The choice that would either save or damn us all.
TWENTY-FOUR
Aria
"Corrupted." Natalia's voice could have frozen flame, could have turned living fire to ice. "A traitor to everything humanity stands for. A betrayer of your blood, your duty, and the countless generations who sacrificed themselves to keep the Gate sealed."
The words echoed through me, reverberating in my skull like the tolling of a funeral bell, as I tried desperately to focus on the gate, on breaking the remaining seals, on finishing what I'd started. But then hands, rough, unyielding, gloved in leather, landed on my shoulders and pulled me violently away from the shimmering surface.
The Threshold fell away from my consciousness like cherry blossoms caught in a strong wind, scattering and dissolving into nothing. Everything was too unstable right now, the magical currents too chaotic and unpredictable, but even though they had torn me bodily away from my purpose, I could feel that the other seals were weakening still. Cracks spiderwebbing through their ancient structures.
"Guards," she commanded, and they materialized from the shadows like wraiths, like demons summoned from the deepest pits of the underworld, surrounding me with weapons drawn.Not the ceremonial blades they usually carried in their formal patrols, but cruel iron etched with suppression runes that glowed a sickly green, designed specifically to cut through magical defenses and strip a Keeper of their power. "Seize the corrupted Keeper. Restrain her completely."
They moved as one, trained precision overcoming their obvious fear, their bodies falling into practiced formations that spoke of countless drills in the training yards. I could smell it on them, acid terror barely controlled by iron discipline and the fear of Natalia's wrath. They'd seen what I'd done to Malachi, watched me channel divine fire that should have burned me to ash, witnessed the impossible made real. Their hands trembled even as they reached for me.
The first guard reached for my arm, and I let him take it without resistance. No point in fighting them. Not yet, not when it would only waste precious energy. Not when I could feel the other seals straining through the Gate's surface, weakening with each passing moment like ice beginning to thaw in spring sunlight. Time was on my side now, even if they didn't know it, even if they couldn't feel what I felt through the golden threads binding me to the princes.
But as the guard's fingers closed around my bicep with bruising force, movement flickered in my peripheral vision. A figure emerging from behind the damaged doors, someone in Keeper grey moving with purpose through the smoke and chaos, their silhouette backlit by the fractured light spilling from the wounded Gate.
Ellie.
Relief flooded through me like warm honey, sweet and unexpected. My only friend, my one ally in this place of cold stone and colder hearts. She'd help me, surely. She had to. She'd been there when I'd found Pandora's journal, had read those terrible revelations with her own eyes, had sworn with tearsstreaming down her face to stand beside me no matter what came, no matter the cost.
"Ellie," I breathed, and something in my voice, hope, desperate need, the plea of someone drowning, made the guards hesitate, their grips loosening fractionally.
She crossed the space between us with that easy grace she'd always possessed, that fluid movement that had made her the best in our combat training, honey-colored hair catching the light from the damaged Gate like spun gold. Her face was pale as death but determined, jaw set with resolve, those warm brown eyes I'd trusted for years meeting mine without flinching, without fear.
And then she moved.
The knife slid between my ribs with the precision of someone who'd studied anatomy for years, who knew exactly where to place a blade for maximum damage while keeping the victim alive long enough to serve a purpose. It punched through leather and skin and muscle with sickening ease, parting flesh like water, a cold intrusion that burned worse than any fire I'd ever channeled.
For a moment, one eternal, suspended moment, I couldn't process it. The pain was distant, secondary to the sheer impossibility of what just happened. Sweet, loyal Ellie, my friend who'd shared her breakfast with me on cold mornings, who'd braided my hair before ceremonies, who'd held me when nightmares made sleep impossible… She was standing close enough that I could feel her breath on my cheek, could see the tears gathering in her eyes, her hand still gripping the knife's hilt with white-knuckled determination.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, and tears tracked down her face. "I'm so sorry, Aria. But the Order must survive. The world must survive. The Last Seal must be activated, no matter the cost."
I was still trying to get my mouth and brain to reconnect when the knife twisted, a deliberate quarter-turn that I felt in every nerve. Agony exploded through my body like lightning striking the earth, white-hot and all-consuming. My legs gave out completely, muscles turning to water, but the guards caught me before I could fall, held me upright with iron grips as Ellie stepped back, my blood painting her grey robes crimson, spreading across the fabric like wine spilled on silk.
"You?" The word came out broken, shattered, disbelieving. "You were always—all this time?—"
"Always loyal to the Keepers." Her voice cracked but didn't break, trembling at the edges like a string pulled too tight. "My mother served in this capacity. My grandmother before her. We are the hidden blade, the final safeguard, the shadow that follows every Pandoros. When a Keeper becomes too corrupted, when they threaten the very foundation of our purpose, when they choose the monsters over their sacred duty? Someone must do what's necessary."
"You befriended me on purpose." Understanding crashed over me like ice water, drowning and suffocating all at once. Every shared meal over the long years, every whispered conversation in darkened corridors, every moment of warmth and laughter in this cold place, all of it had been calculated, planned, a lie constructed with surgical precision. "All these years, every moment we spent together?—"
"Not all of it was pretense." She wiped at her tears with a trembling hand, the same hand that had just stabbed me, leaving red streaks across her pale cheek like war paint. "I did care for you, Aria. Do care, truly. Which is why this hurts so much, why I can barely breathe through the pain of it. But caring for you, loving you like a sister, doesn't outweigh caring for the world. It can't. The needs of the many must always?—"
Through the spreading cold, through the shocking betrayal that cut deeper than any blade, I heard the princes roaring in the Threshold. Their fury made the Gate shake violently, made the very stones beneath our feet tremble, made reality itself seem to ripple like water struck by a stone. But loudest of all was Kaelen, his rage transcending mere sound, becoming something primal I felt in my bones, in my blood, in the marrow of my being.
Hold on,his voice thundered through our connection, blazing like molten gold.Don't you dare die. Not now. Not like this. Not when we're so close to freedom.
But my blood was already moving, pooling rapidly on the ancient stones and flowing. Not randomly but with terrible purpose, with an intelligence that wasn't my own, as it moved toward the Gate's base. The sanctified floor had channels I'd never noticed before in five years of service, shallow grooves worn smooth by centuries of use that guided spilled Keeper blood exactly where it needed to go, where it had always been designed to go.
"The Last Seal requires willing sacrifice," Natalia said, watching my blood's inexorable progress with cold satisfaction, with the pride of a plan executed flawlessly. "But sometimes, when necessity demands it, unwilling blood works just as well. Especially blood already corrupted by divine essence, already tainted by contact with the monsters. It makes the seal even stronger, feeding on the betrayal, the violation of natural law."
"What have you done?" Master Theon wheezed and in the corner of my dwindling vision I saw him clutch at his chest.
My vision blurred, darkness creeping in from the edges like fog rolling in from the sea. The knife was still lodged between my ribs. Ellie had left it there deliberately, I realized with sick clarity, knowing it would slow the bleeding just enough, keep me alive long enough for my blood to reach its destination and serve its final purpose without wasting a drop.
"Why?" I managed, each word costing me dearly, looking at Ellie one last time through eyes that could barely focus. "I trusted you completely. You were all I had."
