Page 104 of The Sundered Realms

Jadrhun’s jaw clenched. “I am trying very hard to make another option, Liris.”

Her palms tingled with sweat. Don’t second-guess now. Keep him talking.

“You’re recruiting me because if I’m not with you, then I’m against you,” Liris said. “And the fact that my death is even a consideration in your plans means that I can fight you. If you keep threatening the world with demons, I will.”

She didn’t just want to learn. She wanted to learn in order to make a difference helping people. Liris could buy Serenthuar’s safety, but the cost might be not just hers, but the world’s.

Jadrhun took his eyes off her for the first time, glaring at Vhannor. “Well done.”

“I’m not responsible for her ability to thwart you,” Vhannor said.

“No, you saw that all Liris needed to be useful was a mission, and you gave her one before anyone else and in so doing bound her to your cause. Commendable.”

Vhannor didn’t answer for a moment, and Liris knew why: Jadrhun would know him well enough to know he never wanted to control people, and had lashed out with a purpose.

“I won’t stop Liris from making her own choices,” Vhannor said, which, while in general Liris highly approved of, with a spell pointed at her as she made one Jadrhun didn’t like was somewhat less reassuring. “I haven’t held her or anyone else back.”

By which he meant Jadrhun, obviously, who was demonstrably less convinced. “Is that how you rationalize it? Liris can’t understand the forces she’s caught up in yet, but you do. This is her last chance, Vhann—I promise I will unwork this spell, but if you want to keep her safe, leave her with me.”

“I have been kept safe long enough,“ Liris snapped. “If you choose to kill me, that will be your choice, no matter how you rationalize it.”

“And we,“ Princess Nysia said for the first time, her voice glacial, “don’t abandon people for convenience.”

Finally, Liris had bought enough time.

“That is exactly what you do,“ Jadrhun snarled back at her. “You’ve decided anything else is too hard. You’re so committed to your rules because you’re too cowardly to even dare to imagine what you could do, and you snuff out anyone who can. But you can’t stop me.”

Nysia spelled, and instead of a demon protection sphere it was a small, condensed version that shot into Jadrhun like a cannon.

His hand barely twitched, but it was enough, sending a beam of magic at Liris—

But she slipped again. A spell turned the platform liquid underneath her feet, and Liris dropped below the spell that would have hit her.

Vhannor caught her.

And with her hands free to spell, Liris stared clear-eyed at Jadrhun with a lightning spell ready.

“Do it,” Nysia said as Jadrhun effortlessly dispersed the same sphere she’d captured Belighia in.

“Whatever you’re caught up in,” Liris said, “we won’t leave you alone. You can make a different choice.”

Jadrhun’s lip was bleeding from Nysia’s first hit, but he smiled coldly at her.

“I don’t want to,” he said. “But there’s nothing for me in this realm after all, it seems.”

Then Jadrhun fell backward through the Gate and was gone.

Princess Nysia whirled on Liris. “ Why didn’t you take the shot.”

Liris leveraged herself off Vhannor. “You think I should have murdered him? I’m pretty sure Special Operations frowns on that, especially since we have no proof he’s killed anyone. We can guess he was involved with the mercenaries in Periannolu, but that’s circumstantial.”

Nysia glared. “Are you quoting protocol at me? Special Operations makes provisions for self-defense, and he was going to kill you.”

Liris glanced at the snow behind her, where Jadrhun’s beam would have landed, and couldn’t see anything. “I don’t think he was.”

“You’re kidding.” Nysia’s words dripped with scorn. “You believe him, because he said so? I didn’t take you for that naïve—“

“I may be inexperienced, but I’m far better at reading people and situations than you.”

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