*COMPLETE* "People don't believe in us anymore. They don't believe that in the end we will do what is right. We can't let them down. We can't let Ben win."
Decisions made on top of the lonely, wind-swept cliff of Lethinor reverberate around the five...
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On the cliffs of Lethinor, the Paragon fell like shattered glass.
Ruben had watched it like a dream, watched the way her feet drifted out, off the solid ground, and her arms rose up, almost reaching out toward the archer, the surprise not quite leaving her eyes as confusion broke across her face. Blood was already beginning to stain the struck spot between her ribs.
Meg and her friends ran after that—but that was of little consequence, perhaps even for the best, he had reflected then, and the sound of their feet crunching against the squelching earth had sharpened his mind once more; he dashed forward, skidding at the edge of the cliff, peering down into the murky waters.
Even now, he can feel how the wind whipped punishingly as he had begun the treacherous climb down the side of the cliff. He had found a narrow ledge, which had perhaps once been commonly used, but had crumpled away under salt and time, and his feet squeezed along the rocky side as he moved far quicker than he should have.
The old spirit of recklessness had seized him then—and, he must admit, sometimes seizes him still. He was running out of time, running out of that crazy, far-flung hope that had rattled around, unsaid, in his brain. But hope he did, because the bow was a fake—he knew it was a fake, he had planted it there years ago in the slight chance that someone would be clever enough to find it too. And if the bow was fake, if it didn't hit her heart, if he got to her in time...
So he moved faster, the freezing waves crashing over the rocks in front of him as his hands clutched at the cliffside.
When he reached the sea he waved a hand out, pushing the water apart, twenty feet deep, but there was nothing. He had then scanned the waves, the waterline, looking for a slump of sopping clothes and paling flesh.
Nothing...
He jumped in after that, and the water had been a frigid blast that knocked the air out of his lungs, but he ducked in anyway, eyes open against the burning salt, hands out, pushing away the buffeting waves.
Nothing...
He had gone deeper, down where the light began to dim, his body twisting around each way, looking for a break in all the blue-blackness.
Nothing...
Still he had pushed, his lungs clenching for want of air, farther still, and there had been nothing. The wind was a cold slap when his head broke the water, stinging his gasping mouth and blurring eyes. He had turned around, looking for the direction of the current, following it, going under again, and again, and again.
Nothing.
Aren stumbled over when he returned, her left hand a mess of blood and ruin.
The Paragon's work, he had thought absurdly then, and the words seemed to slide off his mind like oil over water.
