Page 167 of Fallen Nocturne

“I am old,” she whispers, shame and horror breaking her voice. “Eirik, do not look at me.”

“You are beautiful,” he tells her, cradling her face between his hands. “You will always be beautiful.”

Morgaine makes a sound that is almost a sob. Her trembling hands come up and grip his wrists, holding on.

Around us, the battles continue, but everyone feels the shift in power. Wolf and Garrett have Cedwyn pinned between them, the last Aeonian thrashing against their hold. Rainer kneels over Shade, desperately trying to keep the assassin alive.

Beside me, Bas remains standing. Blood runs from his nose and ears. Breaking Lilith’s control is destroying him from within, but he refuses to yield.

“Arescaine, finish this,” he says quietly, his voice strained. “Finish him.”

Movement jerks against my grasp. Ruth’s chest rises with a sudden breath, and his eyes fly open. He is a Strigon like us. Death cannot hold him.

He snarls and struggles, strength returning to his limbs as quickly as his wounds close.

I look at Bas, then at the open gates behind Mal. An idea passes between us without words.

Bas seizes Ruth’s other arm. Together, we drag my brother toward the gates, toward the Hollow.

Ruth’s legs scramble for purchase. He understands a second too late where we’re taking him. My brother twists and fights.

“Lilith!” Ruth screams as I drive him back, back toward the gates. “Lilith, help me!”

“Please!” Ruth calls again, fear finally breaking through his voice. “Help me, Lilith! I did everything for you! Everything!”

Lilith does not even look at him. She is too busy fleeing from Blight and Elli, searching desperately for some path of escape.

Betrayal twists Ruth’s face as he finally understands that he was always disposable. He was always just a tool.

“You abandoned me,” Ruth whispers, and for just a second, I see my brother. Not the monster or the sadist. I see him as the boy he used to be, before Lilith corrupted him.

“You said I was special. You said—”

“She lied,” Bas says quietly. “She always lies, Ruth. That’s what she does.”

Ruth spits blood and looks up at Bas with a smile. “At least she never bored me the way Gwyn did. Tell me, do you still think about her? I do. I think about the sound she made when—”

Bas roars.

The sound carries thousands of years of rage and pain. He tears Ruth from my grasp and hurls him toward the gates.

Ruth strikes the edge of the Hollow. His fingers catch the lip of the gate, clawing desperately for purchase. Below him, I can see the dwellers of Hel, the damned. They reach upward with pale, skeletal hands, hungry for fresh suffering.

“Arescaine!” Ruth’s eyes find mine, and they’re desperate now. Pleading. “Brother, please! Don’t let them take me! We’re blood!”

“We were,” I say quietly. “A very long time ago. Before you sacrificed me for her.”

I don’t push him. The hands from below do it for me, dragging him down, down into the screaming dark.

His last words are a curse, but I don’t listen.

I am already turning, searching for Rhianelle.

Lilith’s wraith streaks across the throne room toward her. Shadow claws lengthen from her hands, reaching for Rhianelle’s throat.

Shit.

I will not reach her in time.