Again, silence.
“What are you saying?” Emerie asked carefully.
Nesta marveled at the hope and bravery in their faces. “I can hold them off.”
“No,” Gwyn said, voice sharpening.
Nesta schooled her features into utter coldness. “You are both injured. You will not survive the fight. But you can manage the climb. Emerie can help—”
“No.”
“I can use the bottleneck of the path right there,” Nesta plowed ahead, pointing to the space beyond the archway, “to keep them off long enough for you two to reach the top. Or dawn to come. Whichever happens first.”
Gwyn bared her teeth. “I refuse to leave you here.”
Emerie’s pained face told Nesta enough: she understood. Saw the logic.
Nesta said to Gwyn, “It is the only way.”
Gwyn screamed, “IT IS NOT THE ONLY WAY!” And then she was sobbing. “I will not abandon you to them. They will kill you.”
“You need to go,” Nesta said, even as her hands began shaking. “Now.”
“No,” Gwyn wept. “No, I won’t. I’ll face it with you.”
Something deep in Nesta’s chest cracked. Cracked open completely, and what lay within bloomed, full and bright and pure.
She wrapped her arms around Gwyn. Let her friend sob into her chest. “I’ll face it with you,” Gwyn whispered, over and over again. “Promise me we’ll face it together.”
Nesta couldn’t stop her tears then. The chill wind froze them on her cheeks. “I promise,” she breathed, stroking Gwyn’s matted hair. “I promise.”
Gwyn sobbed, and Nesta let herself sob with her, squeezing her tightly. Letting her stroking hand come to rest on Gwyn’s neck.
A pinch in the right spot, exactly on that pressure point Cassian had shown her, and it was done.
Gwyn went down. Unconscious.
Nesta grunted, carefully lowering Gwyn to the ground as she peered up at Emerie. Her friend’s face was grave, but unsurprised.
Nesta only said, “Can you carry her the rest of the way?” It would be a feat in itself. “Or at least keep going until dawn?”
“I will.” Nesta knew Emerie would find that strength. She had a soul of steel. Emerie laid her sword before Nesta. Her dagger. The shield.
“Keep the canteens,” Nesta said, patting her own. “I’ve got enough.” Another lie.
“She’ll never forgive you for this,” Emerie said.
“I know.” The males had risen higher. She didn’t wait for Emerie to speak before she helped ease Gwyn onto Emerie’s back, the latter hissing at the weight upon her wings, splaying them at awkward angles. Nesta tied the bloodied rope around them, binding them together. Emerie grimaced, but managed to move a few steps.
“Come with us,” Emerie offered, eyes lined with silver.
Nesta shook her head. “Consider it the repayment of a debt.”
A tear slipped down Emerie’s cheek. “For what?”
“For being my friends. Even when I didn’t deserve it.”
Emerie’s face crumpled. “There is no debt, Nesta.”
But Nesta smiled softly. “There is. Let me pay it.”
Swallowing back her tears, Emerie nodded. Hefted Gwyn higher and winced, but managed to hobble through the arch. Toward the rocks and the last stretch of the Breaking, all the way up to the peak.
Nesta did not say good-bye. She just inhaled through her nose, held the breath, then exhaled. Repeated her Mind-Stilling again and again, until her breath became the steady crash of waves and her heart became solid stone, and every inch of her body was hers to control.
She was the rock against which the surf broke. These males would break against her, too.
They had no choice. With Eris in Briallyn’s grip, Cassian and Azriel could only follow the hunched, cloaked figure to the lake. Cassian didn’t dare consider whether the Crown was being used on him. If it’d be used on Azriel.
The party in which Eris and Briallyn had traveled had dispersed, nowhere to be seen along the lake. Had they even been real? Or just an illusion?
A glance at Az revealed his brother stone-faced, cold fury in his eyes.
The hunched, cloaked figure stopped before the stones of the lake. Eris halted beside her.
“Out with it, then,” Cassian said.
Briallyn drew back the hood of her cloak.
There was nothing there. The material fell and pooled on the stones. Eris’s face remained blank. Empty.
“Just an animated kernel of magic,” a slithering voice drawled from the lake.
Thirty feet from shore, standing atop the surface, floated a shadow. It shifted and warped, its edges fluttering, but it had the vague shape of a tall male.
“Who are you?” Azriel demanded.
But Cassian knew. “Koschei,” he whispered.
Nesta stood under the Pass of Enalius for a long minute.
She took out her canteen. Drank the last of the water. Chucked it to the side.
She tucked the dagger into her belt. Picked up the sword. And drew a line in the dirt in front of the archway.
Her final stand. Her last line of defense.
Nesta gathered the shield. Peered over her shoulder to where Emerie had cleared the last cluster of boulders and now struggled up the long, straight path to the peak.
A small, quiet smile passed over Nesta’s face.
Then she hefted her shield. Angled her sword.
And stepped beyond the line she’d drawn to meet her enemy.
CHAPTER
70
Bellius sent his warriors through the bottleneck first. A wise move, designed to wear Nesta down.
She had no choice but to meet them.
There were no hateful voices in her head. Only the knowledge that her friends lay behind her, beyond the line she’d drawn in the earth, and she would not cede that line to these males.
She would not fail her friends. She had no room for fear in her heart.
Only calm. Determination.
And love.
Nesta’s lips curved in a smile as the first of the warriors ran at her, sword raised. She was still smiling when she lifted her shield to take the full impact of the blow.
Nesta slammed her shield into the first male, sliced the shins of the second, and dispatched the third with a parry that sent him careening into the fourth and both of them tumbling to the ground. One for each breath, a movement for each inhale and exhale. She stilled her mind again, let it root her.
For a heartbeat, she wondered what she might have done with Ataraxia in her hand. What she might do with this body, these skills trained into her bones. If she was worthy of the sword at last.
She’d opted for a name in the Old Language, a tongue no one had spoken in fifteen thousand years. A name Lanthys had laughed to hear.
Nesta engaged four of the Illyrians at once, then five, then six, and the males started to go down, one after another. Nesta held the line in a storm of unflinching focus and death, guarding the friends at her back.
Ataraxia, she had named that magic sword.
Inner Peace.
CHAPTER
71
The being that stood atop the lake was a shadow. It must be a reflection, Cassian thought. Smoke and mirrors.
“Where is Briallyn?” Azriel demanded, Siphons flaring like cobalt flame.