71

Chapter 115

King Spade steps into the room, a tall dark figure cloaked in a magnificent purple robe, beneath, he's wearing black armor.
"So bad, breaking up this delightful reunion," He drawls in a deep, sardonic voice, stepping into the light. Some might find him handsome in that evil, twisted way, with the cleft chin and hard jaw, but after all he's done to me and people I've known, I might find a serpent more attractive.
His hair is groomed and light and caramel, his eyes dark and cruel, and I register that he really doesn't look a thing like Coal.
"But I've got to run, and you've got to be dead," He saunters forward with the pompous security of one who has never known danger. "So this will end quickly, I fear."
"You're quarrel is with me," Coal steps forward, though he can barely stand on his shaking legs, and I'm not in much better shape. "Leave her out of this."
"How sweet," Spade grins and leans casually against a pillar. "But in fact my quarrel is with sweet little Ash."
Suddenly, I tumble over backwards when the world shudders, and the ground moves. Coal barely catches himself on the wall, and Spade braces himself in the doorway.
"Ooo," He says, maintaining the stuck-up manner though his life is now in danger as well. "No time for chat, I'm afraid, we've been hit."
"The gig is up, Spade," I say, my voice unsteady, while I pick myself up. Coal slowly edges backwards, until he's even with me. "You're City is destroyed, and-"
"Pft, cities can be rebuilt," Spade waves it aside, and slowly begins making his way towards us. With a creak, the floor tilts, so I'm standing up hill of Spade. Using the wall for handholds, Coal painstakingly pulls himself up further, inconspicuously approaching the glass case with the Order inside. "Rebuilt, repopulated, reconstructed, bigger and better than before!"
Another ripping sound, and the floor tilts further. Spade leaps for the wall and still pulls himself forwards.
"The City doesn't matter." The King suddenly pulls a pistol from his robe, and points it at the scroll, safe in it's glass case. "That, however, does."
In one fluid movement, Coal rips a torch off the wall and slams his fist on top of the glass case, baring the flame to the ancient paper.
"That burns," Spade nods to the Order, and then cocks the pistol at me. "She dies."
"Do it, Coal!" I shriek at once. This is it. Everyone in the room understands that the Order is what gives both sides of the battle their motivation, their hope. One fights to protect it, one to destroy it. This is our chance to end everything, and I don't want to be in the way.
"So what will it be, Coal?" Spade's grin falters when the floor tilts even further upwards. He grips a pillar on the wall, but keeps the pistol trained, unwavering, on my chest. "The Order, or Ash?"
"Burn it, Coal!" I scream, not able to see him, as the floor tilts again and we're almost vertical now. "NOW!"
My eyes land on Coal's sword where I dropped it after cutting his chains. I let go of the wall with one and, fingers outstretched, reaching...
"Decisions, decisions," Spade chides. "Burn Order, watch your girl die? Perhaps you just want to wait until the building collapses and we all die. Or, throw the torch away, and you both can live happily ever after in our City! No more living in caves and trees and climbing mountains and fighting off Beasts and being sent to assassinate rule breakers!"
My fingertips just tap the hilt of the blade, pushing it away even further. So close... I push away from the wall I cling to, centimeters away...
"You know what?" Coal's voice rings out loud and clear through the room. "I'm glad you sent me to kill Ash. If you hadn't, I might have ended up like you."
It all happens in the space of a single heartbeat.
Time slows down.
The torch falls. The Order burns. I spring off the wall, launching myself at the sword. Spade leaps for me, face contorted in rage, and Coal hurls the flaming parchment into his face.
The King screams in agony, and then the three of us are tumbling across the floor, having let go of our handholds, my fingers gripped around the sword, trying not to stab myself or Coal, who hurtles across the slick floor behind me.
We fly into the hall, through a door opposite the room we were in, and into another room, identical to the one we just left, except there is no pedestal baring the Order, and there's a gaping hole at the end.
I barely manage to catch the doorframe, while holding the sword in the other hand as we fall, and Coal grabs the other side. We meet each other's eyes for a fraction of a second, and then we both look down at the same time.
The Order burns on Spade's face, his perfectly groomed hair is on fire, his eyes glinting like evil coals through holes in the parchment. He clings with on hand to the edge of the smoking hole, his hand bloody and cut on the jagged edge.
The other hand, bloody and burnt, aims the pistol at my heart.
I throw Coal's sword.
It all happens so fast my brain only picks up random, fragmented details.
The sword spins across the floor, and, with the only stroke of luck I've ever had, embeds itself hilt-deep in the King's chest, piercing through armor and flesh and bone alike. The pistol falls from limp fingers, and the King's falls from his Palace in the sky.
With his last ounce of life, the King fires the pistol.
Bang.
"NO!" With a fierce shout, Coal flings himself at Spade, into the path of the bullet.
Coal rotates at the last second, and, for the very last time, the moment before death strikes, I look into the endless blue eyes that I love so, so much.
He's dead before he hits the ground, and I watch, screaming in agony, as my beautiful, beautiful wolf-boy, the last Royal Prince, tumbles into space and is gone.
Without thinking, I let go, and hurtle through the opening too, just as the Palace, with a final screeching, grinding noise, snaps on it's delicate stem, and falls, smoking, to the ground.
I close my eyes, at peace with the fact that the war is over, the Order is burning, the King is dead, along with my Prince, and the First City is gone. And now I can finally be with Coal, alone, together, forever.
"Goodbye, Pebble."