Chapter Forty-Seven
“You fucking killed him.” The words tear out of me—ragged, cracked—like they clawed their way up from somewhere too deep to reach.
Lucien doesn’t flinch. Just drags me into my dorm and pushes me aside. I stumble—catch myself on the edge of the desk—and fuck, it hits me.
Not just the shaking, or the cold, or the haze curling through my head.
Pain. All of it. The second I stop moving, it slams in, raw and radiating.
Every hit from the Trials, every bruise, every blow.
There was too much fight in me to feel it then.
But now? It’s all here. My right arm’s the worst. Throbbing to the bone, deep and hot.
“Why did you do it?” I mean to scream, instead, it breaks low and raw in my throat.
Lucien doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t say a word. Just unties the rope around my wrists, like this is just another job, and shuts the door behind him with a quiet click that sounds louder than it should.
Fucking coward.
I want to throw something. I want to burn the air with what’s still coiling under my skin, but I don’t.
Because I need to try and figure out what just happened without falling apart.
Ezzy’s not here; they split us the second we got back, said they’d question us one by one. She went first, and I’m next.
I press my palm against the wall. Reach. Try to feel my Threads. But they feel heavy. Sluggish. Wrong. Like trying to move with weights strapped to every limb.
A tightness sweeps across my chest, part pain, part something else. Like my body’s holding something it can’t name.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Breathe. Just breathe.
But when I look down, my hands are still shaking. Stomach rolling.
God, what just happened?
Rowan—
My legs give out before the thought even finishes, and I drop backward on to the bed.
My right hand hits the mattress to catch myself—pain tears through the arm, biting straight to the bone.
It knocks a wince out of me before I can stop it.
I pull the arm in close, jaw clenched, breathing through the throb.
It hurts—but not enough to drown out the real pain.
He’s gone. Rowan's gone. I didn’t get to him in time. Lucien killed him.
The tears follow without permission, spilling fast and heavy, cutting tracks down my cheeks as I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, like I can force the image out—the way his body fell, the sound Ezzy made, the blood—
My chest heaves, but the air doesn’t come right.
It’s too thick, so I just curl sideways, fists clutched to my chest, pulling the blanket up like it can shield me from the memory.
Something thuds to the floor beside the bed as I shift.
I blink, vision blurred and look down. A book. One of Rowan’s from the library.
Pain radiates across my ribs and shoulder as I lean over and pick it up—thin spine, cracked leather. He must’ve dropped it off this morning. Before we left. Before he died.
The anger hits fast, like a strike to the chest, blinding and sudden.
My fingers curl around it too hard. I don’t even think, I just throw it. A sharp crack as it hits the wall and drops. I want to leave it there, let it rot—but two envelopes slide free from between the pages and land on the floor.
For a second, I don't move, just stare at them, but then I notice Rowan’s handwriting. One envelope for Ezzy. One for me.
My breath catches as I sit up, rubbing my eyes to make sure I’m seeing things right. Then, slowly and stiff, I cross the room to pick up mine.
My vision blurs as I sit back down on the edge of the bed, the envelope cradled in shaking hands. For a second, I think I might throw up. I haven’t even read it yet, and still it feels too heavy. But I don’t. I swallow hard. Then, open it.
Lyra,
I once asked you, that, if the time came, to choose Ezzy over me, and if you’re reading this, it means you did. For that, I’ll be forever grateful.
When I first met you—when I took your hand in the courtyard almost ten months ago—I saw two possible futures.
One where I lived—and you died.
And one where you lived—but I died.
For a second, I thought about killing you on the spot, I mean, you were an Outerlander. A stranger. And I didn’t want to die, not yet.
But then I looked deeper, and that’s not all I saw.
The path where I lived... it was soaked in pain. Not just mine. Ezzy’s. Finn’s. Everyone’s.
The path where you survived was unclear, blurred, flickering. But through it… I saw something else. Not just grief. But peace. Hope. Possibility.
I chose to believe that was real.
I know you’ll blame yourself. You’ll think there was something you could’ve done to stop it. To save me. But I’ve known for a long time now, Lyra.
It was always going to end this way.
I chose my path. I knew I would die the moment I let your hand go—and I accepted that.
But listen to me now, for whatever it’s worth.
I lived. I laughed. I loved.
And I don’t regret any of it.
