Page 88 of Cashmere Ruin

“My family will be safe with you,” I rasp.

With that, I turn my back on her.

I breathe in once, twice, three times. I feel the weight of the dagger in my hand, the balance of steel and brass. Soon, it will be bathed red. “Any last words?”

Ivan’s face darkens. “You should have listened to me.”

Then he charges.

I don’t have time to think about anything else: not Grisha hopping out of the ring, not Yuri clinging to the ropes likelifelines. Not Petra, one hand on her minuscule baby bump and the other trembling around a throwing knife.

If I let myself get distracted, that’s it. I’m dead.

Steel meets steel. We push against each other’s guards and end up face-to-face, close enough that we can hear the other breathing. He tries to knee me in the gut, but I keep him at bay.

“What did that mean?” I demand.

“What are you talking about?”

“That I should’ve listened to you. What did that mean?”

Ivan clicks his tongue. He jumps back, putting distance between us, and I do the same.

Maybe he thinks I’m trying to distract him. I wonder when his opinion of me fell so low—when he started regarding me as this coward I’ve never been.

It’s odd, me being on the defensive. Usually, a fight like this would go the other way—me assaulting, Ivan guarding, waiting for a weak point to exploit.

But he seems to have lost himself. He isn’t fighting with his mind—he’s fighting with his gut. For some reason, he’sangry.

“Enough talking,” he hisses, leg swinging forward to trip me up again. “I’ve said all I needed to you and yours. Time to end this.”

He’s angry. I can use that.

The next time he charges, I’m ready. I block his blow with my arm, and when his knee tries to crash into my abdomen, I let it.

Then I stab into his thigh with all my might.

Ivan howls. He closes his eyes out of pain, just for a second, and that’s when I act: I fling away my dagger and grab his with my bare hands. “Do you apologize?” I snarl. “Do you apologize to my family?”

Ivan’s teeth grind together to hold back the pain.

Say yes,I beg him silently.Die with honor. If you won’t stay by my side, at least don’t die as my enemy.

He spits on the ring once. “Fuck you and your family. Damn you all to hell.”

I twist his knife back to face him and plunge it into his chest.

Ivan’s body crumples. He falls back on the ring and so do I, tipping forward alongside him, my hand tight around the hilt of his own dagger.

With his last breath, he whispers something into my ear.

Then his eyes glaze over.

I wait for ten seconds. Distantly, I hear Grisha count them off, but it’s all drowned out by my heartbeat. Even now, the adrenaline won’t stop pumping.

I yank the knife out and stand.

“Clean this up,” I tell Grisha. “Yuri, drive me home.”

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