I take a step toward the sound before I can stop myself.
Valentina moves faster.
Her hand closes around my throat, slamming me back against a concrete pillar. Stars explode across my vision. Her face fills my sight, beautiful and terrible and utterly without mercy.
"He's fine," she says. "Konstantin won't kill him. Not yet. He wants to break him first, and you can't break someone by killing them quickly. It's like a game to him, his whole reason for existing. I guess you get bored when you're over a thousand years old." Her grip tightens. "But you… You, I can kill. And I think I will. You've outlived your usefulness to me."
"Konstantin won't..."
"Konstantin doesn't control me. Not anymore." Something dark flickers in her expression. "He promised me Atlanta if I delivered you. Promised me territory, power, everything I've wanted for three centuries. But watching you now, watching you pine for Maximus when you should be focused on the enemy about to kill you, I think I'd rather just watch you die."
Her free hand draws back, claws extended, aimed at my chest.
I have maybe half a second.
I use it.
My knee comes up hard, connecting with her stomach. It's not enough to hurt her, not really, but it's enough to loosen her grip. I twist free, gasping, and put distance between us.
"You'll have to do better than that," I manage.
"Oh, I intend to."
We circle each other again. Both wounded now. Both bleeding. The sounds of Maximus's fight continue in the background, crashes and grunts and the occasional word I can't quite make out.
Stay alive, I think at him, knowing he can't hear me.Stay alive for me.
"There's something else you should know," Valentina says. "Before I kill you. A parting gift from your loving maker."
"I don't want anything from you."
"You'll want this." She smiles. "The love you feel for Maximus? That's real. Completely, painfully real. Konstantin didn't manufacture it. He didn't have to."
I stare at her, waiting for the twist.
"That's what makes this so perfect," she continues. "You genuinely love him. And when Konstantin activates you, you'll be aware of every second of it. You'll watch yourself tear him apart, and you won't be able to stop. You'll feel your own hands killing the man you love, and there won't be a single thing you can do."
The horror of it washes over me.
"He could have made you a mindless drone," Valentina says. "But that's not what he wanted. He wanted you to suffer. Wanted Maximus to see the woman he loves become his executioner. Wanted you both to know, in those final moments, that your love was real and it didn't matter." Her smile widens. "That's the cruelty of it. If you didn't love him, it wouldn't hurt. But you do. And it will."
I think of every moment with Maximus. Every touch. Every word. The way he looked at me in the firelight. The way he chose me over and over again.
All of it real. All of it mine.
And all of it potentially the setup for his murder.
"You're a time bomb," Valentina purrs. "Ticking away in his bed, in his heart, in his life. And he doesn't even know it."
"He knows now," I say quietly. "And so do I. Which means we can stop it."
"Can you?" She laughs. "Konstantin has been perfecting this for centuries. You think you can just... decide not to be activated? Will yourself out of programming you don't even understand?"
"I think I can try. I think we can find a way." I meet her eyes. "And I think you're afraid of that. Afraid that your master's perfect plan might fail."
Something flickers in her expression. Uncertainty. Just for a second.
"And when you've served your purpose," she says, recovering, "when you've destroyed him completely, Konstantin will collect what's left. A broken lord. A broken weapon. Everything he's wanted for a thousand years."
