“This is pointless, Little Goddess,” he hummed. “Look around you. Do you see what is happening?”
Naia, a beautiful mess of silver damp locks and fierce emerald eyes, lunged for him.
The heel of his palm lodged into her collarbone and she tumbled back.
Cassian’s breath hitched as the syringe fumbled from her grasp. A force of life blew through him and he rushed forward. If he could get his hands on it, they would be one step ahead in their plan?—
A set of fingers wrapped around the syringe. Fingers he could recognize mixed in with a hundred others—honey-tanned, long and lithe, soft and tender, decorated in titanium rings.
Finnian swirled the syringe triumphantly with a vicious smile. “Too slow, Cassie.”
A lump swelled in Cassian’s throat. The nickname was atrocious and used purely out of spite, but he didn’t care. It was probably an amusing detail Finnian had intentionally added when crafting the potion to alter his memories.
Over a hundred years had passed since he’d stood before Finnian. He looked the same, and yet so painstakingly different. His shoulders had filled out beneath his dress vest. The tie stuffed under the collar was crooked. His strands curled at the ends in reaction to the rain.
He fixed a superior look at Cassian, eyebrows piqued and paired with a smug smirk.
Cassian clenched his teeth to keep from grinning. Gods, he missed him.
It is almost done.
“Finny, no!” Naia yelled.
Keep going.
Cassian growled and dove for him.
A cloud of ruby swirled around Cassian’s fist.
His soul let out a long breath and smiled.
“I have cometo you with a proposition.” Finnian stood angelically in front of the Land’s gates, looking right through Cassian. “As my sister has already broken her curse by handing over her freedom, I am here to exchange my freedom for hers.”
Cassian didn’t allow himself to dwell in the resentful way Finnian regarded him. The plunging of what felt like daggers through rosewood. Instead, he focused on the forward momentum of their plan.
He is here; we are almost finished.
Cassian cocked his head like an intrigued predator, playing the part. He pulled a hand from his pocket and swiped a finger over his bottom lip. “You have my attention.”
Cassian strolled downone of the many dark corridors on the lower levels of Moros. The hollowness that had taken root in his heart filled with each step.
I promise you, when we survive this, our Fate will be ours alone.
Cassian entered the room. The two executioners gave a bow as he passed through.
He joined at Shivani’s side as she stared down at Finnian, body slack and arms suspended up by the chains mounted in the ceiling. His head hung, chin buried in his chest. Blood and soot smudged his cheeks.
The Chains of Confinement blocked the majority of a deity’s divine power, leaving enough for them to regenerate at a tedious speed. Though, not enough to feed power perpetually into holding up a glamor.
Without it, Finnian’s coffee-stained strands were waves rolling over his shoulders, down his back, and exposing the puffy-white skin on the base of his jaw, angry patches that marked his lobe and the conch of his ear.
It felt as if Cassian had swallowed Shivani’s blades and they’d gotten stuck in his heart. The pain nearly stole the breath from his lungs seeing Finnian this way—battered and broken because of him.
I will beg for forgiveness when he wakes. However long it takes.
Shivani handed him a small plastic bag. Inside of it was Finnian’s necklaces and rings.
Cassian placed them safely in the inside pocket of his suit jacket, alongside where he’d stored Finnian’s hearing aid.
