Page 237 of Harbinger

“There you are.” His voice is almost giddy. “I knew it was in there. Why lock it away?”

I don’t answer. I can’t. If I let this blinding power loose in the world, there will be nothing left when I’m done. The monster will take everything.

He sees that, too. And smiles.

He steps back and grins as if he’s already won. “You’re going to be glorious,” he says. “When you finally let go.”

Cassiel is at the railing. He nods toward her body. “Keep it as a reminder that I can take anything from you. Anyone.”

I could void the whole damn world. What’s the point of it without Arden?

“Can you feel it?” He pauses and tips his face toward the darkening sky. “The cycle is beginning. Let’s call it a day before the fury makes us kill each other.”

“I’m not like you,” I grit out.

“You will be. All of us will be.” He pauses, just long enough for the words to sink in. “Only one can take the throne. Best of luck.”

And then he leaps over the railing.

I don’t hear his body hit the water. Hero races to the balcony’s edge and howls after him. But I wait. Longer than I should. Until the sky above us is bruised with twilight, and only then do I fall to the ground beside her. Rock bites into my knees as I reach for her, blood trickling down my cheek, shoulder smarting. The wounds will heal soon enough. All of them except the one in my chest where my heart used to be.

My hand shakes as I reach for the dagger still buried in her chest.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper and pull it free. There’s no rush of blood, only the sickening wet sound of steel leaving flesh. I fling the weapon across the stone and press a hand over her heart, searching for a miracle.

Her skin is cool under my palm. She’s heavy in my arms, and her head lolls against my shoulder, boneless in a way that shatters whatever control I had left.

“No.” I gather her into my arms, my breath coming out in choked sobs. “No, no, no, no. Wake up. Please, wake up. You need to wake up.”

I drag air into my lungs, the world blurring around me. “Just wake up, Arden. Don’t leave me. Please.” My voice cracks on the please. I keep saying her name. Like if I do, she’ll finally answer me. “Please don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.”

Hero appears at my side and lies down beside Arden, but I can’t see beyond my own grief. I pull her against me tighter, as if I can love her enough to make her heart beat again. To make air fill her lungs. I cling to a dream that’s been ripped away from me.

“Arden.” I press my lips to her forehead. Cold. Too cold. “Come back to me.”

A shadow passes over my head, and the oscen lands on the ground beside me. It blinks its curious eyes at me and lets out a shrill caw like it’s trying to tell me something.

“I know she’s fucking dead.”

Dead. The word undoes me.

Cassiel was wrong. She’s not going to wake up. She isn’t a scion.

Something wild and fierce claws at my chest as I raise my face to the night sky, as I curse at that one lone star in the swath of darkness. At the lie I let myself believe.

But I was wrong to hope. Wrong to think the Stars might bend for once.

That star that split the Night’s Scar fooled us both—only I wasn’t willing to risk it. And I never even told her.

Because part of me wanted her to be like me. To be immortal.

A selfish thing I thought I’d carved out for myself.

I wanted to love her forever.

I look at the dagger lying where I flung it. All of this to start a war.

For power.