adria said he’d poisoned your mind. You should have stayed with me that night. None of this had to happen.”
I don’t react. I don’t hear his words. I’m with Ronan, on the back of the griffin. I’m with Ronan, leaning against him, my head on his shoulder. I’m with Ronan, feeling him kiss my hair when I say something cute.
I can’t warn him not to come here. He’ll never listen.
But maybe, if he thinks I’m safe, he’ll stay in the fight outside.
Which terrifies me too, but his chances are better out there than with Adria.
Titus carries me into the throne room, and I do my best not to react to the smell of smoke and blood, to the bodies on the ground.
“What’s wrong with her?” says Adria as he puts me down. I don’t move from the spot on the dais where he drops me, taking my sword from my belt. I look at her, my sister, her blonde hair slicked back, her armor covered in blood and soot, and I feel nothing.
“I don’t know. I didn’t do anything to her. She just went like this.”
“What are you doing? Why aren’t you fighting?” She slaps my face, and it stings, but I don’t react.
I’m with Ronan, in the bath as he washes me. I’m with Ronan, beside him in the theatre. I’m with Ronan, watching him from across the carriage, watching him smile when I catch him looking at me.
“I see what this is,” says Adria. “You think he won’t come for you if you’re like this. Well, there’s something we can do about that.”
I don’t react as Adria summons a flame in her hand.
“Tie her up,” she says to Titus. She grabs my wrist, holding the flame near my face as he pulls a rope from a bag they have hidden near the throne.
I keep my mind as clear as I can as I lower my shadows. I can’t make them take form, not now, not without Ronan, but I can make it harder for them.
Or so I thought.
“That won’t work on me,” says Titus.
He’s shadow-born.
He walks over to me, seeing me perfectly in the darkness. I breathe deeply, trying to stop my pulse from racing. I can’t let them tie me up, but I can’t run either. And I can’t fight them. I have no weapons. I have no shadows.
I let Titus bind my wrists. I can’t see another option. The longer I can make it without reacting, the longer I can keep Ronan alive.
“I know you think I enjoy this, but I don’t,” says Adria. “I didn’t want it to be this way. I wanted to believe you. I thought you had finally grown up. But I know what you’ve been doing. You thought I wouldn’t find out?”
“What I’ve been doing?” I ask, my voice as bored and detached as I can make it. “What about what you’ve been doing? The grain shipments, Adria.”
She laughs humorlessly. “Are you kidding me? You betrayed your family, you spat on the graves of our parents, over some fucking grain?”
I don’t react. I keep my face straight and my voice steady. “You killed our people for your revenge. You let them die so you could have something you’ll never deserve. You don’t deserve the throne.”
“And he does?”
“More than you. More than anyone.”
“You’re a child, Sylvie. He slaughtered us. He humiliated us. He robbed us of our home. And you got into his bed. You’re nothing. You’re worse than nothing. You’re the shit stuck to my shoe. You always have been.”
I let the words wash over me. I’ve known this is what she thinks of me for a long time. I don’t need to react to her saying what I already know.
“Very well,” she says. “I told you I didn’t want to do this, but I will.”
She presses the flame to my arm, just above where my hands are bound.
I scream.
I can’t help it. It’s agony, even just a small flame. It scorches my skin but doesn’t ignite, doesn’t tear a hole through me like she tore through Ronan.
And still, I can’t suppress the pain.
“I’m sure that will work, but just in case…”
I scream as she does it again, pressing another flame just above the first.
Don’t come, Ronan. Don’t come here. Please.
But it’s no good. I know he’s coming. I try to find a way to use my feelings to let him know what he’s facing. He knows Adria is here, but I picture Titus in the arena, Titus on the dance floor, Ronan’s jealousy. I try to capture the feelings, to communicate them with him.
I picture the shadow-born. Marcella, fighting us by the warehouse. Nico and Vesper and the others in the cellar beneath the Alchemists’ Guild.
I have no idea if he can feel it. Please, Ronan.
“Get by the door. He should be coming from that way.”
Adria points to the door we came from. They’re going to ambush him. She’s not brave enough to face him.
I have to do something. My sword is just there on the ground. My arm aches terribly from the burns, and I can’t get it now, but when Ronan arrives—
The door bursts open.
Ronan’s light fills the room as he enters behind Quinn, with Stella trailing behind him.
“It’s a trap! Shadow-born!” I shout as I reach for my shadows, which take form the second he arrives, pulling Titus away from them.
He throws something, and it shatters at their feet, spreading some kind of smoking liquid near them.
Stella charges forward, impaling Titus with her sword while I hold him with my shadows.
But then Adria’s flame, a tiny candle of it no larger than an arrowhead, burns a hole through Stella’s forehead. She goes limp and falls to the ground, dead instantly.
“No!” I shout.
Ronan fires off light at Adria as he collapses to the ground a few feet from where Stella has fallen.
Poison. Titus poisoned them.
Adria jumps behind the throne to avoid Ronan’s light, wildly flinging fire in his direction.
She misses, but it ignites the fuming liquid behind him, causing it to explode. The explosion sends Quinn flying forward, her head smacking on stone.
I grab my sword with my shadows and free my hands, trying to avoid the terrible burn on my left arm. It screams in agony, but I have to ignore it if I want to live.
Then I run to them, run to Ronan and the others. I race down from the dais, my heart screaming so hard in my chest that I feel like I might collapse.
