Chapter 42 #2
His cutlass hovers inches from my throat. This close, I can see the muscle jumping in his jaw, the way his chest heaves with each breath. His dark eyes burn with betrayal so deep it steals my breath.
“Yes,” I say simply. “Yes, Marco. I saw it.”
“You lying piece of shit!” He steps back, raising the blade. “You let me think—you made me believe they were waiting for me! That I could go back and be with them! And the whole time you knew they were rotting in the fucking ground!”
“I’m sorr—”
“You told me all about them! You told me all about how tall Lucas had grown!”
“Mar—”
“You selfish bastard! You lied so I’d take Esme back there for you!”
The accusation is absolutely absurd. Fury boils within me, and I shove off from the broken chests, advancing on him.
“What? You would have gone back anyway—where else would you go?”
Our blades lock at the crossbars. We strain against each other, faces inches apart.
“I lied as a kindness, Marco!” The words tear from my throat. “To give you hope! Something to fight for! Something to live for!”
He breaks the lock with a vicious twist and brings his cutlass around in a wide arc. I throw myself backward, but not fast enough. The tip catches my vest, slicing through fabric and skin. Blood wells up across my ribs.
He cut me. He made me bleed.
The deck tilts under my feet as I retreat. Or maybe that’s shock making the world unstable. Marco stalks after me, his blade weaving patterns in the air between us.
I feint left, then dart right, trying to get behind him. But he reads the move, spins, and suddenly cold steel presses against my throat.
The cutlass edge bites into my skin. One wrong move, one twitch of his wrist, and my jugular opens like a smile.
“You’re all I live for,” he whispers. “You’re all I live for, Robin.”
A thunderous CLANG reverberates through the arena.
On one of the sandy islands, sparks are flying on either side of a massive cannon. The metal beast gleams black and ominous, its mouth gaping wide enough to swallow a man whole. Technicians scramble away from the weapon, their tools abandoned as they flee to safety behind protective barriers.
There’s no further warning before it fires.
The explosion splits the air like the world ending. The cannon recoils backward, smoke billowing in thick gray clouds. Something screams through the sky above us—a dark blur moving faster than my eyes can track.
I grab Marco’s arm, yanking him sideways just as the Deathball crashes into the deck where we were standing. The impact sends splinters flying in every direction. The entire ship shudders beneath our feet like a living thing in pain.
The metal sphere embeds itself deep in the planking, buried almost to its equator.
Steam rises from the heated metal, hissing where it meets the dampness from my earlier swim.
There’s a sheet of metal underneath the wooden deck—reinforcement to keep the Deathball from punching straight through the hull and ending the match before it begins.
It’s still buried in the wood, the spikes gleaming like tiny daggers.
Let’s get this over with.
The crowd’s noise fades to a distant roar in my ears. I’m focused only on the weapon and the man beside me. This is it. The moment we planned. Quick and clean, he promised. No suffering.
But he doesn’t move.
Marco stands frozen, staring at the weapon like it’s a poisonous snake. His hands hang loose at his sides, his cutlass forgotten on the deck behind him.
“What are you doing?” I seethe through gritted teeth. “Marco, what are you doing?”
You promised me this would be quick. You promised!
Very, very, very slowly, he shakes his head at me.
“Go and get it!” I scream, any pretense forgotten. “Go and get that fucking ball, Marco! End this nightmare!”
The crowd is watching Marco’s every move. He’s throwing away five years of long, hard, brutal work.
“You need to do this!” I swing a wild punch at his face, desperation driving my fist forward.
Marco doesn’t even try to dodge. My knuckles connect with his jaw, snapping his head to the side. Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth.
Still, he doesn’t move toward the Deathball.
“Fight me!” I scream, throwing another punch. This time he catches my fist mid-swing, his fingers closing around mine with impossibly careful tenderness.
“Marco… please!”
His fingers uncurl from mine slowly, reluctantly.
His thumb brushes against my knuckles one last time.
He turns and walks toward the Deathball as if he’s walking through deep water.
Each step toward the embedded weapon takes an eternity.
His shoulders shake with each breath. When his fingers finally close around the handle, the crowd erupts—a thunderous roar of bloodlust and anticipation.
They’re ready. Ready to watch him end me.
I scramble away from him, deliberately tripping over my own feet while clutching my chest. My back hits the mast with a bone-jarring thud. The wood groans under the impact, timber protesting against the force, the whole thing shaking. I make a show of crumpling to the ground beside it.
