For the first time, I see her falter. She swallows thickly, scared, but almost as if she’s accepted it, too.
“I know,” she confirms, lifting her chin in defiance. “You were always a smart child, Kael. I knew you’d figure it all out. And I knew that once you did, I’d have but heartbeats remaining.”
Elyssara steps forward, almost pleading. “We need her to undo the spell! We can’t.”
For all my fury, I know she’s right. Without Mavyrn, the spell stays whole. The realms stay broken.
But through my riotous thoughts, Mavyrn speaks.
“No. You have Seren. She can perform the spell. She’s of the old blood—a full-blooded witch.”
Again, I’m left wondering where her allegiances lie, because her words are the blade that will cut her own throat.
“She doesn’t know how—she’s only learned the Gateway,” Elyssara snaps, impatience and confusion bubbling out in a wave of frustration.
“She knows,” Mavyrn breathes. “I showed her in Nymeris before you all arrived. She’s brilliant.”
Elyssara’s face twists in confusion again. “Who the fuck are you helping, Mavyrn? Whose side are you on?”
Mavyrn’s mouth cracks open with a knowing smile. “Such narrow thinking,” she scoffs. “I don’t pick sides, girl. Sides die. I choose whatever future still has breath in it.”
“Even if the cost is your life?” Elyssara asks, incredulous.
“Especially then. The cost is irrelevant if the gain is greater,” the old woman speaks with something like wisdom.
But I promised my friends no mercy.
And Mavyrn fucking betrayed me. Betrayed us all.
I step forward, closing the distance between us, the point of my blade still angled at her throat.
“One more thing,” she croaks, a rasp like bone on steel. “If you can get to Lara, the war is won.”
Lara? Who in the fucking Stars is Lara?
“Who? Where?” Elyssara presses.
Mavyrn’s eyes narrow into knowing slits. “You children think the realms end at the sea? The Perils will prove you wrong,” she whispers.
“How do we get there? Mavyrn?” Elyssara pleads, desperate.
But Mavyrn sucks in a long inhale, closing her eyes in finality, and leans into the point of my blade until a slow trickle of crimson pools and spills down her neck.
I look at her.
Truly look at her face.
She isn’t a woman in this moment. She’s an ideology wearing skin.
But her fate has been sealed.
She was right about some of it, and that thought feels like rot.
“Haven’t you ever wondered how the Lightborne barrier holds?” Mavyrn asks, a knowing glint in her eyes.
But it’s too late.
I thrust the blade through her neck, and a wet, gurgle ripples up her throat.
