Outside her mind, Kasira fought to draw breath, to pull herself out before she was consumed, but her lungs were ragged, useless things, and she could not fight the Library’s hold. Everything spun by, her cons from when she was in Thane’s crew flashing like streaks of lightning: a young noblewoman, a merchant’s daughter, a gambling den server. A hundred more. A hundred lives she had lived, none of them her own.
What makes a life?She couldn’t tell if the thought belonged to her or someone else. Something else.
Who’s there?she called.
Is it the beat of your heart in your chest?The memories cycled: Filling her belly at Thane’s banquet table. The first time she saw the bruises darkening Loraya’s skin. The slide of a sword through her best friend’s ribs.
Or is it the choices that you make?The vision twisted, melding into that night in the forest when she had killed the Alkatir cub’s mother. She watched the body roll as if in slow motion, forever revealing the terrified cub beneath it.
Or the people you abandon along the way?Revna’s face materialized, bruised and bloodied, her red hair a tangled mess.
I didn’t abandon her, she thought back.She was never mine to keep.No one ever was. Her family, whose faces she could barely remember. Loraya, who had taught her to survive. Thane and his crew, who had given her a home, however broken. They were borrowed people. A borrowed life.
I didn’t belong there, she thought.I don’t belong anywhere.
The vision turned, and suddenly she stood before the Library, or what remained of it. It smoldered beneath layers of flame, the beasts that had not been slaughtered running rampant. The bodies of mages littered the ground like broken glass, and the Kalish flag unfurled down the castle’s face.
Kasira pushed through the carnage, running, running—and then suddenly, she was in a familiar cavern. The Eyrie, but wrong. The colors were off. It was too quiet, and the cub—a figure stood before it, a knife gleaming in his hand.
Somewhere in her mind, she knew it was impossible, but she would know that form anywhere, the set of his shoulders, the swagger to his stance.
“Thane!” Her voice made no sound.
She lunged—and went straight through him as if she were nothing but air. She stumbled into the pen, the squelch of wet earth sickeningly loud. An edge of silver drew her eye, down, down, down to the lake of blood beneath her. To the motionless cub at her feet. She felt the blade clasped in her own fingers.
No.The knife tumbled out of her hand.I wouldn’t do this.
You already have, whispered the voice. Darkness encroached on the edges of her vision, the Eyrie closing in around her until it was no bigger than that cell she had come to know better than her own mind. Four by four. Sixteen stones for the floor. Sixteen for the walls. The second from the left on the northern face had someone else’s initials gouged into it—AZ.
This isn’t real.The words were a half prayer.None of this is real.
Thane stalked toward her, the blade back in his hand. His mouth spoke in a cruel mockery of his voice.You ran, like you always run, and you let us fall.
And she believed it, because shewouldrun. She always did. Was that not her plan as soon as she had her freedom? To leave the Library to whatever sinister plot Vera had devised?
You must take, or be taken from, said Loraya’s voice. And so Kasira had. Then she had run, and she had never stopped.
Never go back. Never look back.
Come back.A new voice. Somewhere at the fringes of the vision.Come back.
Thane was before her now, blade raised. His eyes were black pits, his mouth a jagged cut. She couldn’t look away. Couldn’t move.
What makes a life?He plunged the knife down.
Kasira watched the blade fall in excruciating slowness. She could still hear the other voice calling faintly,back, back, back. It pulled at something in her chest. Something that looked at the falling knife and saw the lie. Her fingers twitched, and then her hand, and with a great, wrenching pull, she tore free—and looked back.
Allaster stood behind her.
Everything about him was perfectly normal, his copper hair curling down over his brow, his impossible eyes centered only on her.Seeingher. Behind him, she saw the trail of people she had left. May was there, and behind her, Iylis, then Fen and Carlia, Revna, Dessen, Thane, Loraya—the memories that made her, that she tried so hard to pretend didn’t exist. Everywhere she went, she closed a door behind her and locked it tight, but she was a fool if she thought that erased what waited behind.
She felt the press of Thane’s blade in her back as she said, “I remember.”
The vision sloughed away like the skin of a snake. The incessant burning faded into a prickling heat, and she heard another voice, a real voice, say, “Corynth? Corynth, come back! Fight it!”
A blurred face materialized before her. She flinched, trying to scramble away, but something held her. Someone. Allaster. TherealAllaster, clasping her wrists to keep her from thrashing. His touch was secure but gentle, and for a moment, it was all she could focus on: hislong, ring-laden fingers curled about her scarred arms, the brush of his callouses against her skin.
Then everything came painstakingly into focus. She was free of the visions, free of the suffocating heat. Her body ached worse than it ever had after the Zeras venom, and she was pretty sure she had hit every bone in her body against the unforgiving stone, not to mention bitten her tongue hard enough to bleed.
