Page 96 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

ARA

W e explained everything I thought would send Gus running in the opposite direction, but he didn’t so much as flinch.

He was deep within the throes of Auryna’s rebellious organization, and Rogue was grateful to have people who could blend in among the other humans—people Adonis wouldn’t expect us to work with.

But this wasn’t just another rebellious heart willing to join our cause. This was Gus, the teacher and friend who let me bitch and moan about my father while there were much worse problems in the world than my gilded cage.

How narrow-sighted I had been, how naive and ignorant.

How careful he had been not to shatter my illusion.

As we arrived at the dressmaker’s shop, a ball of nerves sank in my gut. Asha entered through the front, and we slipped around back to wait in the shadows, where the temperature dropped even lower.

Icy air sawed in and out of my lungs, burning my nose, throat, and eyes as I bit at the inside of my cheek.

“Actually, I have been inside,” Gus said. “A year or so ago, when the crown’s armorer opened a position for another apprentice. I didn’t care for the job, but we needed eyes beyond the front doors.”

“Are the invitations addressed by name?” I interrupted, “Or could Asha’s invitation be used for another human?”

“They’re general,” Gus replied. “Anyone could use anyone’s.”

I turned to Rogue. “Godrick could use it. He’d know the castle like the back of his hand.”

Our original plan intended for him to stay behind the blind with Delphia and the others, but he’d be much more useful alongside us.

Rogue sighed. “We’ll need a fourth outfit.”

Gus didn’t seem to hear him. He stared at me, a deep crease between his brows. “Godrick…Stirling? He’s alive ?”

“Remember my barmaid friend? Livvy?”

He nodded.

“That’s your Stirling heir. Livvy. Alivia.

Daughter of the late Alivia Stirling, and granddaughter of the former King Godrick.

” His eyes widened to a comical level, but I didn’t have it in me to laugh.

“Recently reunited with her grandfather, her aunt, and…” I extended my arms to either side. “Her cousin.”

“ What?” Asha exclaimed from the back door.

We slid past her into the small building, but she remained, staring at the ground where we’d once stood. Gus reached around her and pulled the door closed.

Twice, she made me explain how Godrick lived and joined us before she finally redirected her attention to the task at hand.

She’d paid off the seamstress with more of Rogue’s gold than she would make in a year, and according to Asha, she permitted us to take what we needed before she skipped off into the sunrise, happy as a clam.

Asha, on the other hand, was deeply un happy at the prospect of having to find men’s formal attire here.

“This is a dressmaker’s shop,” she said. “We’ll be lucky to find a men’s shirt, much less everything Godrick Stirling would need.”

Minutes later, Asha ate her words as she pulled a dated tailcoat, waistcoat, and a moth-eaten undershirt from the back of a closet.

She shook them out, and a cloud of dust billowed around her.

“Oh, no.” She coughed and waved her hand. “Godrick Stirling cannot wear this.”

“We’ll dust it off, and the coat will hide the holes in the shirt.” I moved to take them, but she held on tight. “It’ll be fine.” I practically tore them from her hands. “I can assure you, his outfit of the night will be the least of his concerns.”

She stared hopelessly as I handed them off to Rogue with an exasperated sigh. He tilted his head, scanning my face with a gaze that I swore could see straight into my head.

I smiled weakly and started to turn back to Asha when he grabbed my face, fingers splayed over my cheek. His lips found mine, and for a moment, the world paused.

But like all great things, it ended too soon.

“It’s almost over,” he murmured, and I swore he could read my mind. “I’ll be in the next room, helping Gus send letters through the fire. If you need anything, come find me.” He pressed another quick peck to my lips. “Even if it’s just another kiss. Anything at all.”

My brows furrowed. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, little storm,” he said with a lop-sided grin and one last kiss.

At the sound of his retreating footsteps, I ran a hand down my face and glanced out the nearest window. The sun had risen to half peak already.

Because Adonis had plans for sunset, the ball was set to start two hours earlier.

A fucking masquerade ball. Masks, gowns, and idle laughter. Drinks served. Finger foods passed.

Oh, and death, of course, promptly to follow.

Ridiculous. Ostentatious. Cocksure.

Perverse. Sadistic.

Tension coiled in my chest while I silently compiled a list of the many words applicable to both him and this “celebration,” as he called it.

His one-track mind would offer up a palace brimming with his people on a silver platter to the bloodthirsty Fae while he took his guards and soldiers with him, leaving them defenseless.

This couldn’t simply be a deterrent or way to lure me back. Neither felt like enough.

