Chapter 20 · Kill Him, Walk Free

"Do it, Mara. Right now."

Cael didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. He just stood there with the obsidian blade pressed firmly against the center of his own chest, right over the heart that beat in a jagged, sickening sync with mine.

I stared at the steel, then at his eyes. He looked exhausted. Not the kind of tired you get from a long walk, but the kind that comes from carrying a graveyard in your lungs.

"What the hell is this?" I spat, my voice shaking. "You don't just hand me a knife and tell me to carve you up. Who are you playing?"

"I'm not playing," Cael said. His voice was a low rasp, barely above a whisper. He pushed the blade deeper. A tiny bead of dark blood bloomed where the metal met his skin. "The pact is eating us both. You know it. I can feel your panic every time you breathe. It's loud, Mara. It's deafening."

I stepped back, my boots scuffing the grime of the safehouse floor. "So that's the solution? I kill you, and magically I'm free? That's not how this works. We're bound.