“Make a sound, and I’ll kill you,” says Adria.
My muscles turn to ice as I realize she’s hovering over me, a flame in her hand. She lowers it to my face until I can feel its heat.
“What are you doing?” I cry out. “What the fuck, Adria?”
“Iknowyou did something. I don’t know what, but I know you did it. You’re going to tell me right now, or I’m burning this bed to the ground with you in it.”
Fuck this. She’s insane. I’m not doing this anymore. I’m getting the fuck out of here before she kills me. She can rot in the dungeons.
I lower the shadows and reach for the ones I can shape to throw her off of me. With my life threatened yet again, they should be easy to find, but I can’t seem to grasp them.
“You’ve still got some fight in you at least,” she says in the darkness. The shadow I drop over us is strong, strengthened by the lies of the last few days. It nearly extinguishes her flame. “Tell me what you did, and I’ll let you live. As long as you didn’t fuck up the plan, I’ll let you live.”
“I didn’t do anything!” I shove her, trying to push her off of me, but she’s stronger than me. She overpowers me, grabbing my wrist cruelly and twisting, hurting me.
“Tell. Me. What. You. Did.” She lowers the flame to my cheek again until I smell the delicate hairs there burning, until I feel the heat licking my flesh.
“Stop! You’re hurting me!”
“You told him something, didn’t you? That’s why we’re in here. You betrayed us. You lied to us. Didn’t you, Sylvie? You think I couldn’t tell?”
“No,” I whimper, lying to her. I can’t fight her without my shadows. I try to force them out again, but they just won’t come.Fuck! “I didn’t. Ididn’t.” I screw my face up, pretending to cry.
“Pathetic,” she says. “You’re pathetic. You’renothing—”
The door bursts open. “Get the fuck away from her,” says Ronan, crossing the room in an instant. He throws Adria off of me as she tries to ignite him, sending a piercing flame into his shoulder.
The guards—five of them, including Taran—sweep in behind him, cornering her.
Ronan takes me from the bed, holding me to him. “Are you alright? I felt your pain.” He touches my cheek, healing the burn there.
“Your shoulder,” I tell him. His robes are smoldering where she pierced him.
He pats out the flame and winces as he heals himself. “That one went deep.”
“But you’re okay?” I ask, my voice shaking.
“I’m okay. I’m here.”
“I knew it,” says Adria, watching us. “You lying whore! I knew it.”
“Sir?” asks Taran. “What should we do with her?”
Ronan sits me down on the ground beside the bed. Then he steps towards Adria, to the corner of the room near the window where the guards have her surrounded.
“I want to kill you for hurting her. For all of the other things you’ve done as well, but for hurting her most of all. I want to watch the light dim from your eyes. I want to hear you take your last gasping breath, knowing I’m the one that killed you.”
“Do it,” says Adria, defiant to the end. “Just fucking do it and stop wasting my time talking about it.”
My heart leaps from across the room. I hate her, I hate everything she’s done, I hate everything she’s made me do, but underneath it all, I love her still.
She’s my family. She’s my blood.
I hate her, but I don’t want her to die. I don’t want him to kill her.
I can’t look.
“But I won’t,” says Ronan, shocking us both. “BecauseI’m not like you. Because she’s not like you. She’s better than you. She still sees a chance for you, even now.”
