Page 151 of The Endless War

Their eyes met, and Zarrah’s stomach flipped.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything,” the Usurper pleaded. “I will make it up to you, I promise. I’ll go into exile, never give you trouble again. Just don’t let me fall.”

They jerked downward, Keris cursing. “Goddamn it, Zarrah! Don’t listen to her!”

“I love you, Zarrah,” her aunt pleaded. “More than anyone in the world. I gave you everything I had. Helped you become strong.” Her lip quivered. “I was afraid of losing you, that’s all. Afraid of being alone. Please!”

“Keris!” voices called from above. Familiar voices. Saam. Jor. Her father. “We’re coming!”

“I was wrong to try to make you like me,” her aunt sobbed. “You’ve always been better than me. Please don’t change that.”

“Zarrah, we’re all going to fall!”

She looked up into Keris’s face. His left hand was braced on the edge, tendons standing out white against his blood-smeared skin, but he was slipping. “Don’t listen to her,” he said between his teeth. “Don’t let her take you down.”

“Zarrah, please!” her aunt wailed. “Don’t allow my death to stain your legacy.”

It wasn’t lost on her that her aunt was trying to save her own neck, but the words struck a chord. If Zarrah let her fall, it would weigh upon her conscience. Be forever how the world remembered her. Whereas if she showed her aunt mercy … “Climb up,” she gasped out. “My wrists are tied; I can’t. But you can.”

“Zarrah, no!” Keris’s arm was shaking, but the others were coming. He just needed to hold on a few seconds more.

Her aunt gave her a tight nod, then started to climb. Her fingers dug into Zarrah’s body, legs wrapping around her waist so that they were face-to-face. “You are a good girl, dear one,” she whispered, breath hot and sour on Zarrah’s face. “Serving until the bitter end.”

The Usurper let go with one hand, and Zarrah saw the flash of steel slashing toward Keris’s face.

No.

Zarrah smashed her forehead against the Usurper’s nose, hearing it crunch even as blood sprayed her in the face. The monster gasped and recoiled, losing her grip.

Then she was gone.

Zarrah looked down, watching as the creature who’d touched every part of her life, good and bad, fell. Petra Anaphora didn’t once scream. Only stared up at Zarrah until her body smashed against rocks below.

Thud.

She was dead. Zarrah stared at the broken body of the woman she’d once worshipped, barely able to comprehend that Petra Anaphora was gone.

“I’ve got you.”

Zarrah looked up as Keris began to lift her, so she saw the moment his injured shoulder gave out. She dropped as he slammed down against the cliff edge, and then they were falling. Zarrah screamed, her nails clawing at the rock face, only for her body to stop with a jerk.

The ropes binding her wrists had snagged on a crag, leaving her dangling, knees banging against the cliff. “Keris!” she howled, terror and horror making her heart tear from her chest as she forced herself to look down, knowing it would be to see him shattered on the rocks below.

Only to see his blue eyes looking up at her.

He dangled from one hand on a crag below her, knuckles tight with strain. As she watched, he tried to reach with his other hand, but his injured shoulder refused to lift his arm. “Hold on,” he gasped. “They’re coming.”

Above, Zarrah heard her father call her name. Knew that they didn’t have a rope and wouldn’t be able to get one in time, because Keris’s fingers were slipping, and with the way the cliff curved in beneath him, there were no toeholds to be had.

He was going to fall.

A shriek of defiance tore from her lips because she’d already signed his death warrant once tonight, and she refused to do it again. They would live together or die together.

Her toes scrabbled for holds on the rock, and ignoring the incredible pain in her torso, Zarrah heaved herself upward.

“Zarrah, no!” Keris shouted.

Even her father screamed, “Don’t move! Saam’s running to get rope from the boat below!”

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