“He’ll only hurt more people if we let him live. The mercy you speak of would be cruel,” I told Eleanor softly.
Her lip quivered, and she looked at the man on the ground like he was already a ghost. “No,” she whispered. “I vote no.”
“You’re outnumbered,” Dimitri said, clear cut. “Seven to one.”
Tears welled in Eleanor’s brown doe-like eyes. Her hands curled into fists at her sides. For a second, I thought she might fight us on it.
But she didn’t.
She just closed her eyes and refused to watch.
“I’ll do it painlessly.” I glanced at everyone to make sure they were okay with it. When nobody intervened, I stepped forward and knelt beside the unconscious man.
His body still twitched from Zuko’s venom, his skin pale and lips parted. He looked younger up close.
One of my many fatal venoms glistened in my palm, but this strand would be painless and instant.
“I hope the Fates guide you to your mate,” I whispered, pressing my palm gently against his cheek.
His skin was cool against mine. His eyes fluttered open for a moment, unfocused and damp with tears. He looked right through me and smiled a broken, blissful smile.
“Thank you,” he croaked.
My venom did its job before his next breath could finish. His chest stilled.
His heart beat once more.
None after.
The air warped. The forest, the ruined village, all of it peeled away until we were standing on the polished obsidian floors of the simulation chamber.
Phantom pain lingered around my ribs where the warlock’s spell had torn through me. My skin was unbroken and healed, but I still remembered the burn. The simulation was a littletoorealistic, though that was the entire point.
Tibby had told me after the first-year, the simulations could actually kill us.
Aura stood beside me, her fingers ghosting over the bruises on her throat that were no longer there. Her eyes were wide with tears that weren’t falling.
Eleanor was crying softly. Her hands trembled at her sides, her chin tucked low, hair veiling her face like she wanted to disappear. Her empathy was strong, and that was a good trait, but she needed to learn that, sometimes, empathy would not help.
Zuko was smirking faintly, but there was a tension in his jaw.
Slater stood casually with Snakey half-manifested around his shoulders, the spectral serpent flickering faintly. He was back to normal size now, though I could appreciate what an advantage it was to have that power.
Koa crossed his arms and stood beside Zuko with his lips pressed into a hard line.
Coralynn was quiet, her hands clasped neatly in front of her.
Dimitri stood directly beside me. His posture was military-straight, but his dark eyes softened for half a second when they met mine.
The silence stretched, thick and echoing. The only sound was the gentle hum of the room’s warded barriers.
At the center of the chamber, next to the control panel, Jesper stood with his arms crossed. “Well,” he said dryly. “No one died. That’s always a promising start.”
Zuko gave a weak fist pump to the air. “Yay for no deaths!”
Slater threw up an even weaker thumbs-up. “We had a fantastic mission, right?”
Jesper didn’t smile. He tapped the glowing panel, the sound sharp against the dead silence, and sighed. “Let’s talk through the point criteria, shall we?”
