Gathering Darkness (Falling Kingdoms 3)

But their deaths were meaningless. Only Lucia’s blood mattered.

Melenia had been right about so much. But not everything.

Lucia could destroy him with a thought, but she didn’t use her elementia against him in defense. Right now she was just a girl who’d been betrayed by the boy she loved.

He knelt next to her and took her by her shoulders, struggling to speak past the pain that threatened to block the truth. “That wound won’t kill you, but the next one will. You must defend yourself from me while you still have a chance.”

Her agonized gaze searched his. “Alexius . . . stop this . . .”

“My mission is carved into my very skin, Lucia. Melenia has compelled me to obey her commands and I can’t stop this, I can only delay the inevitable.” Each word was a knife in his throat. “Melenia wants you to die, here and now.”

“Why?”

“Your blood holds the same magic as Eva’s blood—powerful enough to trap her, powerful enough to free her. She doesn’t want the Kindred returned to the Sanctuary. She wants it for herself and she’s planned this, waited for this, for millennia.”

Her eyes grew wider with every word he said. “You lied to me.” She drew in a ragged breath. “How could you? I trusted you!”

It took every ounce of his strength to resist the faraway command to run his blade into Lucia’s heart and steal her life completely. Melenia’s obedience spell burned within him, but he resisted. There had to be another choice . . .

He clutched the blade, his hand trembling violently. “You need to kill me.”

She shook her head. “What? No! You . . . you said this wound won’t kill me. I’m still alive, I’m here. Please, whatever spell she’s put on you . . . you have to resist it!”

“I’m trying,” he bit out through clenched teeth. But it was an impossible task.

Melenia would win, just as he always knew she would.

His strength was gone, his small grasp on control slipping. Everything inside him screamed for him to end this, to kill her and be done with it. But he still held on. “She’ll do anything to free him,” he said. “She believes she loves him and that justifies everything to her.”

“What? Who—Melenia? I don’t care who she loves. I love you. No matter what. I love you, Alexius.”

“Why won’t you do as I say and defend yourself from me?”

“Because this isn’t an elementia lesson,” she hissed. “And you’re not my tutor right now. You’re the boy I love and I’m not giving up on you!”

She thought there was still a choice to be made, still hope for a future together.

He wished she were right.

She was so beautiful, this young girl who’d stolen his heart. So beautiful and brave even after he’d done so much to make her hate him. “You still don’t understand. She already has won. Now it’s just a matter of who will survive until tomorrow—you, or me. And I swear, it will be you.”

With that, he tightened his grip on the hilt of his dagger, and with every iota of strength and will he had left, thrust the blade into his own heart.

“No!” Lucia screamed. “Alexius! No!”

The pain was intense, but it was different from the pain of resisting Melenia’s spell. This pain would finally free him from the spell that had made him her slave.

The golden swirl on his chest began to glow brighter beneath the blood now masking it. His blood mingled with Lucia’s as the ice storm finally began to subside.

She pulled him against her, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I love you,” he said. “And I’m so sorry I couldn’t be stronger for you.”

She shook her head, pressing her hands against his wound. Her hands began to glow. She was trying to heal him

It almost made him smile. She already knew that earth magic couldn’t heal an exiled Watcher, neither his magic nor hers. And yet she still tried.

A ragged cry escaped her throat. “You can’t leave me. I need you.”