I searched the room for an out, but Terym’s men surrounded us, and any move to escape would result in death. Mine and hers.
My breaths shortened, and my chest constricted.
She wasn’t supposed to be here. She was supposed to be safe.
I had a wish to make. One wish.
My heart tore in two, each half pulled me in opposite directions.
How could I protect Eleanor and make the wish I knew in my heart I needed to. Forhim.
I loved him, more than anything in this world, and I couldn’t use my last wish for anything but to free him from the confines of that stupid lamp.
How would we all survive if I did?
Terym’s impatience grew, so on a huff, he grabbed Eleanor and pulled her to stand in front of him, with the jeweled knife held against her abdomen and tearing at the fabric of her dirty dress.
“Do it, or I’ll kill little Eleanor.”
No. Anything but that. I couldn’t let him do it. She needed to live.
The world needed her to live.
Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I stared into those hazel eyes.
I’d failed again. Failed to protect her. Failed to save him.
I couldn’t let her die, but I couldn’t make that wish. Every fiber of my being screamed at me not to. I opened my mouth, not really sure what I was going to say—when several things happened at once.
Terym smiled in triumphant glee.
Smoke curled around the king’s ankles.
And Eleanor moved.
She gripped Terym’s knife with bound hands and used the momentum of her body to impale the knife into her side, her scream muffled by the dirty rag filling her mouth.
Everything slowed as the blade disappeared into my sister’s body.
Terym stepped away, hands wide, and staring at Eleanor in clear shock.
I ran as she fell.
Chapter 40
“No!” I cried out, catching Eleanor before she hit the ground. Her body landed awkwardly in my bound arms, and we slumped to the floor.
“No, no, no, no,” I chanted, her breaths coming in short, wheezing gasps.
What did she do?
I patted her side frantically, searching for the source of the gushing blood soaking her dress. Eleanor coughed, and blood spurted from her mouth in a spray of deep red, transporting me back to another time. When another woman with dark curls took her last breaths in my arms.
“No,” I choked on tears and disbelief. How could it end like this?
“Lia,” she rasped, and I found her beautiful hazel eyes, the exact shade as our mother’s.
No. No. No. No.
