“It sounds like the lesson is not to let your partner go somewhere you can’t follow.”
Wait, did he say the words aloud now, or in my thoughts? The pain overtook me. My tenuous grasp on awareness blurred the lines. Then the sickening sound of steel sinking into flesh filled my ears. Yet no new pain pierced my skin.
Vaddon flailed back. His sword clanged against the floor, and another blade was driven through his chest.
Hart didn’t spare him a second glance as he dropped to his knees beside me. “Chaos.” The word hung between us, filled with too much emotion. It sounded like a thousand nights together we’d never have.
He might have killed Vaddon. We might have broken the game in Kavios, but nothing else was guaranteed.
I coughed blood, and the look on Hart’s face said this couldn’t be good. “Alysa, Charon, get some fucking adamas!”
His own stone clinked to the floor next to him, and he cursed again. I hadn’t seen him try it. He searched the room, grabbed one of the fallen Storm, and tried their stone. It struck the ground next. Panic flared to life in his eyes. The bitter taste of his fear was on my tongue.
Distantly, I thought that should have ended. I shouldn’t be able to taste his emotions, but I couldn’t remember why.
“I love you,” I whispered, though I fought for breath to choke out each word.
He scooped me into his arms and pressed his lips to my forehead. Maybe he realized he was out of time. Stone and metal slid against marble. Hart said something under his breath. He gripped an adamas pendant in one hand and pressed his other over my chest, channeling healing magic into me.
My back bowed as the magic flooded my body. The heat of my connection with Hart covered all manner of sins, but I felt the adamas’s power knit me back together. Like delicate needlework, reconnecting parts inside me that should never have been severed.
It felt too good to be true, but my breaths evened out, and the pain receded.
I looked into forest green eyes that said they’d never, not for a second, given up on me.
“That is unacceptable.” That cold, cruel voice filled the room. For the first time, it wasn’t directed at me. Themis’s attention was turned to Elias where he sat on the floor. His arm was still outstretched from sliding his adamas pendant to Hart. The one used to heal me.
Themis’ rage was an ice cold thing. “She ruined my game. I deserve to see her take her last breath.”
The glowing outline of Themis stormed in our direction. Hart was on his feet, steadying me behind him as he prepared for another battle I wasn’t sure we could win. If the game had truly ended, there was no reason she couldn’t kill me. It wouldn’t even be interfering.
Themis charged forward. “I didn’t invest two hundred years just to have?—”
Darkness overtook the light that glowed around the goddess, and a too-familiar, childlike giggle filled the room.
42
Dragonfire can burn away all manner of sins.
— ALARIC SARE’S PAPERS FOR EMBERLINE ARKOVA
Eris was a vision of the darkest nights and the most unexpected torments. She was chaos incarnate, her unconventional laugh echoing through the room. The flame red of her hair fell to the middle of her back, her black dress billowed as if she had landed from the heavens. The now-familiar blood-red color painted on her lips was no less terrifying as she smiled in my direction. With the slightest nod of her head, she turned, placing herself between her sister and us.
Themis’s hands went to her hips, clutching at her form-fitting white dress. “You cannot interfere.”
Hart seemed unsure what to do. He stood behindEris, with me positioned directly behind him. With the healing magic from Elias’s adamas stone, I was as good as new, but I didn’t think that would help against a goddess if one of them decided to attack.
Charon approached, his snout bumping into my back to let me know he was there. “You did well, Ember.”
I didn’t know if I’d ever get used to him calling me anything besidesChampion, but I took his use of my name as further proof that my choice had worked. I wasn’t a Champion anymore.
Eris laughed again at her sister, and it sounded like a haunting ringing of bells. “That’s rich, given what I just walked into.”
Themis lifted her chin. “She ended the game. I can do whatever I want to her.” She spread her arms to encompass the entire throne room. “To any of them!”
“Ah, ah, ah, dear sister,” Eris said playfully.
She toyed with Themis even though the Goddess of Order’s rigid posture signaled that she was a bow string pulled too taut, likely to snap at any second. I could not comprehend the relationship between these sisters.