I come upon Quinn first. She’s unmoving, a trickle of blood trailing down her forehead from the impact.
And behind her, just a few feet back.
Ronan.
He’s there on the ground, unmoving.
I can’t feel him. I can’t feel anything. I’m going to vomit—
I bend down to him. I can’t feel him, but his body is still warm. And it’s moving, just a little.
He’s still breathing.
“Get out of my way, Sylvie,” says Adria. She’s standing on the dais, standing in front of the throne that can never be hers. Will never be hers.
She points her sword at Ronan, and I stand in front of him, holding my sword out in front of me.
“You will not hurt him.”
“Hurt him?” laughs Adria. “He’s already dead. I’m going to put him out of his misery, something you never learned to do. I’ve always had to clean up after you. Always had to clean up your messes. You’re useless. You’ve never been anything but useless.”
“And you’ve never been anything but cruel,” I say, holding my ground as she approaches.
“You’ve never cared about anyone but yourself.
I thought it was my fault. I spent my whole life thinking I’d done something wrong to make you hate me.
But that’s who you are. You’re poison. Larus knew it. He believed me the second I told him.”
She laughs again, but this time, she’s delighted. “Is that what you think? That Larus helped you? Oh you poor, stupid little girl. Larus betrayed you, Sylvie. How do you think this happened?” She gestures around her to the chaos outside.
No. Larus couldn’t have betrayed me. He’s on my side. He’s always been on my side.
“Larus came to me with some bullshit story about storms. I knew you’d gotten to him. I knew you’d fed him some of your lies—”
“They weren’t lies—”
“—your pathetic little stories to make him hate me. Just like you’ve always done. He’s sworn to me, Sylvie. Not you. To me, the Lady of House Verran. It took a bit of reminding, but he remembered his oath in the end.”
“What did you do to him, Adria?” If she’d hurt him…
“I did what I always do. I did what needed to be done. He lied to you. We cut you out of the plans. I wanted to kill you, but he wouldn’t let me. I needed those ships. I still need them. And so here we are. If I could prove to him that you were lost, he swore he’d let you go.”
My heart sinks. I had just proven it with my actions to save Ronan. He’s still not moving on the ground.
“Larus? Are you awake yet? Come out, Larus.”
No.
From behind one of the great columns, Larus crawls out. He’s nursing a wound to his head.
“What did you do, Adria?” he says, his voice small.
“I knew you wouldn’t like some of what had to happen tonight, so I knocked you out. See, Sylvie? I do what I have to.”
I want to go to him, to help him, but the second I leave Ronan, Adria will kill him.
“Larus,” I beg him. “Larus, I’m here. It’s Sylvie.
I can help you. You know I’m right. You know this war is wrong.
You know that thousands of people will die if we don’t stop this.
I’m not lost. I’m your Sylvie. The same Sylvie I’ve always been.
I didn’t turn my back on my family. They turned their back on me. ”
“Then come with us,” he says as he gets on his knees and then his feet.
“What?” asks Adria.
“What?” I ask.
“Come with us now. There doesn’t have to be any bloodshed between you.”
“I can’t,” I say. “Innocent people are dying in the streets—”
“Larus, what the fuck are you doing? You swore to me that you’d support me if she turned her back on us—”
“I lied. Sylvie, I told you how I felt about the Orsa. How I felt about the war. And you haven’t changed my mind about it.
You’ve had your fun. It’s time to come home.
Adria, I’m not willing to stand by while you harm your own people in the name of vengeance.
You got your war. Save your vengeance for the battlefield. ”
Larus didn’t betray me. He betrayed us both, and he did it for our own sakes. He did it to keep us both alive. He did it to bring us home, something he couldn’t do for our parents.
But I’m not going home. I have no home. No home except here, with Ronan.
Please wake up, Ronan.
“Larus, you’ve disappointed me for the last time,” says Adria. She spins the flame in her hand.
“At least stand and fight me,” says Larus, drawing his sword.
“No, I don’t think I will,” she says, and she throws the flame right between his eyes.
“No!” I scream. I reach out with my shadows. They’re faster than her flame. They’re as fast as light.
They don’t put it out. But they do shield Larus’s face just enough to let him dodge the worst of it. It catches on his long hair, but my shadow quickly snuffs it out.
“Look who finally learned to fight,” says Adria, and she throws another flame at him, this time aimed at his chest.
I’m not ready for it. My shadows don’t make it in time. Larus cries out as the fire cuts through him.
“Larus!”
He staggers over, clutching at where the flame tore through him. Did it get his heart? Did it get his lungs?
I don’t have time to find out. Adria turns, and I plunge the entire dais into darkness before she can throw a flame at me.
Her flame is weak in my darkness, but it’s enough to let her see. She launches her dagger at me instead, and I have to let the darkness go to give my shadows enough form to stop it.
I turn my shadows to her, to bind her, to stop her, to choke the life out of her if I have to, when she holds up her hand.
“Fine. You want to fight fair? Let’s fight.”
She extinguishes the flame and holds out her sword in front of her.
I take my guard.
Behind me, on the ground, a figure stirs.
I turn to face him as he rises to his knees, slowly, and then he pushes himself to his feet.
He lifts his sword in front of him and points it at Adria.
“You want a fight?” Ronan asks, his voice weak but unwavering.
“Here it is.”