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PREVIOUSLY...
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Azura confronted Palmira and Erasmus, demanding answers about the things the emperor told her. Palmira reaffirmed the things the emperor said, that he was a god and that Azura's marks were made to kill the unkillable. She confirmed that she had been pulling the strings behind the Empire, that she had orchestrated the attack on the Order to push Azura into action and had lied about Suri's death. She claimed that the Tacree Kingdom didn't heed her warnings about the true dangers in the world, which is why she used the Empire to destroy them. Then she brought out an injured Ari who she knew had been snooping around.

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Palmira steps around Ari, her skirts a flowing river of moonlight around her. She approaches me, her gaze on my face, sparks of flame in her eyes. "You are an enigma, Azura of Yetok."

My breath hitches at that. My home. A home I see in glimpses, nightmares, screams echoing around me, grapes crushed beneath my boots, spilling like blood on the emerald grass.

"I thought I knew what you were," Palmira continues, stopping before me, a full head taller. "A little girl that stumbled upon a power she had no right to steal." She curls her fingers around my uninjured hand and I let her, trembling too hard to fight her. The touch is gentle, almost worshipful as she peels away my glove to reveal my markings. "These aren't yours." She touches an embedded golden line on my skin, curving around my thumb, the glow of it reflecting on her dark skin.

The touch makes my stomach roll.

"But perhaps I was mistaken."

"What," I say through gritted teeth, "do you want?"

Palmira smiles at me, a wicked thing, full of unwanted promise. "I want you to realise the full potential of your blood. By my side."

"You made me an offer once before and look where it got me."

"But you didn't know then, did you? About this flame in your veins, nor the true meaning of the mark. Think of what we could accomplish."

"Yeah," I say, my eyes narrowed as venom drips from my lips. I pull my hand away from her and step back. "More innocent people dying is what will be accomplished."

She lifts her chin but I can see she's not giving up so easily. Her mind has been made and she won't let me out of this web she's weaved. "I needed an army. I needed the people to bow again to strengthen Rupteran. I needed people afraid."

"You've never said why."

"Because there is a silent war that has been raging for millennium, and it's time mortals win it."

I scowl at her, the words only adding to my confusion. "You're still not making sense."

Palmira turns and lifts her hand, gesturing to the stained glass of the ballroom where the gods are depicted, Lucifer and his wings of black among them. "You now know the gods are real."

I snort. There are many conclusions to come to about what I experienced with the emperor, but surmising he's a god is a stretch.

"And you now know you're capable of killing the unkillable. This is your destiny, Azura." She looks over her shoulder at me, her features fierce once more. "Cleave through the gods."

"And why would I want to do such a thing?"

"To save mankind. They destroyed this world once, leaving behind only remnants of the Old World. And they'll destroy it again."

I shift, trying to fathom her words but unable to wrap my head around it. Sure, I enjoy stories about the gods but this... this is the ravings of a lunatic.

"I saw Lucifer when I was a child," Palmira continues, not caring for my evident confusion. "He was magnificent. And a monster. He killed one of his own before my eyes with a mark similar to yours, crafted as a weapon against his own kind. He plans to tear apart the Heavens."

My heart picks up, raging in my chest as I stare at Lucifer in the stained glass. I saw him in Ulric's memories, just as I see him in that glass, blurry features of black and light, but no less brilliant.

"And I plan to stop him."

I lick my lips, flex my hand, and contemplate running again.

"You're fucking mad," someone grunts and my eyes go to Ari on the ground who had been silently observing this entire ordeal. "You killed my people just because of some stupid stories in a book?"

My heart cracks from the pain in his voice. I want to tell him that his family didn't die for nothing, that his people didn't, but as I hear the insanity in Palmira's words, I find I can't tell him such things.

Palmira turns, settling her scorching sight on Ari. "If you'd seen what I had, you wouldn't question me."

Ari lurches forward, struggling against his shackles, baring his teeth at Palmira in an animalistic way. "I will kill you for what you did to my people."

"No," she says, tilting her head. "I don't believe you will." She looks at me and my stomach plummets. "Once again, Azura, the choice is yours. Join me, or there will be consequences."

"You're insane," I tell her, a tremble in my voice that betrays the fear that begins to rise within me. "You're insane if you think I can ignore all the damage you've done for some far-fetched fear of the gods. I won't join you. Ever."

Palmira sighs and waves a hand. "I feared you would say that."

Erasmus grabs me again and I gasp as pain dims my vision, nearly making me lose consciousness. His fingers dig into the shattered bones of my left arm and I fall to my knees, tears springing to my eyes.

"You join me," Palmira says, gripping a blade passed to her by one of her soldiers, "or I take the prince's head." She levels the blade on Ari's neck above that wretched collar and he stares up at her, trembling with fury that I can see him grappling with. If he shifts, he dies, but if he doesn't shift...

"Don't do this," I breathe, my eyes widening as the situation dawns on me. I've fallen so easily into her hands, showed her exactly what makes me weak time and time again when I was meant to be hiding such things from her.

"Trust me when I say I'm not bluffing anymore."

I can't help her bring Rupteran to its knees. I can't help her enslave innocent people. I know what it's like to live without freedom, my dignity stripped from me, my life left in the cruel hands of another. I can't do that to someone else. And I can't stand by and let it happen anymore.

