Page 120 of Spark of the Everflame

At least four guards, dead. Four lives ended in cruel, violent ways.

Killing had seemed so easy when I’d faced the Descended man in the alley. After watching him murder the mortal woman, I was ready to take his life in a heartbeat, my rage so fierce that ending his existence barely warranted a second thought.

It was the same fury Henri had felt after watching the mortal boy get trampled by the Descended man on horseback—a need for vengeance, forjustice, that burned so hot it seared away everything else.

I had believed that day in the alley had made me ready, like it had for Henri, to become a Guardian, to join the war, to do whatever it took to protect my people.

To kill, if necessary.

But the man I faced that day had earned his fate when he murdered two innocents. As far as I knew, these guards had committed no crime worse than being Descended in the wrong place at the wrong time.

War is death and misery and sacrifice.War is making choices that will haunt you for the rest of your days.

If this was the kind of killing that war required—I wasn’t ready.

And I never would be.

I collapsed on the floor beside the dead guards as the smoke and the heat overwhelmed me. For a moment, it felt like the burning roof had indeed caved in, as the enormous weight of everything I had been through these past months came crashing down on my head.

Even if I survived another dawn, my career as a healer was over—there would be no going back now that I’d seen firsthand the bloody cost of breaking my vow. My mother was likely dead, my life now bound in service to the wicked King and his miserable heir. Henri probably hated me, and even if he didn’t, would the Guardians force him to choose between us? Would I win that fight, when he was so passionate about the cause he’d inked it permanently into his skin?

Was that a fight I even wanted to win?

Smoky coughs turned into broken sobs as they racked my throat, the oxygen feeling dangerously thin. My brain was as hazy as the air, each new thought feeling like it was being dragged from a pit of sticky, bubbling tar. I tried to push back to my feet, but every time I clawed for the dregs of my energy, my gaze locked on the lifeless eyes of the body beside me, and I remembered how much blood was on my hands.

Maybe it would be best to just... stay here. Curl into a ball and wait for the inevitable.

Henri could move on. Maura and the healers would be safer. Father and Teller would be heartbroken—but better off, perhaps. My choices had already put them at so much risk.

It would be an excruciating end. But maybe that was exactly what I deserved.

I did this. This is my fault.

The fight drained from my body. I collapsed against the floor, a tear streaming down my cheek as I closed my eyes and surrendered to the darkness.

ChapterTwenty-Six

Fight.

My eyes flew open.

How long have I been lying here?

Am I dead?

My exposed skin was swollen and tender, nearly sizzling against the blistering stone floor.

Fight.

“No,” I whispered weakly.

I’d made my choice. This was the end. There was no point in fighting it, no point in—

Fight.

Energy blasted through my veins, filling them with an icy gust that soothed my aching skin and sent me recoiling from the scalding tiles beneath.

“By the Undying Fire,” I swore as I sat upright. “I can’t even die in peace.”

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