Page 237 of Because I Killed Him
My grip tightens on my saber until the tremor subsides. I force myself to stand tall, chin up, the way Dad taught me. “You’ll challenge me, then?” I ask.
Edmund doesn’t break stride. “Yes.”
My heart pounds fiercely behind my words. “Thendraw.”
He stops within reach of my blade. His eyes flick to the saber in my hand, confusion darkening his face before he masks it. Slowly, his hand closes over mine and pushes my blade down toward the sand.
“I’ll challenge you, Loredana. But I won’t fight you.”
The words land so wrong they make the blades between us feel obscene. “What?Don’tlie to me.” The shout rips out of me, half a choke, half a snarl. I glance at his saber, mine, and the spectators chanting for blood.
“I lied to you on the tram,” Edmund says. “But I’m not lying now.”
I grit my teeth, unable to believe him after what he’s done. “I don’t trust you anymore, Edmund. Not without proof.”
“All right.”
He lifts his saber, retracts the blade, and slides it into my scabbard himself, forcing it home with a sharp, final snap. Behind him, the Blues erupt in shouts of fury and disbelief. Rosamund screams his name, demanding to know how he could betray her.
Still, Edmund’s eyes never leave mine. There’s no anger or sadness like on the tram, only the man I knew before all this pain. I try to understand what he means about having lied, but I’m too wrung out to hold his gaze, too exhausted even to fight how close he’s standing.
Now that he’s weaponless, I could swing at him easily. I could split him open and let fate roar its approval. But I know it for sure now. Edmund didn’t sabotage my civil credits. If he had, he’d draw his saber and finish me here and now. Someone else tried to kill me, someone who wanted me dead without leaving a name behind. The truth makes my saber hand shake until the blade rattles against my leg.
Edmund leans in, his palm still resting over mine, and says quietly, “We’ll walk off this beach together, Loredana. Or you’ll walk off alone.”
The way he’s looking at me—like he might close that last inch, pull mein, wrap himself around me, and block out this whole shoreline of fury and blood—breaks me. I know Edmund didn’t come here to kill me. He came here to stand between me and death, one more time. Maybe that means nothing… or maybe it means everything.
My saber trembles, then slips from my hand and falls into the sand with a dull scrape. Tears come fast, hot and blinding, almost making me miss the indistinct shape moving at the edge of the circle, advancing toward us.
It’s William.
He looks half-mad, his face warped with rage as he runs, and when he draws his saber in a deadly arc of graphene, a sudden, terrifying realization dawns on me: William wasn’t tailing me to spy. He knows I was part of Edmund’s entourage, maybe thinks I still am, and he waited for me to lead him here. To Edmund.
And now I have.
Fear reaches for me, but I react before it can take hold. I dig the energy shield from my pocket and slam it against my chest hard enough to bruise. William’s saber swings high, aimed straight at Edmund, and I spring at Edmund, fisting his shirt and yanking him toward me as if I could absorb him into my own body.
The blade cuts downward—
And the beach bursts into a blinding flash of light.
William’s saber sparks as it scrapes futilely against the pulsing barrier. Edmund jolts into me, his chest heaving, hands braced on my shoulders as the shield blazes between us and the strike. He looks down at me, his eyes reflecting the crackling light, and in that moment, I realize he understands why I did it.
But William doesn’t.
The despair on his face is all-consuming, veins bulging in his neck as he shouts a single word:Traitor.
William wrenches his saber free and spins erratically. The Blues rush to stop him, but he’s too far gone. His blade tears through the ring of bodies like wildfire until it finds Rosamund. Her scream is shrill with pain as graphene rips open the soft flesh from her shoulder to her breast. She collapses in shock while a Blue slams into William from behind, driving him face-down into the sand. More Blues pile on in a blur of fists, blades,and boots. Blood sprays, and bones snap like dry branches. The sand drinks everything.
Edmund hurls himself against the shield, trying to break through the wall to Rosamund, but it holds, buzzing and blistering, until the last blade stills. When the shield finally disables, he’s at my ear in an instant.
“Run, Loredana. I’ll find you.”
Then he’s gone, vaulting past Charlotte and running across the blood-soaked sand toward Rosamund. Sirens wail in the distance, a piercing chorus of Copper vehicles and ambulances. Charlotte limps toward me, the truth of what just happened ticking like a grenade between us. I grab her hand and pull her through the crowd, toward my hovercar waiting like an open grave.
Behind us, the beach tears itself wide open.
Charlotte protests going to the hospital even as her blood soaks into the passenger seat of the hovercar, dripping down her boots and pooling on the mats. She’s flushed and trembling but remains stubborn, shaking her head and insisting she’s fine.
