Page 97 of The Half King
“You might not have a choice,” he said.
“There’s always a choice.”
“Yes,” he agreed in a dark tone. “Either I die and you live, or we both die together. Technically, it’s a choice, but it doesn’t seem like saving me is one of your options.”
She shushed him and turned in a slow circle, looking for another way out—perhaps a hidden wall or a trapdoor.
“Shiera can’t want this,” she murmured. “It’s wrong to take a life.”
“Shiera is half darkness,” Nero reminded her. “She takes as many lives as she gives.”
Cerise knew that from a logical place, but her heart resisted.
“We won’t last long down here,” he went on, jerking his gaze to the corner as some hidden creature made a scratching sound. “The best outcome is we’ll die of thirst. More likely, other dead ones will tear us apart before that happens.”
“I have the blade,” she told him. “I can kill anything that comes for us.”
“And if they keep coming back to life?”
“Stop talking and let me think.”
“Listen to me,” Nero urged, and repeated himself when she shushed him again. “I have to tell you this while I can.”
“Fine. Hurry up.”
“If I don’t survive, go back to the city and ask for Ronus,” Nero said. “That’s my uncle. You can trust him. Tell him what happened to me so he doesn’t have to wonder.”
Cerise hugged herself against a swelling of fear. She didn’t want to hear Nero talk about his death as though it had already happened. No one deserved to die in this terrible place, least of all him. Kian was wrong to think that Nero was motivated by coin. Even now, strapped to a sacrificial altar, Nero cared more about her safety than his own. How could the blade demand the blood of someone so brave? She knew the Petros dynasty had forged the weapon in order to slay the goddess, but she’d never imagined it could be infused with so much evil.
“Whatever happens, don’t blame yourself,” Nero said. “One way or another, my path is destined to end here. Yours doesn’t have to.”
“There’s only one path,” she told him. “And we’re both on it. So either we leave here together, or we’ll haunt this place together.”
“Don’t be an idiot. Save your—”
A deep rumbling interrupted him as the temple walls rattled hard enough to fill the air with dust. The Petros Blade vibrated toward the edge of the dais. Cerise caught it before it could hit the floor, but no sooner had she gripped the weapon’s hilt than a series of cracks sounded from the great stone walls, where the blocks had split apart and were now spraying water into the chamber. The tremendous pressure caused the cracks to widen even more, allowing torrents of water to gush over the floor, sweeping the dead bodies in its swirling current.
In a blink, Cerise was covered to the ankles.
The temple was forcing her hand.
“Do it,” Nero yelled as he peered over the edge of the dais at the rising flood. He tugged uselessly against the leather straps. “Kill me! I would rather bleed to death than drown!”
The Petros Blade warmed in her palm as if urging her to give Nero the quick death he had asked for. Water covered her to the knees. Her hands began to tremble. There was no way out and nothing left to try. If she didn’t kill Nero now, they would both drown.
She thought of Kian’s command to preserve her life by any means. The absence of magic inside the temple must have disrupted her bond of servitude, because she had free will. But when she pictured Kian and Blue, Mama and Father and Nina—all of the people who would miss her, all of the lives that would be ruined by the curse if she didn’t survive long enough to break it—she began to see the logic in Nero’s argument. What was the point of both of them dying?
She snuck a glance at him. He was already watching her with a surprising sense of calm. He nodded his consent. “Go ahead,” he told her. “You don’t know it yet, but you’re destined for more than this. I think my role was to bring you here. My fight is over, but yours isn’t. So end me. Make it quick. It’s what I want.”
She tightened her fingers around the hilt. A voice of reason told her that one life was a small price to pay to save the world. With both hands, she raised the weapon as water swirled around her hips. Nero closed his eyes. She focused on his nearest wrist and brought down the blade.
Instead of flesh, she severed a leather restraint. One by one, she slashed the others until Nero was free. His eyes flew wide. He sat up and stared at his hands.
“This is my limit,” she told him.
“What?”
“My limit to how much I’m willing to lose,” she said, and for the first time, she understood Kian’s words to her—his limit before surrender. “The goddess knows what’s in my heart. She knows why I want the blade. I don’t think she would ask me to do something evil to atone for evil. But if I’m wrong, then so be it.”