So don’t waste your tears on me. Get answers. Fight back. Ezzy needs you. You’re all she has now.
Rowan x
Tears hit the page in slow, heavy drops, bleeding through his handwriting, warping the lines, turning his final words into smudged ghosts.
I blink hard, try to pull myself together, but it’s no use. My chest heaves, the ache just claws deeper, until it's too much and the letter suddenly feels too heavy to hold. I fold it without looking at it and set it down beside me.
He knew.
All this time... he knew.
Not just that something bad might happen.
Certainty.
The certainty that he would die. And he carried it, like a weight no one else could see. Alone.
I stare at the floor, throat tight, heart beating like it wants to tear out of my chest. All those strange comments.
The way nothing ever seemed to catch him off guard.
It wasn’t instinct. He saw it. All of it because he was a Loomreader.
.. Just like Serrane, except no one knew. God, why didn’t he tell anyone?
Tears slip faster now, my chest catching hard as I wipe them across my arm, soaking the fabric of my top.
He touched me, and he saw my Threads, two paths. My survival. His death.
He could’ve saved himself. He could’ve killed me. But he didn’t, he chose me—because he believed there was something better waiting. For Ezzy. For all of us.
I drag in a breath, shaky and uneven, then look around the dorm. This can’t be it, this can’t be what he died for? This mess of silence, secrets and waiting for answers.
A fast, uneasy surge builds beneath my ribs; the thought won’t settle, scraping hard at the inside of my chest. The bed groans as I stand, arm flaring in protest, but I grit through it and start pacing up and down. I want to scream. I want to burn something. I want the world to hurt the way I do.
But none of it will bring him back. That won’t undo any of it. It won't make his death mean anything.
So what do I do?
I could keep waiting—keep hoping Talen will explain everything, that the answers will come if I just hold on a little longer.
But that just gives him more time to lie to me, to trick me, betray me.
More time for more people I care about to die.
He killed Brian, and now Rowan's dead because of Lucien, his friend.
And I didn’t leave Ashvale to wait. I didn’t survive Beth. I didn't lose Rowan. I didn’t walk away from Bren and every single thread of safety I ever knew just to stand here shaking in a Citadel dorm room waiting for answers.
So maybe I stop. Stop letting this place decide who, what, I become. I find my own answers, even if it means walking straight into whatever fire’s waiting for me.
My pack’s on the desk beside me—scuffed, half-open, seams straining from a dozen bad repairs. But it’s the same as the day I arrived here, the only part of me that is.
I grab the pack, shove in Rowan’s letters and the last of mum’s journals, and sling it over my shoulder.
It drags across the worst part of my injuries; hissing through the pain, I rub my arm but pause when I spot the duck.
Stupid thing—don’t even need it anymore, but for some reason I grab it and toss it in anyway.
Then I turn and look around the room; the same itchy wool blanket, the same two desks. The same smell of wet stone, mildew and a hint of damp paper.
I’d said before it felt different. Like something had shifted. It hadn’t been the room. It was me. And I feel it now, bone-deep. That something inside me isn’t coming back.
It’s not grief. Not power. Not even the rage still simmering in my chest like a storm I haven’t named.
It’s certainty.
I know who I am. I’m done being lied to. Done waiting. This is my path now. Mine.
I know what I want. Answers, revenge. And god help anyone who gets in my way.
A low hum shivers through my chest. My Threads, sluggish before, are now wild and hot, building beneath my skin.
The air thickens, charged. My hair lifts with the static, curls tugging at the air like even they’re ready to move.
I square my shoulders, facing the door, the weight of the pack familiar against my spine.
My voice comes low. Steady.
“I can do this.”
A beat. Then sharper, harder.
“I do this.”
Power whips up my spine like lightning. It crackles through my palms, raw and reckless, I bite down my pain and throw my arms forward—The door explodes off its hinges.
Two guards jump at the sound, heads snapping toward the new hole in the wall. They peer in—eyes wide.
I don’t hesitate. My hands twist, fast, and with a flick of pressure through my Threads, their heads slam together with a sickening crack.
They crumple, unconscious before they even hit the ground, and I take off down the hall, boots slamming stone.
Each step sends a jolt through my legs, they scream with every jarring movement.
Fuck. What even is my plan?
All I know right now is I need to get out of here. But not without them. I can’t leave Finn. I won’t leave Ezzy.