Page 131 of Silvercloak

At once his eyes snapped open, unnaturally wide. He trembled violently, like a fly trapped in a spider’s web. His hand clenched tighter around his wand, and slowly, shakily, he lifted it to his throat.

Saffron realized what he was doing a moment too late.

“Sen ammorten—”

“No!” Saffron screamed, the sounds echoing around the alley, and there was a spark of bright light, and she withdrew her own wand to castpraegelosbut it was too late, she was too late, and Tiernan fell lifelessly to the ground.

Rasso howled at the moon.

It all happened so fast, so impossibly fast, just like the night her parents were slain.

How quick it was to end a life, to turn all that rich and complex essence into a pile of flesh and bones.

How much tragedy could unfold between one heartbeat and the next.

She threw herself over his body, shaking him by the shoulders as though convincing him to wake up, wake up, but he was gone, everything that made him Tiernan wasgone,there would be no marrying Auria, no spawning brilliant, wide-eyed children, no rising through the ranks to prove his father wrong.

As she clutched at his face, his chest, his hands, she thought of the night they first met on the streetwatch. The two of them had been placed with two more experienced watchers, spending the evening shadowing them on their patrol of the city. Tiernan had cowered behind Saffron the whole time, terrified of his own shadow, seemingly mortified by the moans of the pleasurehouses, petrified of the merest suggestion of a scarlet cloak.

But ten minutes before the shift was over, he had seen something the more senior watchers missed—two silhouetted figures on a rooftop, dark cloaks flapping and billowing, one pushing the other to their death. Tiernan slowed the trajectory of the falling body enough that the ground’s impact did not kill them.

Saffron had known then that he hadsomethingto offer the Silvercloaks—what he lacked in pride or courage, he made up for in astute observation and clever, nonviolent solutions.

As the shaken victim was giving a statement half an hour later, Tiernan’s mother had emerged from nowhere, having been cloaked in invisibility elixir and tailing him all night. Her face pale and tearstained,she’d thrown her arms around him and told him how proud of him she was—because she didn’t think he’d survive that first shift.

Tiernan later told Saffron and Auria that her quiet lack of faith had been worse than his father’s outright vitriol. Because if your own mother couldn’t see the strength in you, who would?

I do,Auria and Saffron had said at once, and it had not been a lie. By then, Saffron had learned there were all different kinds of strength.

And now he was dead because of her.

Over and over she tried to bring him back—ans visseran, ans visseran, ans visseran—but just like it had with Nissa, nothing happened, nothing ever fucking did. She withdrew the miniature hourglass from her cloak pocket, half believing that sheer desperation might conjure a miracle with her wickless wand, but no matter how many times she tapped it, turned it,begged it,time marched resolutely, unflinchingly forward.

“Please,” she begged Rasso, grabbing him by the soft, ridged shoulders, staring deep into his doleful white eyes. “Please save him.”

Rasso tilted his head to one side but did nothing,coulddo nothing, and Saff whimpered, letting her face fall into her hands, sinking her bottom back onto her heels, all the conviction leaving her in one terrible swoop, and she thought that this was it, she could take no more, this was something she would never come back from, would neverletherself come back from, because everything everything everything washer fucking fault.

A mother and father left behind a desolate daughter.

A kingpin’s son would bleed a slow, slow death.

A beloved Silvercloak left behind a grieving fiancée, the image of a confetti-strewn wedding now nothing but an open grave.

Not to mention Neatras, Kasan, Ronnow, and however many others had served as collateral damage in this doomed quest for revenge.

Tiernan’s body grew cold beside her, death’s fingers curled around his soul. He looked so small, so fraught, so afraid. The only thing that could save him now was a necromancer, but—

The idea came to her sharp as a fishhook, and she sat bolt upright so suddenly that Rasso started.

She knewexactlywhere she could find a necromancer.

SAFF BURST INTO ZARES’S CELL TO FIND THE NECROMANCERlying flat on her back, legs kicked up against the wall, crossing and uncrossing her ankles while whistling a tune. Around both wrists were dark purple scars, symptoms of constant severing and reattaching. Her lank hair was splayed around her, greasy and matted at the ends. Saffron almost retched at the oily stench in the room.

“If you bring back one innocent person for me, I’ll free you.” Saff’s words all rolled into one.

Zares raised a dark, hooked brow, folded spindly arms over her sunken chest, and said nothing.

“I’m sorry about what happened back in your house. I don’t even know why we were there, why you’re so important. But helping me now is the only way you’ll ever be free of this. Because he won’t stop, you know. Levan. He won’t stop until you finally break.”

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