The word came out of my mouth before I realized I was speaking.
“No.”
“No?” Siobhan hissed.
“I can’t leave them this way. We promised them that no harm would come to their city. The Nirajans barely have a standing army.”
I couldn’t say what lingered beneath those words: This is my family. This is my blood.
A slew of arrows flew past us, distracting Ishqa and Caduan as they turned to defend us. But Siobhan grabbed my arm and wrenched me close enough to whisper in my ear.
“You are talking about raising your blades against your own people,” she hissed. “There is no coming back from that, Aefe.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but then my eyes fell beyond her. To a Sidnee soldier on the level below, his gaze looking to Siobhan’s unprotected back, his bow raised—
“No!” I dove forward, trying to shove Siobhan out of the way.
But I was too slow.
Sidnee archers were among the best in the world. Perhaps Siobhan herself had trained this one. The arrow struck her in the neck, lodging so deep that the point protruded from the other side of her throat. She staggered against me with such force that I fell against the wall, then together, we slipped down to the ground.
Her lips parted, but only gurgling noises came out. For the first time in our long friendship, I saw fear in her eyes. Fear, and sadness — because after centuries of loyal service, her own people did not hesitate to strike her down.
I could not look away from her face, even as Caduan rushed to her side, Ishqa still holding off the rest of the attack.
There were words coming out of my mouth, but I wasn’t sure what they were until the fourth or fifth time I said them, muttered beneath my breath like prayers:
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for taking you on this mission.
I’m sorry for turning you into a traitor.
And I’m sorry that I am not going to be the loyal, good Sidnee that you trained me to be.
I watched the life fade from Siobhan’s blue eyes quickly, like water draining. With it went the last of my restraint.
You would raise your hand against your own people? Siobhan had said, seconds before they killed her.
My own people?
What people?
They had just murdered their best, a woman who had given them everything that she had, who believed in loyalty until her dying breath.
All my life, I had been ashamed of everything that I was. Now? Now I was ashamed of everything I had been trying to be. I drowned my grief beneath a sea of anger.
Gently, I lay Siobhan on the ground. Closed her beautiful, lifeless blue eyes.
“I don’t care what you do,” I said, to Caduan and Ishqa. “But I’m not leaving them like this.”
I drew my eyes up and met Caduan’s gaze, and as always, it seemed to see something in me that even I hadn’t known how to confront. Not until this moment.
Wordlessly, he offered me his wrist. The scabbed-over wound from Yithara was still there. I didn’t hesitate as I broke it open again, letting his blood and his magic flow over my tongue.
It hit me even faster this time. Maybe the familiarity, maybe the rage, but in only seconds my senses were alight with Caduan’s magic crackling between us. His eyelids fluttered, and I knew he felt it too, this connection enhancing us both. I could see, feel, threads of life running through us — running through the stone and the soldiers and the ivy above us. And I was ready to tear it all to pieces.
We both looked to Ishqa, a wordless agreement passing between the three of us. He gave me a small, terse nod.
Not that I was even paying attention, by then.
I launched myself into the fight. I was acting on nothing but impulse, on anger-fueled instinct. I gave no thought to the fact that the Sidnee I killed were my own people. First I killed them with my sharpened teeth, burning with Caduan’s magic. Then, I tore a sword from a corpse and cut them down, one after another after another, too many to count.
I knew Caduan was beside me, fighting with me, not because I saw him but because I felt him, felt the magic between us feeding into itself. With every body I kicked off of my blade, it seemed to grow stronger. Ivy burrowed through the walls, growing up between the floorboards, tearing apart the soldiers I stabbed.
I was not sure where Ishqa had gone. I no longer cared.
We tore through the Nirajan palace, leaving a trail of death in our wake. I could barely see. I didn’t know if it was blood or tears that obscured my vision. We made it down the grand staircase, out into the main throne room where we had been greeted our first night here. It was unrecognizable, its beautiful stillness overtaken with bodies and blood, all blurred in the violet-red of my broken vision.
I jerked to a stop, faltering for reasons I didn’t understand. It was only when Caduan turned and slid his arm across my back, pulling me into a secluded corner, that I realized it was because I had been stabbed. I hadn’t felt it. Still barely felt it, save for the warmth of the blood now running down the backs of my thighs. But Caduan’s concern, deep enough that it reverberated in our connection, was enough to pull me from my rage.
I sagged against the wall, turning to him. Cold air surrounded us. We were on a balcony, just beyond the main throne room.
“I can keep going,” I panted, my voice ragged. But Caduan’s gaze slid beyond me, to the warriors pouring into the throne room, and the Nirajan soldiers being slowly overrun.
I heard what he did not voice.
“We can win this, Caduan,” I choked out. “We can save them.”
He leaned close to me. So close our noses brushed, so close that our shared magic burned in the breath