Esme. Esme. Esme. I’m doing this for Esme. And Marco. My brave, beautiful bastard who has survived five years of this. He deserves this. He deserves to be free.
“Robin.” Marco’s voice breaks on my name.
Tears stream down his face, cutting dark tracks against the sun-bronzed skin I’ve kissed, traced with my fingers, memorized in lamplight. The Deathball trembles in his grip—those same hands that have held me so gently, now wrapped around the weapon which must kill me.
“I can’t. I can’t do this.”
He’s only three steps away. Close enough that I could reach out and touch him if I wanted. Close enough to see every detail of his anguish.
The crowd’s roar swells around us, then fades to a buzz. Nothing exists except this moment. Except Marco, falling apart in front of me.
“Baby…” I choke out. All that rage, all that pain—he was just trying to make this possible for himself.
I know, I want to scream at him. I know what I’m asking. I know what it’ll cost you. I’m asking anyway.
The muscles in his arms quiver. His chest heaves with ragged breaths.
“You’re all I have left in the world.”
I know. Oh, how I know. But it doesn’t change anything.
His jaw clenches, tendons standing out in his neck. Softly, in Atrean, he whispers, “You’re going to kill me, then go back to that dungeon. And you’re going to survive.”
The commentator shouts something about the champion toying with his prey, drawing out the kill for maximum entertainment.
I shake my head violently, answering him in kind.
“No. No, Marco. I can’t kill you.” It’s true.
I don’t have it in me. I’d rather die. I’d rather let the Emperor’s guards drag me back to the dungeons and torture me for years than hurt this man.
“You need to leave the city with Esme and Maria—they won’t survive the wasteland without you.
Please, Marco. I need you to do this for me, my love. ”
More tears stream down his face. His whole body shakes.
“Please,” I beg, bringing my hands together in front of my chest. “Please, please.”
Marco lifts the Deathball.
My heart stops. This is it. This is how it ends. Not in some blaze of glory, not fighting to the last breath, but kneeling on a wooden deck while the man I love prepares to cave in my skull.
The irony isn’t lost on me—I’ve spent so long fighting to survive in this world, only to beg for death at the end.
“Te amo, mi amor,” Marco says, his voice so quiet I have to read his lips. I love you, my love.
“Te amo, mi amor,” I say back. My final words.
Marco lifts the Deathball higher, his muscles coiling with power. I won’t close my eyes. I’ll watch Marco’s face until I’m blinded by sharp steel or my own blood.
He’s looking at me, gazing into my eyes with grief and adoration and something that looks like worship. Like I’m something precious he’s about to destroy with his own hands.
You are so brave, my love. Braver than I could ever be. Thank you for doing this. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Marco glances away from me, looking up toward the sky, the Emperor’s blue flag snapping in the arena wind above us. Something passes over his face—desolation, then suddenly, a flicker of pure hatred so intense it takes my breath away.
His gaze returns to mine. The Deathball rises above his head, poised to fall like a meteor.
I brace for impact.
The Deathball drops.
I don’t even blink. I watch Marco’s face contort with effort, watch the metal blur as it descends—
The world explodes beside my head.
Not inside it. Beside it.
Wood cracks like a gunshot. The mast shudders against my spine, the whole structure groaning as splinters rain down on my shoulders. My ears ring. The ship lurches beneath us.
I’m not dead.
He raises the weapon again, brings it down with equal force, timber screaming, splitting. Again, his muscles coiling, and now a cry of anger, of pain, a final shout of protest before he sinks it one last time, then stills.
Marco isn’t looking at me. He’s staring at the Deathball, now buried deep in the mast’s base, his chest heaving.
The crowd goes silent.
I’m not dead.
Marco missed. He—
The words won’t form in my brain. Nothing makes sense. Reality fractures like broken glass. It takes a moment for it to sink in. Marco missed on purpose. He destroyed the mast instead of my skull.
The mast.
A groan splits the air—not human, but wood under impossible strain. The massive timber structure shudders, then lurches forward with gathering speed.
“Move!” Marco roars.
I can’t. My legs won’t work. My brain won’t work. Nothing works except my eyes, which track the mast as it falls toward the arena stands like a giant’s club.
The first section crashes into the protective barriers around the pit. Metal screams. Stone explodes in chunks. Then the rest of it—fifty feet of solid timber—slams into the audience with a thunderous boom.