“Hi,” she echoed. Then, softly: “You know the true prophecy now, don’t you?”
He inclined his head. “I do.”
“And you chose Summer.”
“Just like you chose Winter.”
Yet again, they were the same. But the reality of the task ahead still nauseated her. Ellery pushed it down. She would swallow this even if it poisoned her.
“I should’ve known it would end here, in the grove,” she murmured. “The first place Valmordion and Iskarius met.”
Domenic’s voice cracked. “So were we just fools, then?”
Instinctively she stepped closer, wanting to comfort him, to comfort herself. Then she halted, grimacing. Domenic was dangerous. Not just because he was Summer’s champion. But because she still couldn’t see him as her enemy.
“Maybe wewerefools,” she said. “But Syarthis still hid the truth from us.”
He scoffed. “Oh, come on. The only reason Syarthis got away with so much was because I refused to accept Valmordion at first. Because you already had a prophecy piece, and I didn’t. But as soon as I bonded with it properly, I got mine. The one I should’ve had from the start.”
Painful realization fissured through her. If he’d had a prophecy piece from the beginning, he never would’ve gone looking for her, and their story would’ve been entirely different.
Except the ending.
“We thought we were fulfilling each other’s prophecy pieces, but we weren’t,” she choked. “They’ve always been two separate prophecies. They were never meant to be combined.” The vortex of the storm seemed to press in tighter around them. “We thought we were meant to do this together, but we’ve been on different paths all along, haven’t we?”
XLVIIIDOMENICWINTER
Domenic couldn’t bring himself to respond. It ached enough to speak at all, to gaze at her looking so monumentally beautiful. Silver glinted wherever her skin was thinnest—around her eyes, above her collarbones, along her throat—as if her very bones were diamond-made.
Ellery had chosen Winter, and he understood her reasons, even if he didn’t agree with them. But he wouldn’t beg her to change her mind, just as he knew she wouldn’t ask such a thing of him. This was the truth of who they were, the destinies that had stalked both of them their entire lives. They wouldn’t demean each other by suggesting this be a willing execution.
Still, even with the knowledge that Ellery was his enemy, had always been his enemy, Domenic couldn’t see her as a monster.
Between them, the splintered bough of a tree broke through the eye and whipped across the cobblestones. At once, Domenic reeled in his thoughts. His task was already unspeakable; it did no good to make it harder for himself.
A tear trickled down Ellery’s cheek like a bead of glass. “D-do you wish you could take it all back?”
At once, his composure tore like the flimsy thing that it was. A sob racked through him.
“I don’t know,” he answered, because he felt he owed her his honesty. “It’d sure be easier if the answer was yes. Because the way I feel right now… this is agony.”
Now Ellery, too, broke into a sob. “You still understand. And you’re the only one who ever will.”
For a time, they stood there, staring at each other as if pretending this brought either of them any comfort. Because all Domenic could think was that this was it—this was the final time he’d get to talk to her, to look at her.
But with each additional second that crept past, more and more Domenic felt his mind stray into a ruthless part of himself, a part he didn’t even know existed. They were stalling. But he didn’t know how to begin what happened next. He still had so much he wished to say to her. That he loved her. Or at least goodbye.
But none of the last words he conjured felt enough to suffice. And all the ones that came close were too painful. Despite resigning himself to kill her, he couldn’t possibly hurt her.
Domenic wasn’t sure who moved first. But suddenly, he was breaking toward her, and so was she. And in an act of what could’ve been either self-preservation or destruction, he took Ellery Caldwell in his arms, and he pressed his lips to hers.
XLIXELLERY
WINTER
The kiss brimmed with longing. Every breath that passed between them was another wish wasted. No goodbye could express what had been ripped from them, what had never been theirs to begin with.
Still, they tried.
