He doesn’t retrace his steps, or try to push past me, even though I’m clearly weak. Instead, he blinks calmly at me with deep brown eyes—brown, though they should be violet—and bounds to the very edge of the cliff, where a strong gust of a sea breeze tugs the cloak from his shoulders.
I may be out of it, but I know what this is. He’s daring me to join him out there, where he can murder me with his bare hands. A choke, a punch, a push.
But the moment his hands are on me, I’ll be able to draw his spirit out.
I take the bait.
“You don’t look well, Sparrow.” Hadrien’s mouth twists in a sort of grin as I stagger my way to the cliff’s edge, my head spinning more with every step. “Missing Evander too much to go on living?”
I shake my head, not in answer, but at the way he calmly closes the distance between us. But then, I shouldn’t be too surprised—pride is what killed him the last time, too.
He swipes a hand toward me, and I let him, trying to feel the boundaries of my skin again and push past them like I did to reach inside the metal soldiers. Something clatters to the ground, blue stones that glitter in the sun. My necromancer’s pin. He’s ripped it from my tunic, and as he follows my gaze, he stomps the pin into the ground.
“You won’t need that where you’re going—or rather, not going,” he murmurs.
I gasp as he grabs me by the shoulders and pushes me to the very edge of the cliff. I dig in with my heels, as the toes of my boots are over the open air, still trying to make my spirit grab hold of his.
“Enjoy your last breath,” he hisses, using my friend’s face to sneer at me. “After this moment, you’ll be nothing. You are nothing.”
There was a time when I believed that, too, I realize as we struggle on the cliff’s edge, each trying to push the other over. But it’s not the pin that makes me who I am. I’ve always been, always will be, a necromancer. Even when I ran off to sea, even when I turned my back on everything I am—I could never outrun myself. Without the pin, without even my name, I’d still be a fighter. I’d still be a commander of the dead. I’d still be a girl too in love with life to commit to death, even when it’s calling to me more strongly than ever before.
Laughing, Hadrien breaks our strange embrace to land a blow to my side, right where Orsa stabbed me.
He has no idea he’s given me just what I need.
A shove closer to death.
I latch on to his forearm. My flesh-and-blood hands dig their nails into him while I plunge my spirit’s hands through layers of cloth and skin to reach his stubborn spirit.
The spirit tenses, jerking in my grasp as I try to pull Hadrien from Karston’s body.
He’s figured out what I’m trying to do. He’s fighting me with all his strength, clinging to Karston’s skin.
Suddenly, he sucks in a breath as Karston’s body begins to fall backward off the cliff, an arrow sprouting from his chest. Hadrien’s spirit, momentarily confused, clings to my hands, and I rip him out of his shell as Karston’s body tumbles into the sea far below, crown and all.
I fight back a sob, even though I know Karston is long past caring.
Hadrien’s spirit thrashes in my hold, but getting him out of my friend’s body has momentarily renewed my strength, and I hold himin place as I try to figure out what to do with him. I don’t want him returning to the Deadlands, poisoning more spirits against necromancers. I don’t want him to hurt anyone ever again.
Blackness crowds the corners of my eyes, but I take a deep breath, willing myself to stay conscious just a little while longer.
Hadrien’s blow to my wound caused it to bleed again, and this time, it’s not slowing.
If it’s the last thing I do, I have to put his spirit someplace where he can’t do any more harm. Holding fast to him with one hand, I grab a large rock with the other. I must be delirious for even thinking it’s possible, but what if I can do with this ordinary rock what Karston did with the metal soldiers? What if necromancers are capable of far more than I ever dreamed was possible?
Tightening my grip on Hadrien’s thrashing spirit with one hand, I wipe some of my blood on the rock with the other. Spirits can’t resist a taste of life. I guide his filmy hand toward the rock, prepared to watch his spirit simply drift toward the Deadlands gate nearby. But instead, he vanishes into the unremarkable grayish-brown stone.
Briefly, I consider kicking the rock into the sea. It’s what he deserves, all things considered. But I still my foot. Better to let him sit here and watch the world pass him by until these cliffs fall into the sea, under guard and utterly helpless.
For the rest of time, he’ll be trapped in silence, bound to something so ordinary, he would never have deigned to so much as glance at it.
“There now,” I mumble at the rock, slurring my words. Not a good sign. “You’ve gotten what you wanted most—eternity in the living world.”
My head spins again, bringing me to my knees. As the cliffs and distant palace begin to fade before my eyes, I’m able to catch aglimpse of Meredy running toward me from several hundred paces away, her bow still in hand, with Lysander and Elibeth at her back.
I smile.
I can go now. I can slip out of this skin and be free. This is how I wanted it to end, when it was my turn. Seeing Meredy’s face one last time.
