He has no choice but to continue trying to pull backward, straining against the chain.
She isn’t giving up, and in the next moment, her back foot reaches the very edge.
She’s going to fall!
Without thinking, my hands close around the icy thread extending between her heart and mine.
Just as her feet would slip off the edge, I give the thread a savage tug, fighting her strength, straining against her. All I can do is keep her where she is and stop her from falling.
A second later, Antony launches himself at her, his hand darting out, his fist closing around the material of her tunic, taking firm hold of her?—
I don’t see what happens next because golden light flashes again, filling my view, and in the next instant, I’m back in the catacombs.
But…
Fuck.
Something’s very wrong.
Disoriented, I try to understand why I’ve collapsed on the floor, my breath rasping from my throat, one hand planted to my right, my arm shaking as I attempt to keep myself upright.
Warm liquid flows down the front of my chest and onto the polished stone surface, pooling around my hand.
My focus flashes to the dagger jutting from my chest, right above my heart.
I’m hit. A nearly perfect shot.
I’m vaguely aware that it’s a simple dagger. Wooden hilt. Ashen-brown in color. Unusual whorls on its surface.
Gasping for breath, fighting the chill growing around me, I follow the lines of ice extending out from my body, lashes of snow that must have smashed into the shelves, cutting through wood, scattering scrolls, splattering blood and flesh and bones across the floor.
The assassin’s remains are a ghastly mess.
I have no way of identifying who they were, let alone knowing if it was the same man, the one named Stanimir, I encountered at the coastal village.
I must have killed them as they attacked, but not before I was struck, and certainly only in the last few heartbeats before I came back to myself, because a soft clattering sound reaches me.
A single coin rolls across the floor toward me, dragging the assassin’s blood with it, slowing and then tipping onto its side next to my hand.
An Iron Kingdom coin. Silver, just like the Frost coins I confiscated.
My eyes narrow at it, but the idea of an Iron assassin is not so worrying right now as the blade embedded in my chest.
I try to push myself upright, try to breathe, and calm the fear settling at the base of my spine.
I tell myself: Fear will not control me.
Loss will not control me.
Chaos will not…
But my vision darkens.
Somehow, I saved the Oracle.
But I have not saved myself.
Chapter Thirty