I close my eyes, tears burning hot streaks down my cheeks.

I can't let Ari die either.

"There has to be another way," I plead, trying to make her see sense as I open my eyes and stare at Palmira.

She shakes her head. "We will not win against the gods if we don't use everything we have. We lost once, I won't lose again."

My lips pull back and I snarl at her, only Erasmus' painful grip on me keeping me kneeling in place, keeping me from tearing her throat out with my bare hands. "This is madness."

"It's a mad world."

I try to move towards her again but Erasmus tugs me back, agony lancing through me, bowing my spine and pulling a cry from my lips. "Stop," I gasp, looking up at Erasmus, the man who showed me kindness and guidance when I deserved none. Who has defied Palmira for me before. "Please, Erasmus."

He glances down at me, brown eyes lined and aged in this moment, sweat gleaming on his bald head, clearly battling with himself. "Palmira speaks the truth," he utters and my heart cracks.

"Make a choice, Azura," Palmira demands, her grip tightening on the sword.

Ari swings his gaze to me, blood dripping from his chin. "Don't bow to her, Azura. Find Suri."

"What?" I cry, not thinking about anything in this moment beyond getting him out of this situation.

Palmira lifts the blade, light glinting off the steel.

I raise my hand, refusing to let it end like this, refusing to give up. Sparks flicker on my fingertips, weak but they're there. Erasmus grabs my wrist before I can summon the flame and I grunt as he twists my arm behind my back, popping something in my shoulder that blackens my eyesight for a moment.

"Never submit," Ari continues, his voice firm and strong in comparison to my whimpers.

"Azura," Palmira says.

Make a choice. Are you still the monster you were born as?

But what choice makes me the monster?

I pry my eyes open, blurred by tears, but I know it's not a choice. I can't give this power to Palmira. I would be damning everyone to endure what I had been forced to endure. "Don't do this," I plead one last time, the words falling from my lips in broken gasps.

"You've given me no choice, Azura." She angles the blade.

"Stop her!" My sight turns to Erasmus again—my last hope—but he is stone. "If either of us mean anything to you then stop her!" My throat begins to close with tears, but his only response is for his lips to press together, the only evidence I receive that he is truly witnessing this.

I look back to Ari with wide eyes and he meets my gaze, the courage within them breaking me apart.

I see my brother, torn apart before me, begging me to go on without me. I failed him.

I see Dax, dying in the dark forest with tears in his eyes, telling me he's sorry. I failed him.

"Stop!" The word is a mantra, over and over, echoing through the ballroom but it's not heard.

I failed again.

Ari's eyes of life and understanding hold mine, refusing to let go. He doesn't look at the blade as it descends, he sees only me, reassuring even in inevitable death.

The blade slices through his neck.

I close my eyes. I stop breathing. I don't dare move. Perhaps if I do nothing then it will all fade, go away, disappear. Perhaps if I don't open my eyes then it won't ever be real.

Erasmus' hands fall away, but still I do nothing. A soft whimper leaves my lips, scarcely a sound against the raging cacophony that echoes in my ears, the noise solely in my broken mind, a noise filled with hollow pain.

The pain that shoots up my arm is hardly noticeable against the searing torment that shreds at my heart. Once again I failed. I'm left behind. Alone. Confused.

Why does this keep happening?

Someone grabs me and it's only then that I open my eyes, letting the world back in around me. Then I see the blood, pooling around a headless body. I've seen bodies. This is nothing new. But it is, because it's Ari and a piece of me dies with him.

I want to close my eyes again, pretend it all away. I shouldn't be here. I should have left. I should have never accepted her bargain. I should have let those Sharlik soldiers kill me in the beginning. I shouldn't have stopped Jile from cutting my throat from ear to ear.

I tear through my pain, lift my hand and grab one of the cylinders on Erasmus' belt, similar to the one he used when I first saw him. He saved me. He shouldn't have saved me.

I twist the metal, close my eyes, and toss it. A shriek escapes the cylinder and a blinding flash erupts behind my eyelids. Someone shouts but I barely hear them as I open my eyes and stagger to my feet, stumbling away from the blood, from the body of the boy.

I run, slipping past the stunned people around me. Flame flickers into my palm, weak and fluttering but still there. I toss it ahead of me and it crashes into the boards of the window I'd shattered with my back. I leap, grab the lip of the window with one hand and struggle to heave myself up. Instinct drives me forward, an instinct my brother drilled into me, that the voices chant in my ear.

Survive. Survive. Survive.

I don't want to.

"Azura!"

I glance back, one leg dangling out into the cold air, and find Erasmus moving towards me, his eyes wet, his hand reaching for me, beckoning me towards him.

"We need you, Azura. This war is lost without you."

I stare at him, his russet gaze beseeching, but I see the torment on his face and know he's asking the same question I am, a question I voice. "After everything that's happened, do we really deserve to win?"

His features twist and he opens his mouth to speak, to plead, to demand, I'm beyond caring anymore. I turn and leap out of the window, tumbling into brambles that tear through my clothes and slice at my skin.

I retreat into myself, retreat into the voices within me, pulling them close. They push me forward, their hands against my back, the only things that are real in this nightmare.

I leave the Order the same way I entered; with nothing and no one but the ghosts that lurk in my shadow.