“Is there anything else I need to know?” she asked faintly.
Cassiel opened his mouth but closed it because he didn’t want to lie anymore, but he couldn’t bring himself to answer. Dyna stepped back holding the crumpled message that he had stuffed in his pocket. She retreated from him as she read it.
His heart lurched to his throat. “Ignore what it says. They are empty threats.”
“Empty?” Dyna repeated, her hands shaking. “You call this empty?”
The message slipped from her fingers and landed on a pool of water at their feet, floating on the surface with dynalya petals. Raindrops smeared Gadriel’s scrawled message.
As you deign not to honor me with your presence, I am forced to send my reply by messenger.
Nazar will not stand with the High King while the witch queen lives. We refuse to be ruled by such abominable power, including your own. Do away with her and stunt your fire. Prove you are worthy of the throne, and you will have gained our allegiance.
Refuse, and the life in peril will be yours.
“Perhaps we cannot runfrom our fate.” Dyna closed her eyes. “The past is intertwined in our future, but I alone will shape my fate. Not them.”
He stilled, everything in him tensing as the bond fell quiet. When she looked at him again, her green eyes didn’t shine with tears or trust anymore. They were resigned.
Shattered.
“It’s over, Cassiel.”
The foundation shook beneath his feet, and the air left his lungs.
“You were right to leave me. I should never have allowed myself to fall for you from the start. Staying together means I die—or you.”
He lurched forward, “Dyna?—”
She took a step back. “Your people need you. Mine need me here. Stage my death again if you must and return to the Realms where you belong. I will go to Red Highland as I came to do.”
Turning away from him, she strode back into his room. Cassiel quickly rushed after her. She bent behind the table as she picked up her satchel.
“Please, I must stay by your side,” he pleaded. “Separating now is too dangerous.”
“Every day I risk my life, but I decided a long time ago I would no longer be afraid of death.” Dyna recovered her satchel and checked her weapons, returning her fallen knife to the sheath on her thigh. A dour expression settled on her face that told him she had already made her decision. “I told you. The person I used to be is gone. I’m the one who is angry, violent, and who doesn’t feel safe. The girl who used to believe in the goodness of others, who had faith that everything would be all right—she’s gone. And I miss her.” Dyna’s eyes glistened wet for a moment, but they dried with her next breath. “I miss who I used to be, but that girl is never coming back.”
It broke him to hear her say that.
He never wanted that for her.
“The only thing I care about right now is saving my friend. Whether going is right or wrong, it’s my decision to make. I made a promise to Lord Norrlen.” Her gaze hardened. “And I, for one, keep my word.”
That line drove clean through his ribs and out through his spine.
Cassiel had to lean against the desk, because he thought his legs might give out. He wanted to speak, but the words were locked behind his teeth.Please don’t say you are finished with me yet.Even if you never forgive me, please.
As if she heard him, Dyna’s anger softened.
Her next words were so faint. Brittle. That little hope he had clung to withered away with it. “When you left, I tried so hard to rid myself of you, as if that would make a difference. I can’t love you and hate you at the same time, Cassiel. It’s splitting me apart.” Dyna removed the crystal necklace around her neck and placed it on the table. “To live, I need to remove you from my heart. I need to not think about you or care about you at all. You must let me go. I need you to let me go.”
It took everything he had not to show how much that destroyed him.
Cassiel curled his fingers around the crystal and turned away, because he had to. Because if he looked at her, she would know he was nothing now.
“At times … I regret remembering us,” Dyna said faintly. “I see now it’s kinder not to remember. Maybe the memories you should have erased were your own.”
Cassiel waited until his voice was clear before saying, “If it would ease my pain and yours, perhaps you’re right. But I have already broken too many promises to you.”
