Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 136009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Kerrigan raced after Isa, drawing a knife from her skirts. It didn’t matter that Isa was a liability. She would tell Bastian that Kerrigan was here, and she simply couldn’t have that.
Kerrigan threw all her energy into her air magic as she twisted it toward the assassin. Isa turned at the last second and bounded against the wall, executing a back flip to avoid Kerrigan’s magic.
“Go back,” Isa told Kerrigan.
“I can’t have you ruining all my plans.”
Kerrigan blasted her with fire magic. But Isa moved like water. One second, a fireball was going to singe her body, and the next, she was in front of the wave, unharmed.
“You don’t want this fight.”
“Maybe I do,” Kerrigan told her. She flipped her blade, letting shadows circle it. “You killed Thea!”
Isa didn’t even blink at her new talents. “Yeah, and I saved Clover.”
Kerrigan narrowed her eyes. “What does that mean?”
“I was told to kill the resistance leader. Who is that?”
“Thea.”
“Wrong,” Isa argued, making no move to come at Kerrigan. “Clover is the leader, but I convinced the collar to let it be Thea.”
“Convinced the collar?” Kerrigan didn’t know that was possible. If it was in fact the same one that Fordham had worn, he hadn’t been able to convince it of anything.
“It wanted the rebel leader’s death, but Clover did not deserve it.”
“Neither of them did!”
Isa shrugged. “I had no choice. I have no more choices. And yet I was able to make this one. I chose Thea over your Clover.”
“That doesn’t make up for what you did. You deserve to die for your cowardice.”
“I should have died long ago. What difference does it make? Send me back to the fire, and let me burn along with my mother.”
Kerrigan narrowed her eyes. Isa sounded hysterical. “Fire then.”
Then Kerrigan pulled up her fire magic once more and twirled it in her hand as a warning.
Isa stared into the fire as if she were happy to step into it. “He had to choose, you know? The humans had come to destroy our life. He either saved me or her—his little girl or the love of his life. I was carried out in a bundle in his arms, and she burned to death in the all-consuming flames. I went to that assassin school. He used his burns to take over the Society. All in her name.”
Kerrigan blinked at her. “Wait…”
Kerrigan had heard this story before. Well, parts of it at least. Bastian had been burned horribly in a fire and had used that to issue reform across all of Alandria. No one had mentioned if others had been in the house when it was burned—certainly not a wife and child.
“You’re his daughter?” she whispered. “His real daughter? That’s why you’re not dead.”
“Yes. And she is the reason he does all this.”
Kerrigan’s mouth hung open as the pieces clicked together. “Bastian saved you and not his wife, and he is destroying the world because of her. One wrong does not allow for a lifetime of atrocities. It does not absolve you either.”
“I do not seek absolution.”
“Then we’re back to death,” Kerrigan said, thrusting her knife forward.
Isa sighed. “Are you going to kill me, Kerrigan Argon?”
“If I have to,” Kerrigan snapped. She could feel the thread of her shadow magic back to Fordham. If she tugged just a little, she could jump behind Isa and destroy her. It would finally be over.
Isa put her arms out to the sides. “Do it.”
Kerrigan hesitated. “What?”
“Kill me.”
Kerrigan waited for the trick. “I won’t fall for this.”
Isa tipped her head back and laughed. It was a loud, manic sound, as if she had lost herself. “Please, Kerrigan. No one else will do it. I have nothing left to live for. I am an instrument of the Father. If you do not kill me when he has not ordered me to take your life, you will never have the chance again.” She strode forward.
Kerrigan tensed, waiting for the moment when Isa would flip the script.
But she just leaned into the tip of Kerrigan’s knife. “Do. It.”
“This is a trick.”
“Does it look like it is to you?” Isa asked, sad and desperate.
Kerrigan opened and closed her mouth. This was not the Isa she had thought she would be fighting. Isa was defeated. Killing her would be a mercy, but still…could she do it when there was another option?
“I could try to remove the collar,” Kerrigan said.
And for a moment, that made Isa pause. “You cannot remove it.”
“Fordham wore one. My mother was able to get it off. I could try…”
“Try,” Isa said hollowly. “And what would I do with it gone?”
“You could run away. Get out of the mountain. Escape him and take on a new life.”
“There is no new life for an assassin,” Isa said. “There is only death.”
And the words were so final that there was no sufficient response.