Asha entered the closet again, waving her hand through the air, muttering about a lack of basic housekeeping.

“If only dust were our most pressing issue.” I inhaled a deep breath and turned my attention to the closest rack.

I rifled through a pastel rainbow of dresses, looking but not seeing, too focused on how hard my heart was beating. With a grimace, I scanned the room in search of anything softer than this scratchy tulle and stopped short at the gown in Asha’s hand.

Her gaze bounced between me and the dress. “I found it in the same closet as Godrick’s dress coat.”

I exhaled slowly and nodded.

Ten minutes later, I stood on a pedestal, clad in raven black and laced in a breath-stealing corset that I couldn’t tear my eyes from in my reflection. I never thought I’d put another one on.

After tonight, I never would again.

It was beautiful, but I’d spent more than my fair share of time molded in one. I wouldn’t spend a single day longer bound in the clothing that Auryna’s polite society decided I should like.

After tonight, I’d spend the rest of my days wrapped in Fae silk, comfortable and free.

Free.

“We don’t have magic, but we’re quick with a blade.” Gus’s voice traveled down the short hall, and I strained to hear his next words. “If nothing else, we can hold off the guards.”

I closed my eyes. Between the corset and the serpent of anxiety winding around my rib cage, one of them was bound to kill me before Adonis had the chance.

Bracing a hand on my abdomen, I muttered under my breath, “As if we needed more lives at stake.”

I gasped when a pin pricked my calf.

“Sorry, dear. I got distracted—thought I heard some whispering.” She narrowed her eyes. “Must’ve been a fly.”

I spun and dropped to my knees. “I need you to understand. In less than eight hours, we’ll be entering a room with the worst man to ever exist—the same man who can manipulate your mind, your thoughts, your morals. He can rewrite your entire existence with a single breath. It’s that easy for him.”

The color drained from her face.

“I need you both to understand.” I clutched her hands in mine. “This is greater than the rebellion. It’s not a ploy for power or a regular coup. It’s not the assassination of a human king. This is the end of an almost immortal, incredibly powerful monster.”

She nodded quickly, her lips pressed in a tight line.

“I understand, too,” Gus said. “I understand the risk and danger I’ll be putting myself in.” He glanced around and leaned in to whisper, “Believe me. I’m practically shitting myself already.” He stood and cleared his throat. “But I don’t shy away from fear, and neither do you. You never have.”

Rogue leaned on the door frame, arms crossed. “She doesn’t believe me when I tell her how brave she is.”

Asha twisted her wrists to take my hands.

“You were brave enough to sneak out to my old place when you were nothing more than a scrawny teenager who could hardly recall what the outside world looked like. Now, you stand toe to toe with the impossible.” Her eyes darted to Rogue.

“With him .” She winked and pressed a kiss to my hands. “Brave then. Brave now.”

I shook my head and whispered, “It’s not bravery when you don’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice, my girl. You’ve chosen to stand when it would’ve been much easier to stay down. That’s a choice. A damned brave one, I’d say.”

Eight thinly veiled Fae beat us to Asha’s library: Drakyth, Lee, Edana, Thana, Delphia, Doran, Iaso, and Calypso, all but Doran adorned for battle. Even Godrick, one of two humans among them, came in fitted armor, a sword at his back and a shortsword at his hip.

Asha spotted him the moment she stepped over the threshold and raced to introduce herself, but the sobering sight of them stopped me in my tracks.

My heart pounded so loudly, I was certain they could hear it, too. They could likely hear many things: my heart, my fear, the apprehension threatening to spill my lunch on the carpet, the walls of an inescapable fate closing in all around us?—

“Breathe,” Rogue murmured in my ear, and I sucked in a breath, not having realized my lungs burned in a fire of my own making.

“This is real,” I whispered, too quietly for anyone else to hear. “Today’s winter solstice, and tonight…”

Tonight, we’ll gaze up at the liminal moon. Will we be looking to the sky with relieved cries or because we lie dead on our backs?

Tonight, the moon would rise just long enough for the Goddess to close her eye, then it would fade from the sky and leave us in anarchic twilight for the longest night of the year.

“Tonight,” Rogue started, dipping his head until he swallowed my entire field of vision.

“We’ll finish what he started, and it’ll pass, just like any other.

When the sun finally rises—and it will—we’ll watch .

We’ll watch, and we’ll greet that flaming sky on our feet, hand in hand, knowing we’ll watch that same sun rise a thousand more times. ”