“Let her go, Lessa,” I said, searching for a way to get across and coming up with nothing. My magic was flickering, but it wasn’t strong enough to hold my weight, and a fall from this height might well kill me.
“Oh, I fully intend to let her go now that you’ve disposed of my master for me.” She spit into the ravine, her face full of hatred. And yet she’d fooled Angoulême for years, made him think she loved him and was loyal. It made the lie that I had lived seem like nothing. Like child’s play.
“I finally made it to the top,” she said. “Everyone who stood in my way is dead, or is about to be dead, and I am ready to take my throne.”
“Take it,” I said, my heart skipping as she leaned Cécile over the edge. “You can have it, just let her go.”
She laughed. “Easy for you to give up, when you know you’re planning on sending all our people back.” She jerked hard on Cécile’s hair, eliciting a cry of pain. “I saw what she did to Roland, but it won’t work for me, will it? Cursed human blood, always holding me back. You’d make me queen of nothing, witch.”
“Lessa, please.” If I could just buy enough time for my magic to strengthen, maybe there’d be something I could do to stop her.
“I offered you the chance to rule with me, Tristan,” she said. “And when you turned me down, I told you I’d make you pay.”
There was a flash of motion behind Lessa, Marc, running toward her, face barely recognizable though the burns.
But he was too late.
“Goodbye, brother,” Lessa said, and she let go of Cécile.
She screamed, and I flung out all the magic I had at my disposal, a slender rope wrapping around her waist. Her weight hit, and it felt like my body was being jerked apart. But the magic was just strong enough to hold her tiny form. Out of my periphery, I saw Lessa and Marc falling, but there was nothing I could do.
My eyes burning with pain, I dragged Cécile up. “I’ve got you,” I said, pulling her close. “I won’t let you fall.” Our enemies were dead, but looking over her shaking shoulder at the two bodies at the base of the ravine, I knew we had not won.
* * *
We found a goat track and picked our way down to the base of the ravine, climbing over the frozen creek and slippery rocks until we found our friends. Chris stood sentry over Lessa’s body. “She’s dead,” he said. “Very dead.”
I didn’t care. All that mattered was the still form next to her.
Sabine knelt on the ground next to Marc, her face streaked with tears and his hand clutched in hers. Blood was pooling around her knees, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
“Is he…?” I found I couldn’t say it.
She shook her head, and I saw that his chest was still moving. His hood had fallen back to reveal his face, and I wanted to pull it forward again. Not for the reasons he’d always worn it, but to hide the silent plea in his eyes. A dull ache filled me, and for a moment, it felt like I’d been the one to fall. Like I was the one who couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
“Alive! Thank the stars,” Cécile said. “I can do this. I can fix this. I just need…” She eyed me wildly, then caught sight of the twins limping up the creek bed toward us. “Victoria, hurry,” she shouted. “I need you.”
“No,” I said, taking hold of her upper arms and drawing her back.
“What do you mean, no?” she demanded, twisting to look up at me.
“No magic. No spells,” I said. “Leave him be.”
“But he’ll die!”
I didn’t answer, only held her steady and away from my cousin, my best friend. Victoria was on her knees next to him, shoulders shaking as she wept, but when she lifted her head, her eyes were full of understanding.
Cécile was thrashing in my arms. “You can’t do this, Tristan. You can’t let him die. Please let me help him.”
But she wouldn’t be helping him. For my own sake, not his, I’d forced him to live when Pénélope had died. I wouldn’t do it again. This was his decision, and he’d made it. Whether I agreed didn’t matter. It wasn’t my choice.
“Please,” Cécile whispered, but she ceased struggling. And she wasn’t speaking to me. “Marc, please don’t leave us. We need you. I need you.”
His gaze shifted to hers, and whatever she saw there made her shoulders slump. She nodded once, then stepped away from me. Then taking a deep breath, she sang. It was the lament she’d sung for élise, and it echoed hauntingly through the ravine and up into the night sky. Sabine and Victoria moved back, and I dropped to my knees and took my friend’s hand.
His heart was faltering, his breathing ragged and uneven. It would not be long. But what could I say in the space of moment that would do justice to the troll who’d been like an older brother to me? What was I without him? What would I become without him? The world and fate and the stars had given him nothing. Had stolen away almost everything that had mattered to him. And yet despite all he had endured, he was twice the man I’d ever be. If the world were just and fair, I would be the one lying broken on the rocks.