Page 107 of This Shattered Star

“Don’t bother struggling.”

The voice came from the same direction I was being dragged in. One of the two women we’d seen run into the woods stoodbetween the crooks of two trees, their roots sprouting at her feet. She’d used the puppeteer to her advantage. As a distraction.

Kodhan shouted behind me. Straining to look over my shoulder, I found him fighting against my attacker’s ally, who sprouted vine after vine, wielding them like spears. Those, he burned like they were nothing to him. It was the large branches swinging at him simultaneously that were tougher,faster. They took more time to wither into ash and struck at him with the same relentless force until the very last moment.

And she knew his tactics well. Had likely seen what he’d done to Leyah during Strength. She cocooned herself in layers upon layers of branches and thorns, pushing them outwards like a shield every time his fire got too close.

He didn’t need me distracting him. Not when a roar split the air nearby. The dragons were getting closer.

I grappled onto every surface that protruded from the dirt, hoping to slow my path. To think. But it wasn’t enough. The roots were too strong.

“I saiddon’t struggle!”

I paused. Let her drag me closer.

Her expression revealed nothing other than anger and frustration. But a tremble wracked her hands, so much that she swooped them behind her back. To hide them.

Weaknesses are not always visible,Gideon had told me, on that one night.

And she’d just revealed hers.

“You’re afraid, aren’t you?”

“Shut up!” Her entire body shook now. “Don’t say a single word!”

“Youareafraid,” I pressed on, fingers inching toward the two blades strapped around my bicep. I had to be careful. I was running out faster than I’d anticipated. “You don’t know what itfeels like to take someone’s life. What kind of stain it will leave on your soul.”

Wisps of her straw-colored hair escaped from the bun at the nape of her neck, catching in her eyelashes as she blinked furiously. They did nothing to stop the tears that ran down her cheeks, that dripped onto her hyperventilating chest. “I know you’re trying to distract me. But it won’t work. You’re going to die, and we’re going to win. You’re not going to feel a single thing. I’ll do it quick, just like Clara taught me.” Her left hand shot out from behind her back.

A branch lowered from the tree above us, looking everything like a sharpened blade. Ready to pierce through my chest.

“Is Clara your ally?” Just a little more. I could almost reach her feet.

A glance over my head. To the fight behind me. “I won’t tell her to spare him. No matter what you say, he will die, too. She said we can’t afford liabilities.”

My foot bumped hers.

“I have to admit, Clara is a good teacher.”There.“But you, I’m afraid, still have a lot to learn.”

In one swift movement, I sat up straight, and swung my dagger in a wide arc, slicing open her shin.

Her cry of pain rang throughout the clearing.

The branch faltered above her head, giving me the opportunity I needed.

I pounced, dagger slamming into her abdomen. The momentum sent us both flying, and my knees barked as they landed on either side of her, clamping tightly against her arms to keep them at her sides.

“You should have stabbed me with that branch the moment I hit the ground.”

She coughed. Blood splattered. “I know.”

Numbness had already taken hold of everything that mattered. Shadows wove through her hair, scraped at my periphery. But frustration screamed at me from a distant place. Guilt, even further away. “Then why didn’t you?”

“Because I was afraid.”

The admission was a whisper, riding along her final exhale. Blended with the sway of the trees.

My eyes squeezed tightly shut.Not yet. Not yet, not yet.