Page 82 of Elven Lies

“Stop!” As if her voice commanded them both, Rebecca and Rowan stopped together on the sidewalk.

He gazed at her, his hazel eyes wide and glinting with mischief and all the plans she saw forming and maturing in his mind.

She felt like an idiot just standing there, and she hadn’t meant to stop. But it was too much to maintain her composure and walk them back to headquartersandlisten to Rowan planning for a future that could never and would never exist because she refused to be a part of it.

“It wouldn’t take much,” he muttered his face lighting up with unimaginable excitement.Murderousexcitement. “Not with you and I in this together.”

“Rowan, stop. Just…stop it. No.”

“But the war—”

“Thereisno war to come. And I’m not doing this. You’re talking about the whole thing as if I’ve actually agreed to any of the ludicrous shit you’ve been proposing lately, but I’mnotdoing any of this. I’m not on board. There is noyouandmein this world before we go home. It’s not happening.”

His gaze flickered back and forth across her face as he studied her, his grin unflinching.

Would he ever take her seriously? She didn’t know how many more times she was willing to try convincing him, but her will for it was running out.

Rebecca would not change her mind, and his inability to see that just wasn’t her problem.

With a heavy sigh, she tore her gaze away from him and stormed down the sidewalk again.

As usual, Rowan’s careless chuckle floated along after her before he trotted down the sidewalk to reach her side again, like a lost little puppy that couldn’t understand it wasn’t wanted.

“Oh, come on,Kilda’ari,” he said, pouting. “You know how huge this is.”

“It’s not an option!”

“You can’t let your pride dictate every decision for the rest of your life,” he said. “Listen, if anyone understands why you left, it’s me. But don’t you think you’ve dragged this out long enough? Trust me, you made your point a long time ago. The damage was done, I can tell you that much. Has it opened their eyes completely? Probably not, but they’re waking up. That’s something.”

But it wasn’t enough.

Rebecca didn’t want the Bloodshadow Court to wake up, or to open their eyes, or to change their ways. She didn’t want its understanding or forgiveness. In Agn’a Tha’ros, mercy was useless to her.

She wanted freedom and choice to live her own life instead of existing to fulfill someone else’s understanding of it. To decide when and where she would be a weapon and for which causes.

This wasn’t about being right. This was about being free, being alive, and that would never be possible for her on Xahar’áhsh. It hadn’t been. It wasn’t now.

Even if she did everything in her power to fulfill the bullshit prophecy Rowan so fervently believed in, the Bloodshadow Court still wouldn’t let her go. Once it was finished, there would always be some other role for the Bloodshadow Heir to act out, some other duty to fulfill, and it would never be hers.

“I know you heard me,” Rowan continued, as if blind to who she was and her ability to decide for herself. “This is serious stuff,Kilda’ari. It won’t just go away. I’ve let you drag me around this world, playing onyourtimeline, but you can’t keep holding this grudge. What purpose would it ever serve?”

“If you won’t hear what I’ve been telling you,” she said, “this conversation is over.”

“Oh, I’veheardyou. But we’re not children anymore, either. You can’t stay here playing Roth-Da’al of the Rejects for the rest of your life.”

“One more word, Blackmoon,” she snarled, “and I’ll show you exactly what Icando.”

She’d spit it out as a knee-jerk reaction, not expecting it to change anything when her earnest refusals had been wholly ineffective.

But to her surprise, Rowan’s frown deepened as he studied her face, and finally, he kept his mouth shut.

What a wonderful realization. Speaking from genuine honesty did nothing to change his mind, but threatening something he shouldn’t have cared about more than her decision seemed to do the trick in an instant.

They both knew she could gravely injure him if she set her mind to it, but his hesitation to risk that above believing her and trusting that she knew her own mind, her own heart, hurt more than she could have imagined.

The Rowan from her childhood and the beginning decades of her life at Court was gone, left in the past with everything else.ThisBlackmoon Elf walking solemnly beside her?

He was a stranger wearing her best friend’s face. Nothing more.

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