She was so calm. Teddy was furious at her for being so rational now when she was so unreasonable the rest of the time.
It was like they’d switched roles. He could not master himself.
His chest was tight with panic, the same breathless vise-like fear descending on him as it had in the tent before he’d entered himself into the contest.
Stella pressed her hand to his heart. “Breathe with me.”
He couldn’t. It was like his body had forgotten how.
Teddy knew how to kill. He’d practiced enough that it was easy now—reflexive. But he didn’t know how to kill someone he loved.
“You won’t be able to come back,” he whispered.
Stella touched his cheek. “You aren’t replaceable.”
“Neither are you. I have three siblings that could rule.”
“But can both our kingdoms survive the upheaval?” she rasped. “We could stand here all night and debate it. We could kill anyonewho comes in to face us until it’s just the two of us again. But that will just leave us with more blood on our hands as we face down the same exact decision.” She unbuckled her breastplate. It fell to the marble floor with a hollow thud. Stella unbuttoned the top three buttons on her shirt and pressed the tip of the dagger’s blade to the flushed skin over her heart.
Just last night, he’d brushed his lips to that spot, murmuring how much he loved her in Old Novumi.
Teddy looked around wildly for any other option. He wanted to scream—to charge at Endros and fist-fight the god. But it was pointless. There was no escaping this decision.
“If you don’t do it, the magic of the competition might kill both of us,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the murmuring of the crowd. “If we slay all our foes, and it is you and me again, we will be forced to finish this until the binding magic decides the game is over.”
Teddy glanced up at the faces of the spectators. Some looked angrily at Endros; others looked sympathetically toward Teddy’s plight. If there was one thing the people of the two kingdoms respected, it was the fairy-tale story Endros was trying to recreate in an eerie next-generation echo. They didn’t like it.
It wasn’t fair. Teddy and Stella had played the game. They passed every challenge. If anything, they should have both received a favor.
But Teddy wasn’t a child, and he’d learned long ago that life was not fair. He’d followed every rule, and he’d been impeccable his whole life—until a few weeks ago, when he went to the Temple of Desiree. He couldn’t even call it a mistake anymore because the more he’d gotten to know Stella, the more he’d let go of their history as adversaries, and the more the bond seemed like the hands of fate moving them around a board.
Why had all of that happened if only to end in tragedy weeks later?
Stella looked at him with such conviction, squeezing her hand around his on the hilt of the blade, her eyes glassy. “Teddy, we have minutes before someone else gets here and wins instead. I don’t knowhow much time has passed. Our competition won’t hesitate. Just do it.”
He shook his head. “I can’t.”
A broken sob rattled out of Stella, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You should have told me whatMinyhameant,” she rasped.
“How could I when you didn’t want me?” Teddy asked. The question was wrenched up from beneath his heart—from the very place where the bond connected him to Stella.
“I do want you. I just don’t want to lose myself to have you.”
“How isthisnot losing yourself?” Teddy snapped. He was so angry at her for putting him in this position.
“Because it’s my choice,” she sobbed. “I used to think I wanted exactly what my parents have.”
“And now?” He could hardly breathe around the fear.
She looked up at the booth where their families looked on. “And now I’m afraid I do. Now I wish I didn’t care about you because I’m not strong enough to kill you, and I’m terrified that we have the same weakness.”
Stella flinched at the same time Teddy started to feel a low-grade warmth spreading through his blood.
It was already starting. They had hesitated too long.
Teddy shook his head.No. He could not do this. The burning came in a wave, and he gasped, squeezing his hand tighter around the dagger hilt.
“Come on, Stella. You fight me on everything else. Fight me now.”
