He leaned casually against the house, gently probing the knife wound in his gut. Fear tightened her chest as she spotted her mother shivering in her nightdress at the end of the porch—only a few feet away from the slumlord. Her mum’s gaze was wild, no recognition in her eyes as she muttered a stream of unintelligible words, staring at Lia.
They needed help. Where the devil was Loshika?
She scanned the surrounding area and stiffened when she spotted several figures tussling near the river. Time seemed to slow as the storm lightened enough that she could see clearly. Loshika fought two Recurrence—the slumlord’s henchmen.
Despair seized Lia as she spotted a lone figure kneeling in the snow, gagged and bound.
Cosmos. Her brother.
Shadows on the other side of the river caught her attention.
Banners.
Warhorses.
Soldiers.
Lia’s breath hitched as she turned back to the Giver, who’d given up his inspection and smiled eerily at her.
“Do you like my gift?” he asked.
Dahlia swallowed hard. “How?” she croaked, trying to find a way out of the situation. How were they supposed to escape the entire Asteran army?
“Nothing happens within my city without me knowing it.” He sighed. “I thought you knew and respected that.” He pushed away from the stone wall and limped to her mum, grabbing the frail woman by the hair. He began dragging her across the porch and through the snow toward the river, like Lia hadn’t injured him at all. “Come along, flower. We have your sentencing to deal with.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the weather slid down her spine. Lia knew how he executed sentencings.
With blood.
She scrambled after him, cursing the deep snow. Tears dripped down her face, leaving freezing tracks as her mum shrieked and cried, her bare feet turning red in the cold.
Lia halted when the Giver reached the river’s edge. It wasn’t a gentle sloping bank but a sharp ledge that dropped into the swiftest part of the icy river. A river that plunged underground not far away. A river that had claimed many lives.
She held her right hand out. “Let’s not do anything we’ll regret,” she said softly, panting.
The Giver laughed, but it was cold and cruel. “I think the time for bargaining is over. I offered you a way out, and you spat in my face.” He touched a burn mark on his cheek. “Well... kickedcoals into it. That was a first.” He shook her mum roughly by the back of her skinny neck and stepped backward toward the river.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Truly.”
The snow started to fall harder.
He chuckled. “You always are when there are consequences to your actions, but I am a generous man. I will let you choose.”
The war drums beat in time with her heart. “Choose?”
A feminine cry cut through the air.Loshika.
An answering cry from the sky. Serenity.
“I’ve known you a very long time, Dahlia Skysinger. While you are intelligent and practical, your family has always been your weakness. It’s also the perfect key to controlling you. So, now I offer you the choice: your mother or your brother?”
Dahlia glanced at her brother’s red face and back at her trembling mother. It was an impossible choice. Even if she did choose, there was no escape. Not with a thousand soldiers just past the river.
Lia swiped the snow from her eyes, smearing the frozen tears on her cheeks. Despair clogged her throat, but she managed to get out, “Please don’t do this.”
The Giver took the last step to the river’s edge, yanking her mother onto her bare feet. “I haven’t done anything. You’re the one to blame for why we’re here. Choose, or I will choose for you,” he growled.
He really would kill one of them.
