I want to go to him, to help him, but the second I leave Ronan, Adria will kill him.
“Larus,” I beg him. “Larus, I’m here. It’s Sylvie. I can help you. You know I’m right. You know this war is wrong. You know that thousands of people will die if we don’t stop this. I’m not lost. I’m your Sylvie. The same Sylvie I’ve always been. I didn’t turn my back on my family. They turned their back on me.”
“Then come with us,” he says as he gets on his knees and then his feet.
“What?” asks Adria.
“What?” I ask.
“Come with us now. There doesn’t have to be any bloodshed between you.”
“I can’t,” I say. “Innocent people are dying in the streets—”
“Larus, what thefuckare you doing? Yousworeto me that you’d support me if she turned her back on us—”
“I lied. Sylvie, I told you how I felt about the Orsa. How I felt about the war. And you haven’t changed my mind about it. You’ve had your fun. It’s time to come home. Adria, I’m notwilling to stand by while you harm your own people in the name of vengeance. You got your war. Save your vengeance for the battlefield.”
Larus didn’t betray me. He betrayed us both, and he did it for our own sakes. He did it to keep us both alive. He did it to bring us home, something he couldn’t do for our parents.
But I’m not going home. I have no home. No home except here, with Ronan.
Please wake up, Ronan.
“Larus, you’ve disappointed me for the last time,” says Adria. She spins the flame in her hand.
“At least stand and fight me,” says Larus, drawing his sword.
“No, I don’t think I will,” she says, and she throws the flame right between his eyes.
“No!” I scream. I reach out with my shadows. They’re faster than her flame. They’re as fast as light.
They don’t put it out. But they do shield Larus’s face just enough to let him dodge the worst of it. It catches on his long hair, but my shadow quickly snuffs it out.
“Look who finally learned to fight,” says Adria, and she throws another flame at him, this time aimed at his chest.
I’m not ready for it. My shadows don’t make it in time. Larus cries out as the fire cuts through him.
“Larus!”
He staggers over, clutching at where the flame tore through him. Did it get his heart? Did it get his lungs?
I don’t have time to find out. Adria turns, and I plunge the entire dais into darkness before she can throw a flame at me.
Her flame is weak in my darkness, but it’s enough to let her see. She launches her dagger at me instead, and I have to let the darkness go to give my shadows enough form to stop it.
I turn my shadows to her, to bind her, to stop her, to choke the life out of her if I have to, when she holds up her hand.
“Fine. You want to fight fair? Let’s fight.”
She extinguishes the flame and holds out her sword in front of her.
I take my guard.
Behind me, on the ground, a figure stirs.
I turn to face him as he rises to his knees, slowly, and then he pushes himself to his feet.
He lifts his sword in front of him and points it at Adria.
