Book 16: Both of Us Must Be Dead

Lexa

Bright pain laces down my back with every step as I walk out of the woods and onto pearls of gravel. I’m not sure where I am, but it’s not the port. A shadow rises in the near distance. My vision ebbs in and out–a wall. The Glade. I’m standing on a rise and looking down at the city, at the capital of Pantharas, and beyond.

My knees give out. Blood trails down my back. Hands grip my arms, yanking me upright. “Kaleb?” I croak, squinting against a rush of bright light threatening to blind me, but everyone around me is speaking in the fae tongue–and rapidly.

I pick out a few words but nothing substantial. Nothing that gives me any idea of what happens next.

I just won the Trials.

I won.

I did it, Kaleb. I won for us–

“I