Felix pulled the trigger, and the sound blended with the rest of the clamour. This time, he didn’t miss.
August’s words rang in his head.You did this.But he was wrong.Theydid this. All of them. Decades of hatred. Decades of oppression. There was a time when wielders were respected. Atheran would get there again.
If there’s not a path, make one.
He would. Even if it was paved with corpses.
Gunshots cracked across the square, and Felix spun to see a City Watch squad firing into the crowd.
A group of wielders surged in from behind, most of them familiar faces from the pub. Moving with startling precision, they tore through the squad in seconds.
Felix stared. Had they been training? He’d always taken them for drunks, not fighters.
He spotted the black curls then, led by a Watch officer around the edge of the square.
Coward.
Felix holstered the spent gun, then rounded a group of stalls to cut him off.
The surprise on August’s face was magnificent.
As Felix gave the command for the officer to shoot himself, he grabbed the aesling by the throat and had him pinned against the wall before the shot rang out. The officer fell, and he conjured the cloud again, wrapping it around them, shielding them from view within its heavy darkness.
He wanted to take his time. Wanted to make this hurt.
“A lifetime of hiding my magic,” he said, the steadiness in his voice a stark contrast to the fire burning through him. “A lifetime of pretending. I loathed it, y’know. But I knew it would all be worth it someday. There was hope for something better. I was going to be a legend, my name stitched into the history of a better Atheran. And then I metyou.”
His grip tightened as August struggled, fingers digging into Felix’s arm.
“You destroyed everything and guaranteed my execution with a single sentence.”
“I can . . . ” The words barely made it out as August gasped for air.
Felix loosened his grip to let him speak.
“I can get you a pardon. But you have to let me go.”
Felix leaned in, his eyes narrowing as they locked on August’s. “My existence isn’t a crime, despite what they think. I don’t need their permission, or yours. And I don’t need a pardon.” His lip curled in scorn. “Because I have done nothing wrong!”
Searing white-hot pain lanced through his thigh.
Felix released August as he jerked back. The cloud dispersed, and the chaos of the market square snapped back into view around them.
He glanced down at Lottie’s dagger buried in the side of his good leg.
That August had actually used it was unexpected. Admirable, even. But his failure to bury it somewhere fatal was a mistake the aesling would quickly regret.
With a grunt, Felix yanked the blade free and let it clatter to the ground.
“This isn’t the way to fix things,” August said, pleading, still flat against the wall. “You think killing these people will make it better? Make you a hero? It won’t. You’re only making them more afraid of your kind.”
Your kind.
Felix scoffed. “They’re right to be afraid.” He drew his second gun as he took a step back. “And I don’t need to be a hero to be a legend.”
August’s gaze flicked over Felix’s shoulder—an unintentional warning, and Felix whirled just in time, narrowly dodging the sweeping arc of the dueling cane. Lottie was already winding up for another try when a violent gust of wind sent her forward, slamming her against the wall. Her head hit the unforgiving stone with a sickening crack.
She crumpled, unmoving.
