Swan Song ~ Shadow & Bone

15

I scrambled to get back to my feet as I hit the sand, and I looked up at the person that had forced me off of the skiff. I scowled.

"Mal," I muttered. He shook his head.

"You betrayed us first," he said coldly. I glanced back at the skiff as someone else jumped over the edge, familiar black kefta billowing as he ran over. He stopped beside me, resting a hand on the small of my back reassuringly as he glared at Mal.

"You seem to have a habit of interfering where you're not welcome," he said. The boy chuckled bitterly.

"It's what I'm best at." Aleks shook his head.

"I've survived for centuries," he told the boy. "Did you really think you could kill me? Or that I would let you kill Katya?" Mal shook his head, smiling coldly.

"I don't have to kill either of you, Darkling," he said. "Your past will do it for me." I looked up to see volcra circling above us, and Aleks shot a hand up, trying to fight them off as Mal ran. But it was in vain. Like calls to like, and his shadow did nothing but call the creatures closer. Before any of them could sink their claws into us, my hands flew into the sky, and a dome of fire surrounded us as I fell to my knees.

Aleks looked down at me, eyes widening slightly as I struggled to keep us shielded.

"Katya," he murmured, walking over and kneeling beside me. "I'm so so sorry, darling." He shook his head, but I did the same.

"Don't you dare apologize for anything, you idiot," I mumbled, trying to lighten the situation. But there was no light here. The only light was that which I gave off, and that was dwindling as well. "If you apologize, it means we won't get out of this." He sighed.

"Will we?" I looked up at him.

"We will," I promised him. "I swear to you, we will get out of this. I didn't come all this way just to die now." I winced as I felt myself beginning to weaken, and he moved behind me, placing his hands on both of my wrists. Power surged through me, and the dome expanded, pushing the volcra a bit further away.

But it could only last so long.

As the volcra swarmed, screeching as they hit the flames, the little bit of power that Aleks had given me began to falter. Despite my words, I had a hard time seeing an end result that included us surviving.

I wondered what Kaz would think. He had been nowhere in sight when I had gone over the edge. Did he realize I was gone? Would he grieve if I were to die here? Or would he feel nothing but contempt for the girl he had once known to be his sister? There had been a time when we were inseparable. When we had been berated for climbing the willow tree a few miles from our house after dark. When we had run off to the house across the field and snuck into the kitchen, stealing all kinds of sweets and desserts simply because we could. When we had stayed in each others rooms at night because we were afraid of the storms.

But that had long since vanished, replaced by the distant siblings who held no semblance of human emotion except to very few. The children who had been forced to grow up too fast and had lost their innocence when they lost their third part. The criminals feared across Ketterdam but resigned to grow apart as they shut out anyone who knew their weaknesses, including each other.

Part of me wished I could go back. That I could change something, anything and go back to the way things used to be. Perhaps if we had never gone on that heist in Novokribirsk I never would've been found. I never would've been dragged to Os Alta and away from him. We wouldn't have become strangers to each other. And I never would've had to look into his cold, unforgiving eyes as we fought on opposite sides. But there was the other part, the stronger part, that knew I was better off. If I had stayed in Ketterdam, I never would've become the woman I was. I never would've met Aleksander. Or Genya or Ivan. Fedyor, David, Hadley, Jeliah. I never would've met any of the people I had come to rely on in a way that I hadn't since Kaz and Jordie.

But now, in the middle of the mess, I had a quiet voice in the back of my head that told me I had made the wrong choice, despite the fact that there was nothing I could've done to change it.

Aleksander pressed his chest up against my back, leaning down to whisper in my ear.

"Do you trust me?" he asked quietly. I looked over my shoulder to meet his gaze. I nodded.

"Always." He nodded, and there was determination in his eyes.

"Then let go."

aaaaaaaaaaaaa it's done :]

there will be an epilogue after this tho