I twisted around to see Renwell on his knees behind me. The part of the bridge leading back to the palace was gone, too. We were stranded in the middle of the waterfall on a wide, precarious pillar that shuddered harder with every passing moment.
“Even now,” he rasped. “Even now, at the end, I can’t let you go.”
His face was stark white. Crimson blood dribbled from his lips to his beard. But something had fallen away in his dark eyes, like the bridge that had collapsed into the sea.
A vulnerability he’d never allowed to show until his life and his soul were already forfeit.
My heart beat hard and slow, suspended in my chest like a bell ringing its final hour. Yet I couldn’t look away from the dying man who’d saved me yet again.
“I hate you,” he whispered, the words crystal clear over the deadly waterfall. “I hate that I failed because of you. That my plan was perfect until you burrowed under my skin and drove me mad.” His eyes crawled over my face, latching onto the scar across my cheek. “Gods damn my weakness for you. I have failed because...” His lips contorted into a bitter, bloody smile. “Because I care for you. You have won our game, at last. Only too late, as we shall both die for our weaknesses.”
I stared down at the man who had twisted my mind until I wasn’t sure if I could trust it. The man who said I was better than my father, but who’d been worse himself. I felt the smallest drop of pity in a waterfall of resolution.
“You didn’t fail because you care for me,” I said. “You failed because you didn’t care enough.”
The pillar wobbled as stone crunched and split.
“KIERA!”
I looked back at Aiden, who held onto one of the bridge posts and stretched out his hand to me over the abyss.
“It’s going to fall this way!” he shouted. “When it does, jump!”
Jump? I waited for the needles of fear to set in, but they didn’t. I felt strangely calm.
A wet cough brought my attention back to Renwell. His eyes dulled with the certainty of death. “You will fall.”
I will never let you fall.
“No,” I said. “My wings are too strong for your weak cages. Your knives will never be sharp enough to carve away my freedom. I will rise. I will fly. Over this abyss and any other. It is you who will fall.”
I glanced at Mother’s knife, then tossed it into the waterfall. Let Mynastra have her stars back. I didn’t need them anymore.
I had a better weapon now.
The bridge cracked and crumbled, pitching forward.
Aiden shouted and stretched his hand out further, his face taut with desperation, his fingers curling toward me, grasping.
I charged over the falling stone.
Faster.Faster.
My heart pumped harder.
Free.Free.
Fly!
My feet didn’t hesitate. I threw myself off the edge. Toward Aiden.
Chapter 65
Aiden
Time slowed.The bridge fell. My love flew over an abyss.
Yet her fiery eyes were full of hope and trust. Her beautifully scarred fingers reached for me.
