I had spent so long trying to be something I was not. I knew I was something quite different from what I had been: innocent, unformed, terrified, the girl who was lovingly overprotected by both her parents and who wanted to be just like her aunt.
I was not like those polar opposites who had somehow circled around to the same savage place, Aunt Leila and Mark Stryker. I was not like Ethan, always trying to be good, or Carwyn, who believed he was bad. I did not feel as though I would ever have any of their conviction in the rightness or wrongness of their actions. All I knew was who I loved and what I wanted. I did not feel good or bad, and I did not feel guilty anymore. I felt strong enough to do what needed to be done.
I felt that sometime while I was trying to shield others and trying to shield myself, I had become all that I ever needed to be.
The sans-merci guards looked dumbfounded that my father had not stopped me. I saw their hands go to their weapons again, heard the crowd hum, torn between approval and condemnation.
None of the guards dared to strike me down. But then my Aunt Leila arrived to deal with the Golden Thread in the Dark, shoving through the crowd with her hair flying like a preemptive flag of mourning, and I knew she would dare to do anything. She came striding toward me, and I saw her draw a long knife from her belt, its blade edged with wavering Dark magic.
My rings sizzled and shone with power. Our blades leaped to meet each other.
“Why are you doing this?” Aunt Leila hissed.
“Why don’t you even recognize me?” I hissed back. “You think I’m a child or a doll and you are unstoppable? I’m a force of nature too. You thought you were teaching me something else, to be something lesser. Try teaching fire to do anything but burn. It’s time for you to learn better.”
The crowd could not hear us, but I could hear it, drawing in closer as people strained to hear what we were saying. The sound of their muttering was like a storm building, far off out to sea but coming closer.
For the first time, I saw fear on Aunt Leila’s face. She knew the mob was a beast, and it might turn and go for her throat as easily as anyone else’s.
“Let Ethan Stryker go,” I continued, “or cut down the Golden Thread in the Dark in front of everybody. You said you came to the city on a mission to free me. Go ahead—kill me. Show everybody you were lying.”
None of us were safe. But Aunt Leila had taught me how to appear in front of the media and the crowds. I had to believe that she cared more about how things looked than I did.
“What will it take for you to stop this mad defiance?” she snapped.
I held Aunt Leila’s gaze. “Oh, tell the wind and fire where to stop,” I said softly. “But don’t tell me.”
“Go to your committee,” said Dad. “Grant him a pardon or cut us both down.”
As Dad spoke, I could feel him shaking at my back, feel the scrape of his rings against my skin. I had to take him home and make sure he rested. I could not let him break down in front of all these people.
I held my breath, and held my sword locked with Aunt Leila’s blade, and I waited.
“We will delay our procession of revenge until tomorrow!” Aunt Leila called out to the crowd.
“And Ethan won’t be in it,” I said in a low voice.
“Very well,” Aunt Leila said at last, in a voice as low as mine. “You’ll have your pardon.”
“By tomorrow morning, before the executions,” I said. “I’ll have his pardon by tomorrow morning. I have your word?”
“By tomorrow morning,” Aunt Leila spat, spinning on her heel and turning her back on me. “You have my word, and my curse.”
I could trust her word. Aunt Leila and the committee would never make anything less than a public spectacle of Ethan’s death. They wouldn’t kill him in the dead of night, in any secret hole or hidden corner. My wrists ached: I had been holding my sword for too long. But my mother’s diamond was shining.
I let myself look up and search for Ethan’s face in the distant window.
I could go home and rest for a moment after a day of standing and fighting. I could put the sword down. I had saved him.
Nobody was home. I hoped blurrily, barely able to think through my exhaustion, that they had not been called back to the hotel for even more questioning.
“Do I need to heal anyone?” Dad asked as I helped him into his room and got him lying down.
Even the confused query made me feel better. He had never implied before that there was a possibility nobody needed healing, that there was a chance we could be all right.
“Nobody needs healing tonight,” I whispered, and I smoothed his pillow like a nurse, but he caught my hand and pressed it as if I was his child.