Page 163 of A Promise of Peridot
“I deserved it,” he ground out. “I let you escape.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to kill him. Somehow, after everything, still I didn’t. But I couldn’t fail now. Lazarus continued to beat his powerful wings, carrying us farther from Hemlock Isle. I had to move—
“I’m Fae, Halden. You can’t win. Please.”
“I picked my side. Perhaps it was the losing one. Either way, it’s the one I chose.”
“Anyone can be redeemed. You can join us.”
“You never changed, did you?” As if answering his own question, he shook his head. “Not anyone, no. Not me.”
Fat tears dripped down my face as the wind pummeled us. “I don’t want to kill you. But I will if I have to.”
I thought of Kane. Of how I had always assumed it was easy for him to take a human life. The bodies of all the men I had killed back in Siren’s Bay flooded my mind, their blood soaking the sand and rocks of the beach. And Killoran’s men, corpses bisected like meat in a butcher’s shop by the very blade in my hand—their bodies filled my vision, too.
And suddenly we weren’t so different, Kane and I.
And I knew there was no other way.
Swallowing a ragged, heaving sob, I moved forward against the force of the wind and swung. Halden’s steel met mine in midair, but it was no match. His blade turned to liquid silver in his palm the moment it touched mine, raining down in droplets on Lazarus’s back. Shards of steel like hail, littering my hair, my hands—Halden’s eyes widened as he beheld nothing but a pommel in his hand.
This time, I didn’t hesitate.
I drove my blade into Halden’s heart. Through his flesh, his blood, his muscle, the blade sank. He screamed as pure white flames poured from the blade—a conduit for my lighte—and erupted from his chest. That itching, scorching sensation twisted again at my shoulder blades, and I felt it ratchet up my spine as the fire consumed Halden’s body whole in mere seconds, his last expression one of awe as he looked past my head toward my back.
When the flames cleared, there was no blood. Only the charred remains of my oldest friend turned enemy, as Lazarus abruptly tilted and the ashes fell unceremoniously down into the forgotten depths of Hemlock Isle.
And then I couldn’t help the tears as I wept for all that had become of him.
Of me.
And for what had to happen now.
I reached for Lazarus’s membranous, veined wing. Not polished and sleek like Kane’s. There was no beauty to the thick sinew under my palm, like the hide of a bull, tipped by a horned peak the color of stale blood. That talon alone was longer than my forearm, and I choked my grip higher up on his wing, reaching for it. I needed the stability. I only had one chance.
I climbed higher, lurching for his neck.
The underside, with its thin scales covering more fragile skin. That’s where I would sink my blade.
The air shrieked in my ears as we ascended, Lazarus still sailing for that lip of Hemlock. Soon we’d be soaring over the depths of Lake Stygian. Did he realize Halden was dead? That nobody stood in my way now? Would he deposit me in the deadly waters? Miles from shore, left to drown agonizingly slowly?
Faster then. I had to be faster.
Wrapping my knees around Lazarus’s back, holding on to him with every fiber of strength I had, no matter how he dropped and weaved, I raised the blade high into the air and moved to slice it along his throat.
But the edge never punctured the skin—
Lazarus spun violently, a near barrel roll, sending me and the blade flying down, down,down—
My hands clutched wildly at nothing, slipping through air as I plummeted after Halden’s ashes, the blade flying from my grasp—
No, no,no—
And again, that sensation in my shoulder blades, like points trying to break through my flesh, to hold me up in the air somehow—
But I couldn’t focus on it, couldn’t feel my lighte—
All I could hear was my own screaming echoing in my ears as my stomach flipped over and over on itself. Plunging, tumbling, I wasfree-falling—
