Page 123 of To Dance with Death

Her lips shape words, though he can barely hear them, her breath like the hiss of a gale. He makes them out, only just, when she repeats it. “His soul ismine.”

“Not like this,” he says again, noticing the satchel at her hip. He lifts it. “Put the mirror down, Vasalie. When you take his life, you will do it with sound mind—savor the justice of it.”

“But this power,” she breathes. “I cannot give it up. I have never been powerful before, never in my life. So much pain and suffering, but now I am the master of it.” Still, it’s as though she’s looking right through him.

He knows it isn’t really her talking, but the seduction of such power. Power has always been like that, whether Fates-given or mortal-stolen.

“Hogwash,” he says. “You have never not been powerful, Vasalie. Though you have struggled and suffered and been dealt the harshest of blows, you have overcome it all. And you saved me, don’t you see? You saved me when it was impossible. Furthermore, you command my damaged, half-beating heart. You,” he says, “are the most powerful person I know.”

A tear drips down her cheek, another in its wake.

“Hand me the mirror, Minnow. Be yourself again and be withme.”

She breathes out, as if expelling a sigh.

“I love you,” he says.

She drops the mirror into his cloth-covered hands.

Chapter Forty-Three

It’s like returning from a dream. It’s as if I’d been watching myself from far away, my thoughts there but muddled, fragmented the way the mirror had been. As I blink away the fog, the rest of Anton’s features clarify—the strong angles of his jaw and cheekbones, the soft curve of his plush, upturned mouth, one that now brims with a soft smile.

“Minnow.”

Hearing that alone is enough to make me weep, but I swallow the burgeoning tears and throw myself into his arms. In the background, I hear orders, shouts, Queen Sadira orchestrating the surrender, but it all swims past my ears in a smudge of sound.

I don’t know how much time passes as I cling to him, but he holds me with the same ardor, as if I might slip from his grip and fall away. But I break our embrace as the memories crowd in—

“Anton,” I breathe, hands bunching into his shirt. My eyes are wild, my breath rapid.

“You have the mirror,” he says. “How?”

I shake my head, tongue dry. “I—I bargained with her. For the return of the shards, including your pendant—”

“You had the pendant? All this time?”

“I stole it off you,” I admit.

“You little thief,” he says, lip quirking. “You pilfered it off me in Razam, didn’t you?”

“I planned to use it to save you somehow. To bargain with her. Only I couldn’t find her when I finally made it into her lair.”

He shakes his head. “Until you followed me and found her tower,” he says, understanding.

After which we had hidden out in Ansa. Then we had slept together, and I had found him missing—“You left me behind.”

“I thought you would be safe,” he says, rubbing his forehead. “Instead you made that bargain after all.”

My fingers curl into his tunic. “I had to stop my father. Had to save you, and after knowing you had already agreed to help her when you came back…” My voice tangles in my throat. I push down a swallow, only for bile to rise back up. “Anton, what I just did…I killed so many.” I knew many of them were corrupt, following my father without half a thought. But some were so young, groomed until they could hardly think for themselves.

“How many did you save, Vasalie?” He cups my cheeks—forces me to look at him “My leaving you was a mistake. And had you not intervened, thousands more would have died.” He tilts my chin toward the battlefield. “Look.”

Veer and Arjuna are embracing, and more of Sundar’s brothers join in, some weeping tears of joy and sorrow both. Soldiers are doing the same, many weeping, others gathering their wounded. Mantrin is the only exception, but Queen Sadira is tending to him herself, cleaning the gash across his shoulder while doling out more orders. A moment later, she curls her arms around his neck, sobbing into his chest.

He had almost died. He would have had I not used the mirror.

Yet I know her tears aren’t just for Mantrin, but also for the one we couldn’t save. The prince who deserves to be here with us.