T isaanah and I cut through legions of corpses, her magic and mine coupling to cripple them with flaming decay. The hordes grew denser as

we pushed closer to Nura. Soon, in every direction I met a wall of decaying flesh, going on seemingly forever. I no longer could tell where we were. I lost sight of Tisaanah, even though we’d been so careful to stay together.

“Tisaanah?”

I frantically looked around to see nothing but dead faces.

I reached deep for more power, my depleting magic burning brighter. “Tisaanah, where the hell are you?!”

Did I imagine the distant answering cry? I couldn’t tell. I cut ferociously through one, two, three more corpses and—

I stumbled into open air, nearly tripping over the debris-laden ground. The Towers. We had fought our way all the way to the Towers.

Standing in the middle of the ruins, surrounded by red and gold smoke and the familiar shudder of shadow, was Nura. She stared out over the city, her back to me. Darkness and light wrapped her in a ghostly embrace, sputtering around her form.

I let my flames snuff out, giving my magic a temporary reprieve.

Nura did not move. I chanced taking my eyes off her for just a moment, just long enough to glance over my shoulder at the sea of soldiers, searching for any sign of Tisaanah—

Too long.

Unnatural terror skewered me, so sudden and intense that it left me gasping. The image of Tisaanah’s throat opened and the country burning and—

Nura. I’d know that fear anywhere.

I opened my second eyelids, and flames engulfed me, just in time for me to block her first move. The world rushed hard around me when I was in this form, my thoughts slippery and difficult to grasp. But I knew how to fight Nura. We fell into an old pattern quickly. There was a time when we could have sparred for hours with no victor, because we just knew each other that well—we could anticipate each other’s movements, dodge, adjust, reframe, on and on until we were forced to draw out of sheer exhaustion.

But something was different today. Yes, we threw ourselves into the same relentless rhythm that we had fought a million times before. But her movements were more jagged now, more openly controlled by her anger. All while mine had gotten more decisive, more precise, more powerful. Before, we could have gone forty moves before one of us even nicked skin. Now, we only made it five before my blade skimmed her shoulder. She flinched away, fire reflecting in the whites of her eyes.

I realized, in that split second, exactly how afraid of me Nura was. I didn’t know why it still surprised me. She had nearly burned alive in Sarlazai, after all. I wasn’t the only one scarred by my past.

She buried that fear fast, but the hesitation was all I needed. I sent fire down the length of my staff. When I pinned her down in the rubble with the blunt edge of my weapon, she snarled.

I let my eyelids slide closed—my magic was growing dangerously exhausted—and I didn’t like how human Nura looked this way. She looked so broken. All I could see was the girl I had dragged out of Sarlazai, begging her to live.

“You tried to kill me,” she spat. “You didn’t give me a choice.”

“You always have a choice.” Something between a smile and a sneer spread over her bloody face. “Didn’t you tell me that?”

Nura thought I would never see her for who she really was. But that had changed. Now, I knew where she kept her knives. I waited for her to lunge, gave her just enough opening to leap to her feet with her blade sliding from her sleeve.

Her strike sent her directly into my grasp.

I countered, twisting her arm, reversing our positions so she was locked in front of me, one arm gripping her shoulders and the other clasping her

wrist behind her back. Her magic flailed out desperately, trying to drown me in fear, but that did nothing to me. I had spent six months locked up with nothing but my own past. How cruelly ironic that Nura’s punishment made me immune to her.

“Look.” I forced her gaze to the decimated landscape. Even I hadn’t been able to see it well from the thick of the battle, but here, the view was heartbreaking—nothing but miles and miles of death. “Look at the country you claim you love so much. Look at what you’ve done to it.”

An eerie orange glow harshened the lines of Nura’s expression. Her body tensed. Something was clutched in her white-knuckled hand. The angle hid it from me, but I knew it was the Lejara.

“It’s not what I wanted,” she choked out.

And despite everything, I felt a pang of anguish to hear her voice like that—sounding so much like the child I know once, a long time ago.

“I know, Nura,” I said, quietly. “I know you didn’t.”

“I can’t think. I can’t—” She squeezed her eyes shut. “It’s so hard to think.”

I pitied Nura. I pitied her because she had been created. She had been honed like a weapon and thrust into the hands of a military that simultaneously told her that she would never be enough and that the only part of her worth anything was the part that knew how to kill. Her entire life, she had been taught that maybe one day, if she worked hard enough, if she grew cold enough, if she gained enough power, she would have nothing left to be afraid of.

But the version of Nura before me now, tears painting silver streaks down bloody cheeks, was more afraid than I had ever seen her.

She was afraid of herself.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar figure emerge from the crowds surrounding the ruins. I didn’t allow myself the sigh of relief. I didn’t even allow my gaze to move from Nura’s at all.

“You have a choice,” I said. “Give us the Lejara. It doesn’t need to end like this.”

Two more silent tears. “They probably hate me. When I see them in the next life. They will hate me.”

They. The people Nura had always loved more than anything. I swallowed thickly.

“You were like their sister. They loved you.”

“I don’t think so. Not anymore.” Pain cut across her face, her features momentarily crumbling.

“We can fix this, Nura. Please.” My hand crept a little closer to the stone in her grip.

At first, she looked so unsure—looked like she was considering it. The change in her expression was minute, but I saw it because I knew her. Because for decades she had been the most important person in my life. Even now, even at her worst, I couldn’t choke back the leap of hope that maybe the parts of her that I knew still lived inside of her, somewhere, might win.

She tilted her head a little more, allowing me to see more of her face.

We were so close I could count the threads of silver in her eyes.

She looked so, so young. Just like the grumpy child that hid from parties with me. My only friend. My best friend.

“Let me help you, Nura,” I begged. “Please.” I let myself hope.

Then, her expression hardened, a sheet of ice falling over her vulnerabilities. The anger returned.

“No,” she said. “No, I can’t stop. I can’t be weak.” “Nura, please—”

We had been so fucking close. But through my connection to the deepest layers of magic, I felt Nura reaching for her power.

I raised my weapon.

Yet, I was secretly grateful when it was Il’Sahaj, not my own blade, that sliced Nura’s throat.

I stepped back from Nura’s falling body. I moved quickly this time, replacing her grip around the amber stone the moment it loosened. I buckled under a wave of intoxication as its magic slithered through me.

Nura had already been so badly wounded. Maybe her magic or even just the sheer strength of her will had been keeping her upright at all. The moment the Lejara left her grasp—the moment she lost its magic—she collapsed.

For a few seconds she fought death, erratic sputters of shadow at her hands. Her gaze fell to me one last time, and I couldn’t look away.

A ghost of a smile twitched at her mouth. “I knew you would. Eventually.”

I felt no joy as I watched Nura die.

I felt nothing at all.