Page 92 of A Fate Everlasting

The guards grabbed me. Dorian lunged. “No?—”

Dante raised his hand, and the air cracked. Magic surged forward, slamming Dorian to the ground. He groaned, straining against the invisible force pinning him. “See?” Dante smirked. “Unexceptional, like I said. We have enough of that around here.”

“Dante!” I screamed, staggering to my feet. “Please, I’ll do anything. Anything you want. Don’t hurt him,” I begged.

He paused for a moment, considering it. Then, a wide smile stretched across his face. He was like a cat toying with a mouse, unable to resist the game of it all. He motioned for the guards to stop with a flick of his wrist. “I don’t want anything from you anymore, Arabella.”

44

Fire licked up my side, each heartbeat pumping greater agony straight to the wound. The Lumen kept me breathing, but barely. I could feel it straining to keep me stitched together. I lay there blinking up at the ceiling, more corpse than girl.

They had returned me to my room with a cold reminder that tomorrow morning was Sunday. The day of the Rift, the day I would Fall. The day we all would. The High King was rising, unchallenged. The Archangels were still sealed in the deck, unreachable, the only power that could stop him.

A sob ripped through me. Was Dorian dead? Surely Verrine wouldn’t let Dante kill him, but I didn’t know anymore. My heart thumped frantically in my ears.No.No, I couldn’t just sit here. I couldn’t just wait for them to come for me.

I still didn’t understand why they neededmeto Fall. I shuddered at the memory of vision in the library. The High King and Verrine had been in my room. They’d acted like there was something significant aboutmechoosing a side. Had my mother given me up because she anticipated this? That there was somethingwrongwith me?

I forced myself upright to stop the shaking, but it was entirely unhelpful. The room spun. I staggered to the window, ripping open the curtain,only to find brick. Of course. We were underground. I choked on a cry, slamming my fists against it.Over and over and over.The reflected darkness blurred with tears. My reflection wavered, spectral, like I was already halfway gone. This wasn’t fair.This wasn’t fair.

The fight drained from me. I caught the bedframe, knees buckling, and collapsed into the sheets again. I needed to stop spiralling. My mother hadn’tknownme when she’d given me up.

I curled onto my side, gripping the blanket, but my hands found something else instead. Laid across the foot of the bed was a gown. Black as the void, dripping in dark jewels, woven with thread that shimmered like dying stars. They expected me to wear this for the Rift.

An unhinged laugh broke from my lips. My head tilted back against the pillows, my lungs tight with something close to hysteria. What a mockery this was. It felt like they were conducting a stage production, my role already chosen. I curled in on myself, gripping tight to the dress like it could absorb my anger as my mind frayed at the edges.

I had never been so alone, so powerless. The lucky ones would Fall tomorrow. But most, the hopefuls who dreamed of Angelhood, whose scores hovered just above the cut, would vanish. They wouldn’t Fall, or Ascend, just… disappear. The balance of light and dark would be altered forever, whatever that meant.

The fire in the hearth crackled weakly, the scent of smoke curling through the air. It was too peaceful here, the kind of stillness that came before everything was wrenched apart.

I shut my eyes, breathing shallowly.You were never meant to Ascend. Never meant to Fall. Never meant to exist at all.Thehaunting rhyme the ghost-girl had sung echoed through me. Maybe that’s why I survived so long. I was never supposed to exist in the first place, and fate couldn’t find the things it didn’t create.

I swallowed hard. There was a noise at the door, a shadow. My heart skipped a beat and I forced myself upright, muscles screaming from exhaustion and the healing wound. Footsteps sounded against the marble floor but the knock never came.

“Arabella.” My name wove through my mind, and with it the feeling of deep sorrow.Dante.A quiet war raged inside my chest, my heart betraying me with its too-fast pounding, its desperate, clawing need to hold onto something that had already been lost.

He wasn’t here to save me. He hated me for betraying him, and he had already made his choice. The wood creaked. I could picture it too clearly, his palm pressed flat against it, jaw tight with something unsaid. He wanted to come inside, to see me. I felt it.

Finally, he spoke again, aloud this time. “I didn’t want it to end this way.”

I tilted my head back against the cold stone wall, squeezing my eyes shut. “You let this happen.All of this.” My hands shook as I asked, “Is he dead? Is Dorian dead?”

He paused, and I could feel his hesitation. Then, quieter, “No. Not yet.”

Relief slammed into me, too quickly dampened to feel good. He was alive.For now.I let out a shaking breath, the reassurance settling into a splintering ache. “Why are you doing this?”

“I have to,” Dante breathed. “You have to Fall, Arabella. It’s the only way.”

Even now, my body betrayed me, cheeks flushing despite everything. “Then why are you here?”

Silence. I imagined Dante’s fingers flexing against the wood,caught in some silent war. For one wild second, I thought he might do it. I sent a whisper down the Thread, hoping he might hear it.

He’ll open the door.

He’ll let me go.

But he didn’t. His next words bled out like a confession. “There’s something they aren’t telling you. And I don’t want you to find out the hard way.”

Great.Another bit of privileged information he hadn’t shared. He didn’t want me to hate him, now, but he wasn’t brave enough to stop this either. Secrets were a fair middle ground for him now I had nowhere left to run.

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