Page 159 of Silvercloak

The open graves, the scarlet moon in the sky.

Only two possible paths forked in front of her.

She could restrain her colleagues, then extract the kingpin, as Levan wanted her to do—but had notcompelledher to do. Because he wanted this to come from her. He wanted, beyond all reason, for her to choose him.

Or she could restrain the Bloodmoons, and hand the Silvercloaks victory.

It was barely a choice. She had not come this far to turn back now. No matter how she felt about Levan—lust, love, hate, anger, fascination, fear, and myriad other emotions she couldn’t name—she could not place that over the fate of Ascenfall.

The fate of herlife.

She had to finish what she’d started.

All those graves could not lie full for nothing.

She unlooped the manacles from Aspar’s belt and hooked them around the kingpin’s wrists, thinking all the while of that final assessment back at the Academy. Casting that very firstpraegeloshad shonetoo harsh a spotlight on her, setting this whole doomed carriage in motion. There was an almost pleasing full-circle feeling to it. The great bend of destiny, always arcing back on itself.

Once all the Bloodmoons were restrained—Castian was already semi-stone, so didn’t require manacles—Saff grabbed her own wand from Castian’s waistband, then pocketed Lyrian’s weaverwick. She took Segal’s and Castian’s wands for good measure, cold sweat pouring from her temples at the effort of holding time hostage.

Then came the hardest part.

She went back to the closet to restrain Levan, knowing that when time resumed, and he realized she had not chosen him, the already broken heart in his chest would shatter. Dizzy from holding the moment still, she manacled his wrists together just moments before time shuddered and freed itself from her grasp.

There were a series of confused yells in the main shack, then Auria’s shouts ofeffigiasas she incapacitated the Bloodmoons more convincingly, but all Saff could do was stare at the man she had just betrayed.

He looked down at his bound wrists, and when he looked back up at her, all the light was gone from his eyes. All that rich, textured emotion was gone, and he was as dead inside as the night she’d met him in that alley.

And then she felt it.

The uncontrollable impulse to undo the bonds and hand back his wand.

He wascompellingher.

Crossing the line he had never wanted to cross.

Or at least, she thought he was. The desire to untie him sprung from deep inside herself, her heart and her bones and her soul, like the basest of all instincts. No wonder it took Lyrian so long to realize the truth.

She was powerless to resist.

But how? He had no wand. And yet her body was moving of its own accord, guided by his will. Hands shaking violently, she loosened the manacles and gave him back the wand.

He looked straight through her, as if she were nothing, and climbedto his feet, turning to enter the main shack—and undo everything she had just done to tip the raid in the Silvercloaks’ favor.

“Sen effigias,” she said desperately, the spell burying itself in his back, and he turned wholly to stone.

It only lasted a moment.

Almost as quickly as he’d become a statue, he became flesh once more.

He peered over his shoulder, cold amusement on his face. “After my father useddebilitanon me to such devastating effect, I had Miret help me practice breaking free of such curses, over and over until I could barely stand. Then I practiced until I could do it without my wand. Nice try, though.”

The horror in Saff was a dark, pulsing thing. Levan’s magic was something monstrous and unnatural, borne from more torture than most other mages had any hope of surviving.

And she had no idea how to overcome it.

“Ans exarman,” Saff hissed desperately, a basic disarming spell, and his wand leapt from his hand. She scrambled to pick it up from the ground …

… only to be immediately overcome with the urge to give it back.

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