Page 41

41

NARANUS

W e retreat back into the sanctuary, Eryss and Catalina dragging me inside. Catalina speaks, talking about the sacrifice. I can’t process it.

Catalina’s words hang in the air like a curse of their own, choking the life from me. Two ways.

Kill me, sever the magic, end the curse. Or offer another willing soul of equal power.

I can feel Eryss trembling beside me, though whether it’s from rage or something else, I can’t tell.

Doesn’t matter.

I won’t let her make that choice.

My jaw tightens as I force my breath to steady, though my body screams in protest. I don’t have time to waste. Not for arguments. Not for hope.

“You already know the answer,” I growl, stepping forward. “Do it.”

Eryss recoils as if I struck her. “What?”

“Kill me,” I say again, harsher this time. “Before the Elders send someone who won’t hesitate.”

She shakes her head, violently. “No.”

I snarl, grabbing her arm. “Do it, damn you!”

She shoves me off with enough force that I stumble back a step, my balance slipping from my body’s growing weakness.

“You think I’m just going to stab you in the chest?” Her voice shakes, but her anger cuts through it like a blade. “That I’m going to stand over your body like some glorious executioner?”

Her hands tremble at her sides. I catch the flicker of magic curling around her fingers. A warning. A threat. A refusal.

I press forward anyway.

“You think the Elders will let you refuse?” I snarl. “They’ll send another assassin. Maybe a dozen. And when they kill me, they’ll take you back to the coven in chains.”

“Then I’ll fight them!” she screams.

She moves before I do. Her palm cracks against my cheek. Hard enough that my head jerks to the side.

The sting barely registers. The shock does.

My fingers brush my jaw as I slowly turn my head back to her.

Her chest heaves, her eyes burning with something I can’t decipher. Grief. Rage. Desperation.

“I won’t let you die,” she chokes. “Not for them. Not for me. Not for anything.”

The words slam into me like a warhammer to the ribs.

Suddenly, I’m drowning in all of it.

The way she looks at me. The way she feels pressed against me in battle, against my lips when she kisses me like I’m the only thing anchoring her to this world.

The way she defies me, over and over, refusing to be my executioner even when everything in her life tells her she should be.

I grab her by the shoulders, shaking her once, forcing her to see me.

“Then what the hell do you want me to do?” I demand. “Wait here while I rot? Pretend I don’t feel myself breaking apart?” I lift my arm between us, let her see the cracks running through my skin, growing wider with every breath. “This isn’t something you can fight. This isn’t something you can fix.”

Her fingers curl into my tunic, clinging to me like I’m slipping from her grasp. “There has to be a way. There has to be?—”

“There’s not.”

Her breath shudders, and her fingers go still against me.

Catalina shifts beside us, watching. Always watching.

I turn toward her, my body seething with frustration, helplessness. “Say it, Catalina. Say what you’re thinking.”

Her expression is guarded. “I think you should listen to her.”

I snarl. “You think I want her to watch me die? You think I’ll let her suffer that? You think it’s my choice?”

Catalina’s gaze flicks between us, and I see the way something shifts in her eyes. Something calculating. Something understanding.

She flinches.

Not from me. Not from Eryss.

From something outside.

A warning hum of magic prickles against my skin.

Eryss stiffens. “What was that?”

Catalina curses under her breath. “Something’s coming. They’re here, and even the barrier can’t stop them”

Eryss whirls toward me, her panic immediate. “We’re not done talking about this.”

I grit my teeth.

The conversation isn’t finished. But the war is coming for us as it waits for no one.