The halls are quiet at this hour.
Shadows paint the ornate molding in an ominous light as I pass by. I’ve spent the entire day confined to my room or slipping notes beneath Kai’s door. It was a pleasant distraction until nightfall. But now I’m off to restore balance to the world, peace to my mind. I have been aching to do this since that final Trial, since returning from the Fort with rekindled vengeance.
I turn a corner and—
A flash of lilac in the moonlight.
There she stands, casually leaning against the wall. A dull look rests on the face she turns toward me, boredom creasing her brow. “So, apparently, you think you can kill me.”
My dagger is already gripped between trembling fingers. The image of Adena’s limp body in my lap is all I see when I meet Blair’s unfeeling gaze. I think of Mak and his hurt that magnifies my own. Anger explodes behind my vision, rage momentarily blinding me as I stride toward her. “I will do so much worse,” I pant. “I’ll make you beg.”
Blair’s laugh is breathy. “You know, I like you much more like this. It’s a shame you’re trying to kill me when we could be such good friends.”
I don’t think before flipping the dagger in my hand and launching it at her face. It flips through the air in a feeble attempt I know she will simply halt with her mind. But I don’t care. I’m content to let her cower behind an ability, if only so I can watch the life flicker out in her eyes.
They’re vicious, these thoughts. Cruel. So unlike Adena—
Adena isn’t here to save me from myself anymore.
Blair lets out a low whistle as she stares down the length of my blade. Its tip is mere inches from burying between her eyes. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Gray.” She lets the dagger clatter to the ground. “You’re different.”
I bare my teeth. “You made me this way.”
She backs away, clicking her tongue. “No, this has always been inside of you.” Candlelight pools into the hallway when she opens the door to her room and steps inside. “You just wanted someone to blame for it.”
Snatching my dagger from the floor, I follow her into the room. The blade shakes in my raised hand. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’ve been through.”
“Plagues, Paedyn!” Blair leans against a bedpost with a roll of her eyes. “Don’t act like you’re the only one who’s been through some shit. Yes, I killed your friend, and you know what?” Her throat bobs in the flickering light. “It haunts me. But that was the Trial. And I won.”
A crash behind us has me whirling toward the door.
An Imperial pants in the doorway, his red hair rippling in the firelight. “What the hell?” Lenny’s eyes dart between us. “Paedyn, you need to go right—”
“Quiet, gingersnap,” Blair huffs. Her eyes never leave mine as she throws his body against the wall, pinning him there with her mind. “The girls are talking.”
“Paedyn!” Lenny wriggles against Blair’s hold on his body. “Please, you can’t do this!”
“Personally, I agree.” Blair gives me a dull look. “I don’t think you can either.”
I charge.
My feet pound against the wooden floor, dodging the dozens of candles littered across it. Dagger in hand, I—
I stop.
My body is suddenly stuck.
I rage against Blair’s power, roaring when her mind tightens its hold around me. “I do marvel,” she says quietly, “at how incredibly Ordinary you are.”
I still within her invisible grip.
Because for the first time in my life, I don’t hear weakness in those words.
No, I hear a little girl crying over her father’s dead body and surviving despite it. I hear the roar of an Elite crowd, chanting for the Ordinary beneath their noses who crafted her own power. I hear strength where shame once was, fearlessness where I would once cower.
A slow smile spreads across my lips. Blair blinks at the expression, a flash of fear flitting over her features.
“Of course you marvel at it,” I say slowly. “Because you will never know real power. Yours was given. But mine…” I shake my head. “Mine was found.”
She gawks. “I could crush your heart with a single thought.”
“Maybe your ability could.” My gaze is lethal. “But you couldn’t.”
I watch her take a deep breath. Watch the words fall from her mouth and still don’t believe she’s saying them. “I am sorry about your friend.”
Then her eyes flick to Lenny.
And the room goes up in flames.
A wave of heat slams into me, and with Blair’s hold on my body now broken, I nearly fall over. Fire flares around my ankles, crawling up bedposts to swallow us whole. I don’t know how it happened, but I’m suddenly choking on the thick smoke.
Blair stumbles away, arms lifted to shield her face from the heat. I leap over a wall of flame before it can lap at my legs. But I don’t head for the door, for my escape from this sweltering heat. The only freedom I seek resides in ending the girl who took away my light.
I lunge for her.
My body crashes into Blair’s, and we tumble to the ground atop a trail of flame. We both cry out as the fire sears our skin, singes hair. But I am not finished.
That dark, terrifying side of me stamps out all fear and pain and sane thought as I pin Blair Archer to the scorched floorboards. A numbness spreads through me, like every nerve has decided to turn a blind eye to my violence. Fire burns its way through my pants, rippling along my thigh as I lean over her pale face. Thick smoke wafts from my own clothing, my own flesh, but still, I feel nothing.
Flame curls to the right of Blair’s head, licking that lilac hair. She whimpers, out of fear or pain, I’m not sure. I no longer feel either. The sleeve of her tunic is thoroughly singed to display angry red skin beneath. I memorize this moment, right down to the terror flickering in her gaze.
The palm of my hand meets her cheek.
I cough through the smoke crawling down my throat.
I push against her face, turning it slowly toward the eager flame.
Lenny’s shout is lost behind the wall of fire encircling us.
Blair’s head swivels slowly beneath my palm. “You don’t know pain,” I whisper. She fights against me with her own strength, too weakened to use her power. I smile. “Not until it skewers you through the chest.”
“Please,” Blair blurts.
I shove her closer to the flame.
“Please…”
My voice is even and rough with smoke. “I told you I would make you beg.”
She screams when I force her face into the hungry wall of fire.
The side of Blair’s pretty face bubbles and burns within the heat. My hand, still shoved against her unharmed cheek, is scorched by the mere proximity to flame. The stench of fried flesh fills the air, accompanied only by the screams of Adena’s killer.
I cough again, my lungs constricting.
That comforting numbness bleeds from my body until all I feel is pain.
And then I feel nothing at all as everything goes dark.
