CROWN OF GLASS ✔

94 | ACT VII, SCENE V

"I trusted you," Elodie murmured, hitching up the skirts of the dark blue dress they had dressed her in at the funeral. "I trusted you, and you betrayed me, Tristan."

How would I ever explain - explain what had even happened the day she had died? How would I ever explain what it had been like for me that day? How would I explain how sick, how guilty I had felt after that mistake I had committed, how badly I was going to regret it till the end of my days?

This is the end of your days, Tristan Valmont. I felt Zadicus leer at me, his smile smug. This is the end for you, Tristan Valmont.

I willfully hauled up my sword and swung the Thunderbolt into my fists. I would not go down without a fight - a fight for Edwina. A fight for a life with her after this all was done. A fight for a peaceful, happier life.

For her.

For me.

"Come and do it yourself, then," I taunted them both, my sister and the Titan. "I dare you."

Zadicus and I fell on each other like beasts.

This was not some immortal battle fought with power and magic. This was not a mocking fight fought from safe distances. This was combat - pure, terrible, one on one combat - a fight to be fought till the end, a fight from which only one victor emerged alive. We slashed at each other with lethal weapons, spinning round and round in the middle of the unholy battlefield. I hardly noticed how the battle seemed to stop around us, how even the soldiers paused to look.

All the while, as Elodie came closer and closer, a sorrowful smile across her lips.

"I trusted you."

The shard of Bloodstone in her wrist was lethal, finely sharpened.

"I loved you."

Her footsteps were soft as snow as Zadicus hurled a dagger at me.

"You betrayed me."

She was behind me now, her eyes wide with tears as they rolled down her cheeks, and all I could have done was to beg her, to plead, to apologize, to even kill her again if I needed to. I had to survive this. I had to survive this at any cost. I had to make it out of this - I had to do it for Edwina. I had made her a promise.

"I'm sorry," Elodie whispered, raising the weapon clutched in her fingers.

Which was when a terrible, sharp pain broke into my spine.

Zadicus had sunk a sword of Bloodstone right through my back and into my heart.

• • • • •

KNAVESMIRE, DRACNESSE.

EDWINA

We had arrived again into this world, howling in the screaming darkness.

My hands - they refused to stop shaking, shaking with horrible fear. The screams in the air were going to make my eardrums burst, I thought I was going to die from the sound of it - I thought it was going to kill me.