Then another.
My vision blurred with tears I couldn’t shed, not here, not in front of Xyliria, who was watching with that horrible, satisfied smile.
“That’s it,” Linc whispered, encouragement threading through his words like he was coaching me through sword practice instead of his own execution. “You can do this.”
I was shaking.
Unravelling.
Breaking apart at the seams.
Linc’s voice wrapped around me, but I was slipping.
“It’s not your fault,” he murmured, as though trying to convince me. As though he already believed it. “You did what you had to do.”
The dagger in my hands?—
It was heavier than the world itself.
The only thing holding me together was the steady warmth in Linc’s eyes, the absolute trust written across his face. Trust that I would do what needed to be done.
Trust that I would save Fenric.
Trust that I would survive what came after.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Don’t be.” That sad smile widened. “Just make sure he remembers I loved him.”
I raised it, the blade catching the torchlight, casting fractured shadows across Linc’s face. He didn’t flinch. Just kept looking at me with that steady, unbreakable faith that made me want to scream.
You can do this. You have to do this.
But even as I thought it, my body was rejecting every instinct, every rational thought. My muscles locked up, refusing to move, refusing to?—
The magic around Fenric suddenly released.
He collapsed to the stone floor like a broken doll, gasping, shuddering, barely conscious. But even through the haze of agony, even with blood streaming from his nose and mouth, he saw what was happening.
Saw me standing over Linc with a blade.
“No—” The word tore from his throat. “No, no, no, Isara,please?—”
Tears mixed with the blood on his face, his sobs echoing off the walls like something dying.
“Please don’t—I can’t—please?—”
Linc’s jaw tightened at the sound, devastation flashing across his features. But his eyes never left mine.
“Just look at me,” he said quietly, ignoring Fenric’s broken pleas. “Don’t look at him. Look at me. We can do this.”
We.
As if this was something we were doing together. As if he was somehow sharing the burden of what I was about to?—
I couldn’t breathe.
The blade trembled in my grip, my whole body shaking with the effort of trying to make myself move. To bring it down. To end this.
