Ana found Kaïs, bearing down upon the last of Kerlan’s men. And then there was Linn, moving so fast she was a blur of shadow, sparring with Sorsha.
Sorsha looked unhinged. Her eyes were so wide that they seemed to bulge from her cheeks; her face was splattered in the blood of the people she had murdered.
Linn lunged. Her blade sliced through the air in an arc, and at first, it appeared as though she had missed. But then she darted back, revealing a long gash across Sorsha’s abdomen.
Sorsha whirled around and screamed. “You pathetic little bitch!” she shrieked, and lashed out.
Linn stumbled back, but Ana caught the flash of pain across her face. She dropped to her knees, pressing a hand to her breast. Her fingers grew crimson, and blood began to drip down her wrist.
Sorsha’s eyes found Ana from across the hall. “Choose now, Blood Bitch!” she screeched, triumph twisting her face as she staggered to the edge of Godhallem, clinging to the wall that held the Blue Fort over hundreds of feet of cliffs. The wind whipped at her hair. “Stop me, or save your friend?”
Linn’s lips had turned pale; a small red puddle had formed on the floor in front of her. She collapsed to the floor as her strength gave way. She was going to bleed to death.
And there was nothing Ana could do about it. “Sorsha,” she croaked, climbing to her feet with Ramson’s help. “Don’t do this. We choose our paths in life.”
Sorsha’s face was cracked in a leer. Her teeth were bared, froth dripping down her chin. “You fool,” she hissed. “We could have been great together. Together, we might have wreaked chaos upon those who imprisoned us, who abused us.”
There was so much hate, so much anger burning in Sorsha’s face as she snarled at them. But Ana saw something else. A half girl, half monster.
I’d like to think we’re not so different after all, you and I.
Was this how she had once looked to the world? Was this what she might have become without Luka and May and Yuri? All Sorsha had needed was for someone to reach out a hand. To tell her that she was wanted, that she was human.
Ana reached out a hand. She glanced to Sorsha’s wrist, where the siphon gleamed against the night, and to her belt, where the second one rested. “It isn’t too late. You can choose to be good.”
Sorsha looked at her and blinked. For a moment, Ana dared to hope that her words had gotten through to the girl, that she had caught her at the brink of the abyss, before the fall.
But then Sorsha’s lips curled into a vicious grin. “This is just the beginning, Blood Bitch,” she shouted, two daggers appearing in her hands. “The next time we meet, the world will fall at my feet.”
And, with a tip of her head, she somersaulted off the edge of the cliff.
By Ana’s side, Ramson gave a shout. Something else at the back of Godhallem had caught his attention.
While they had been focused on Sorsha, Kerlan had crept from the dais to where Linn lay, strugglng to stay conscious. In his hands was a piece of searock that had fractured from the floor. Before Ana could even cry out a warning, Kerlan raised the rock over his head and brought it down on Linn’s arm.
Thecrackechoed, followed by Linn’s scream.
Ana shouted; she heard Kaïs roar in fury and charge forward.
But Kerlan moved fast. In the space of two breaths, he had hauled Linn across the floor until she was balancing precariously at the edge of the drop to the cliffs below.
Panting, he looked up. A slow, crazed smile spread across his face as he met Ana’s eyes.
“Nobody move,” Kerlan said softly, his voice echoing over the dead silence of the hall, “or she dies.”
The pain in her arm was like fire. Spots bloomed before her eyes, and her mind was clouding over, fighting to stay conscious. Even the bells had fallen silent.
Dimly, she felt herself being hauled along the floor, her legs dragging limply behind her. Her wound continued to bleed, her arm trailing uselessly by her side, bent at an oddly distorted angle. Each small movement, each tiny shift of gravity was excruciating.
She was only aware that she had reached Godhallem’s edge when she felt the cold brush of winds against her skin. They swirled against her face, snatching at her hair and burning her cheeks, as though to whisper:wake up, wake up.
Someone was shouting her name.Linn.
She knew that voice, knew its owner. His fate had been tangled with hers since they’d met atop the walls of the Salskoff Palace.
Linn met Kaïs’s eyes, and the grief in his expression struck her, hard. He lifted his gaze to Kerlan, his face morphing into cold fury.
She looked down. The searock floor of Godhallem ended where she lay; beneath her was a chasm of darkness, the sound of the ocean rushing up in whorls of cold, salt-tanged air. One wrong move, and she would plunge into the depths below.
