Page 117 of Shattered Jewel

Cav releases an agitated sigh and runs his hand through his dark hair, causing it to stand in appealing disarray.

“It’s not about accusing him of anything,” he tries to explain. “It’s about figuring out why he’s gone.”

Wilder huffs and crosses his arms over his chest, his muscles flexing with the motion.

“Could be he’s just fed up with all this shit,” he says. “A man can only take so much before he cracks.”

I shake my head, unwilling to accept that as an explanation. “That doesn’t sound like Axe,” I argue. “He wouldn’t have run without telling us ... unless...”

“Unless?” Sasha echoes, looking at me.

…he figured out I’m the Sovereigns’ last sacrifice, and he’s trying to save me.

Could it be I’m misreading the weight in his stare as guilt instead of sacrifice? Would he do that?

The answer comes immediately: to save his brothers, to stop me from getting killed, yes. He would.

I grind my molars as I come to terms with the idea that while I debated how much I should trust him, all of them, he was figuring out a way to help me.

“Do you have something to add, beastie?”

Kaspian’s soft voice is anything but light.

I draw in a breath, my heart scrambling against the captivity of my ribcage, when my phone buzzes abruptly in my pocket, its vibration a startling sound.

All eyes swivel toward me as I raise my phone. On the screen, Axe’s name accompanies the message notification.

“It’s from?—”

“Read it out loud,” Cav demands before I can finish.

I suppose my face is a lot more transparent than theirs ever are. He knows who it is.

“It’s a message from Axe,” I say anyway, clearing my throat to shake off the unease. But as I read the actual words, a cold void opens within me, swallowing my confidence.

“They have me. They have the restored Heart. To keep me alive, meet at the altar room underneath Thornhaven Estate.”

The first to recover is Kaspian, his mind always quicker than ours.

“It’s a trap,” he states flatly.

“They found the other half and know about the altar room,” Cav adds in a similar tone. “We’re out of time.”

Tears build up in my eyes and I clench my fists to my stomach, pressing hard. If I linger too long on the implication that everything Maverick did, the life he sacrificed, was for nothing if the Sovereigns put the Heart together anyway, I will collapse on the spot and never get up.

Wilder barks a harsh laugh and throws his hands in the air in frustration. “Trap or no trap, Heart or no fucking Heart, we’re not leaving him to the Sovereigns.”

“Not anymore, you mean.”

Cav’s voice is so low, I barely catch it. Yet everyone inclines their heads to him.

“Wilder’s right,” he continues, rubbing a small circle on his scarred torso, his gaze unfocused like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. “Axe has taken our punishments over and over again. Not by our choice, but through our conditioning. They made us believe he deserved it, that through him, we would feel a type of pain we’d never experience if they’d carved onto our bodies, instead. Witnessing someone’s torture is…” Cav’s throat moves and he shakes his head. “We always think we can escape the Sovereigns or at least avoid them, and then they do something to lure us in the same way they’ve guided Axe right back to them tonight.”

“We can’t just barge into the estate,” Kaspian begins, leaning forward in his seat and resting his elbows on his knees. “The first floor is swarming with initiates.”

His words jolt me back to reality. Kaspian’s gaze meets mine across the room, unwavering.

As much as this is about rescuing Axe and seizing the Heart, it’s also about defying the Sovereigns once and for all.

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