Page 151 of Fallen Stars
And then fire, bright and hot, so much that his eye flicked back open again, if only to curse the prick who was causing it.
Enzo was knelt over him with Elara. “He’s dying,” Enzo whispered.
Adrian let out a gasping sob then. He was scared, he realised. Scared of what lay beyond. His breathing was laboured as he clutched his chest, Scorpius’s poison oozing out of it, his eye still throbbing
Elara swore, pressing a hand over his heart. “Adrian, you trust us, don’t you?”
“What?” he spluttered, coughing blood as he replied. “No, no, I don’t.”
“Pity,” Elara replied. “You’re going to have to.”
“What are you doing?”
Elara glanced at Enzo before pulling out a silver dagger, its hilt gleaming sapphire.
“I realised, Enzo, when we discovered what our true powers rule over, thatweare the weapon. United. We do not need a shard of duskglass. Our powers alone are enough to stop a Star’s magick.”
She wrapped her hand around the hilt, Enzo’s hands entwining with hers.
“I had my suspicions after the ball,” she said to Adrian. “That we’d met before. And I can’t shake that feeling. I felt the same with Enzo. Now, there is only one way to prove you are who I think you are.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Adrian hissed.
“You’re certain you possess the Three?” she asked.
“Positive,” he spluttered. Why was she asking him that?
He heard Elara breathe a sigh of relief. “Welcome to the club,” she whispered. Enzo set his jaw, wrapping his hand around Elara’s.
“What does that mean?” Adrian heaved.
“It means…that I hope I’m right.”
The blade plunged into Adrian’s heart as he gasped in shock, his sea blue eye full of betrayal as both sun and moonlight blinded him, and the woman he had thought his friend pushed the blade home to the hilt, her teeth gritted.
Adrian convulsed, the blade tearing through his heart. The shock rendered him numb so the pain abated for a moment. But then, sure enough, hot agony scorched through him, and he began to scream.
Elara was looking at him, her brow furrowed, eyes filled with fear. This treacherousbitch.He gritted his teeth, feeling the life slowly leave him with every weakening beat of his heart.
This wasn’t how he was supposed to go. He was meant to be back home, the sea engulfing him when he left this world.
His palm was slick with blood as he bunched the fabric of Elara’s dress and yanked her to him with one last bout of strength.
“Why?” he snarled, the word broken as it passed through his lips.
Elara’s eyes widened. “Because it’s the only way,” she whispered. “Trust me, Adrian.”
He heaved, the light slowly dimming, Elara’s face blurring. And just before they closed, Adrian saw one green eye and one blue. And with a sigh, he died.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Death wasn’t peaceful, Adrian thoughtto himself. He had expected darkness, a void, quiet.
But as he died, Adrian instead saw a blinding blue light. He was within and without, lifted and propelled by this blue force. He squinted, looking around him, both eyes mercifully open. Below him, he saw Elara’s bent head. The bitch had the audacity to weep.Elara. Who had killed him. The nerve. He saw Enzo press his hand to Adrian’s heart. Another treacherous cunt. And then, Adrian was sucked back, spinning and screaming as the blue light became blinding, forcing its way into Adrian’s bones, through his mouth, choking him with its magick.
What is this, Adrian thought to himself, looking at his arms being coated in blue light.
And one sentence rang around and around and around his head—one from a fated ball months ago.