Page 145 of With Wing And Claw

Naxi.

‘You’d kill her.’ Her lips were too numb to feel the words.

‘See, this is why I’d rather not have told you,’ he said, face twisting into a mask of unnervingly genuine regret. ‘You have this awful habit of getting sentimental about things. It’s a very simple choice, alright? I can get you through this alive and well, and I’m fully willing to make a bargain on that, if you wish – so what do you have to gain by resisting? You’re not going to stop the wheels from turning either way.’

An offer of survival.

Plain and simple survival.

Old Thysandra would have grabbed the chance with both hands, she was distantly aware, the sensation of that desperate fright still lingering in the marrow of her bones. Old Thysandra had done this before. Safety over morals. Life over loyalty. She’d loved her father once, too, and had renounced him so gods-damned easily when the alternative was risking death.

And yet, no matter how many safe choices she made … she’d neverfeltsafe.

The realisation landed like the realisation of love had done. It had already been there, waiting for her to open her eyesand see it.

She had never been able to stop being vigilant, looking for movements in the shadows. It didn’t matter how many doors she locked, how many daggers she hid in her plants. The fear hadalwaysbeen there, that little twelve-year-old girl still cowering beneath her blankets somewhere deep, deep within her, and the only time she’d felt really, truly secure in her life—

Naxi.

Always Naxi.

Gods, what had shedone?

Even a creature with empathy might have abandoned her after that outburst, the accusations, the cruel rebukes. A demon, even a demon trying to care … Naxiwasstill a selfish creature at heart. And what in the world did she have left to try caring about, when Thysandra had nothing to offer but distrust and delusions?

It would be so easy to be selfish in turn. To take Nicanor’s bargain and save her own sorry hide. To survive, once again, the way she’d always survived in this cutthroat world – by discarding the right principles and serving the right people.

The problem, though …

The problem was her awful habit of getting sentimental about things.

Fuck. Shedidcare. And if Naxi didn’t, she could still care enough for the both of them – because the little monster deserved the peaceful nymph island of her dreams, deserved to find her friends again, and what was the gods-damned use of survival if it meant sacrificing the one thing that made life worth living in the first place?

She wasn’t going to stop the wheels from turning.

Perhaps she didn’t need to, though. Perhaps she only needed to slow them down a little. Naxi was leaving the island right now. Every minute took her farther away from the court, farther away from Nicanor’s inevitable attempt to find her and do away with her … and the veryleastThysandra could do was help her get away.

The opposite of a safe choice.

And yet it was the easiest thing in the world to step back and run her gaze over the packed field below her – to straighten her spine, steel her heart, and say, ‘No.’

It felt very, very good, that word.

‘Thysandra,please.’ Nicanor finally came away from the balustrade, his wings tightening behind his shoulders. ‘I’m begging you to see sense and—’

‘You,’ she said, calm and measured, a voice to hide a pounding heart, ‘can shove that good sense up your arse,Commander.’

He did not flinch.

The stiffening of his face was unmistakable, though.

‘I see,’ he said.

Gone was the pleading. Gone was his mirthless smile and the hint of apology in it. Mercy he might do as long as it cost him nothing, but they both knew the look of a line crossed – and old friends or no, Nicanor of Myron’s house was not a male to grovel, to look back and regret.

Just like that, they were at war.

In the blink of an eye, the space between them had become an imminent battleground.