Page 150 of This Monster of Mine

“Look at him,” Anek said quietly. “Lookat him and tell me what you see.”

Frustrated, Sarai turned to Kadra, swallowing at his pulpy face, at the burns Aelius had inflicted. His robes hung in tatters, bisected at his chest where the hilt of Aelius’s sword jutted out. And he wasn’t moving.

Her heart cracked. “No, I don’t accept that …” She knelt before the man who’d protected her only moments ago and shook him by the shoulders. “He wouldn’t just go without a word!”

Anek pulled her into a tight hug. “Sarai, I’m so sorry.”

Aelius shrugged. “Not to worry. You’re all about to head where he did.”

He stretched out a hand, lightning forming within, and she numbly waited for it to strike her, the panic in Cassandane’s eyes indicating that even she didn’t know if her shield could withstand Aelius.

A red streak appeared across Aelius’s cheek and the fire winked out as the dagger hit the ground behind him. He touched the cut, and turned slowly, looking strangely hurt, before his features hardened.

Cisuré’s eyes were unseeing, glazed, a blonde marionette whose strings had just been severed, arm still outstretched from the throw.

“Not you too.” The fire winked back to life in his palm as he gripped Cisuré’s neck. “Not after all these years.” Cisuré’s lips parted in a scream just as Cassandane lurched to her feet, freeing her sword from its baldric.

“Stand down,” she snarled.

Aelius glowered at both women, webs of fire building around him.

It’s all gone to hell.Sarai numbly gripped Kadra’s cold hands. “You can’t be gone. You—you said you belonged to me.” Her voice broke.

Anek looked close to tears. “Sarai, please let him go—”

A manic laugh left her at that. “He didn’t let me go! And I hunted him—hated him for so long. We both had it wrong and ruined our lives over whathedid.” She pointed at Aelius, who was now dueling with Cassandane and Cisuré. “And now the gods dothis?”

The gods.A single thought separated from her grief with complete, piercing conviction. She tore free of Anek’s grip, pulling their dagger from its sheath as she did.

“Whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t,” they bit out with a glance at where Cisuré had escaped the fracas to flee down the dais toward them.

“Sarai, I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, then paused at the dagger in Sarai’s hand. “What are you doing?”

“This ismydecision.” The words were steel. Sarai held Anek’s gaze. “Don’t you dare take this from me.”

With a grim nod, Anek stepped away, pulling Cisuré with them when she tried to grab Sarai.

“You’ve done enough,” they hissed.

Sarai didn’t look at what was happening on the dais as she sliced her hand open from palm to elbow. She needed blood for this.

The runes from Admia’s Summoning two weeks ago returned to her with absolute clarity. Daubing a finger in her blood, she drew the first one.Sword. A hysterical laugh slipped from her at the knowledge that each one was far too apropos for the violence of the last hour.

Flame, strength, heart, blood, end. She painted each one onto the Aequitas’s floor with the dim shape of Cisuré screaming in the background and Aelius battling Cassandane—none of whom she could be bothered with at the moment.

With every stroke, her chest tightened as it had four years ago, breath growing painful as magic drained from her in waves. But pain was an old friend now, and she paid it no heed.

Unity was the second-to-last rune. Then,modrai.The invisible band around her chest constricted as black flames flared across the Aequitas’s stage. For the third time in her life, Sarai sat in a mess of her own blood.

And waited for Death to come.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

A bolt of agony stiffened her spine, an all-too-familiar pressure wrapping thorny fingers around her heart and trying to tug it from her chest.

Sarai didn’t fight it, not as she had four years ago. Closing her eyes, she surrendered to the torment, letting it pull her off the ground and toward the too-bright sky. The world shrank to the screeching whistle of wind around her as every ounce of power was wrenched from her without mercy.

But she didn’t break. She couldn’t. She was the Sidran Tower Girl and the Petitor to the maddest man in all Edessa. Nothing could break her. So she didn’t scream, and breathed through the pain.

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