Page 77 of Fate Breaker

Somehow, clad in her nightclothes, surrounded by ashes, Erida still played the part of imperious queen.

“Even I know immortals can burn,” she said.

“So long as you burn with me, I die well,” Dom answered.

He raised his blade once more, the steel red.

Taristan mirrored him. Streaked with soot and blood, he seemed more the desperate mercenary Dom first met at the temple, when the end of the Ward was but a storm cloud on the horizon. His sword swung and Dom met it, their blades locking. Taristan fought as Dom remembered too: more frantic, his blows unpredictable, born not of a polished castle training yard but muddy battlefields and back alleys. Even as the small cuts on him increased, slices in his white shirt, mortal blood staining his clothes, Taristan wore on.

Erida watched it all, pressed back against the windows, her eyes wavering between her husband and the flames.

Dom was a lion, but a lion in a cave. Cornered, worn down. Slowing. Taristan won cuts of his own, and Dom hissed, every movement bringing a new pain or ache. The floorboards charred beneath them, each step more precarious than the last.

Until Dom’s luck ran out, the burned wood beneath him sagging under his weight. Only his immortal grace kept him from crashingthrough altogether and he leapt sideways, landing on firmer ground.

With a sword at his throat.

Taristan did not smile, nor laugh. Dom expected him to gloat one last time before he made an ending of it. Before he finally broke Domacridhan of Iona to his fate.

Instead, Taristan stared, black eyes edged in scarlet red. Once more, Dom looked on Taristan and saw Cortael. This time, he tried not to let the illusion fade.

His will not be the last face I look upon, not really.

The blade was cold against fevered skin, the edge of it biting a shallow line of red.

Whatever hope Dom carried guttered in his chest, flames reduced to embers. There were no prayers to be said. The gods would not hear Domacridhan in this realm, so far from Glorian. So far from home, and all he cared for.

Idly, he hoped Sorasa and Sigil were safely away, far into the city. If not already on a ship, sailing into the horizon.

“I will not bring you back, Domacridhan. Your corpse will remain where it falls,” Taristan murmured, holding his form. The sword did not waver. “This, I can promise, at the very least.”

Dom blinked, stunned. The offer was almost merciful.

A muscle flexed in Taristan’s cheek. “You’ve earned the right to die in peace.”

“You have a strange definition of peace.”

A heartbeat as familiar as Dom’s own thundered in his ears, the rhythm a song. His eyes snapped past Taristan to Erida, still pressed back from the fray.

Behind her stood Sorasa Sarn, a shadow in bloody leather, a bronzedagger in one hand. The edge bit against the Queen of Galland’s pale, jumping throat.

Despite the flames leaping all around them, consuming the chamber faster and faster, all four figures froze, unable to move. They sucked down smoky gasps of air, chests heaving, their faces streaked with soot and blood. Each glared across the flames, the circumstances catching up. After all they faced, here they stood. The immortal, the queen, the assassin, and the cursed prince.

It seemed impossible, foolish. The work of a dark god, or sheer, dumb luck.

On the floor, a sword against his neck, Dom could only stare. He dared not even blink, lest this all be an illusion. A last wish before the end.

“Where are your armies, Erida?” Dom muttered, his throat moving against the sword. He almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. “Where is your demon god, Taristan?”

But for all your powers vast and terrible, you are still vulnerable, Dom thought, eyes wavering between the Queen and her rogue.And still mortal.

Taristan did not relent, holding steady. But he angled his head just so, enough to hold both the women and the immortal in his vision. The blood drained from his face, his skin going bone-white. In that moment, Dom saw all the Queen meant to Taristan. And what it would mean to lose her.

Erida made a low, strangled sound, hesitant to move, unable to scream. She bared her teeth, as angry as she was afraid.

Dom locked eyes with Sorasa, his breath coming in shallow, smoky gasps. For the first time since Byllskos, he looked on a true assassin. Notexiled, not an outcast. A blooded Amhara in all her lethal glory.

She stared back at him, her face blank, her copper eyes empty of all emotion. Not remorse, not fear. Not even her usual disdain. Her ragged black hair fell around her face, barely brushing her shoulders. A single strand moved, betraying her slow, steady breathing.