Finale (Caraval #3)(105)

Scarlett had to find a way to change his feelings. She tried to find a spark of love for him again. She hadn’t wanted to love her mother, either, but Paradise was more deserving. Or maybe no one deserved love. Maybe love was always a gift, but it was so much harder to give it to the Fallen Star because he’d spent his entire existence battling against it. He saw it as a disease rather than a cure.

“It’s going to be all right. I’m going to take care of you, and I’m going to make sure that our child is absolutely extraordinary.” He gave her a smile that was all teeth and inhuman hunger, without a shred of love.

Her plan wasn’t working the way it was supposed to.





57





Donatella


Tella should have tried harder to stop her sister from going through with this plan.

The Fallen Star looked almost bored when Tella had stepped into the throne room with Jacks, but now he looked as if the wrong word might cause him to set the entire throne room ablaze. His eyes flickered like flames. But it was the way he stared at Scarlett, with a terrifying brand of protectiveness, that told Tella he might lock her sister up in this tower as easily as he might set her on fire if she said the wrong word.

Panic shook Tella’s limbs. Jacks’s arms tightened around her, pulling her closer to him. But not even his reassuring touch could completely calm her. If she didn’t do something soon, Tella feared that she was going to watch history repeat itself with the Fallen Star and her sister.

“Tella,” Jacks whispered, “there’s no saving her. Your sister’s plan isn’t going to work. We need to get out of here before he takes his rage out on you.”

An intense bolt of fear washed over Tella—Jacks was right. She would be much safer if she went with him. He would never let anything happen to her. Jacks would protect Tella until the end of time.

But Tella could not leave her sister to fight the Fallen Star on her own. Scarlett would never win. Even if the Fallen Star kept her alive, it didn’t look as if he would ever love her. If Tella couldn’t kill the Fallen Star, she at least needed to help her sister get out of there.

“Trust me, Jacks, I have an idea.” It was a terrible idea, but many of her most successful ideas were.

“Mother!” Tella cried. “He’s not going to take care of you.” She broke away from Jacks and leaped between Scarlett and the Fallen Star.

The Fate’s eyes turned red and flames erupted once more.





58





Scarlett


The moment Tella lunged between Scarlett and Gavriel, his hands burst into flames, creating an arc of sparks and black smoke as he reached for Tella’s delicate shoulder.

Scarlett didn’t even think—she just shoved her sister out of the way and flung herself in the Fallen Star’s path.

Sparks flew.

Tella screamed.

Scarlett might have screamed too. The Fallen Star collided with her, his hands scorching the same shoulders he’d burned earlier that night. All Scarlett could feel was pain. Then his arms were holding her up instead of burning.

“Paradise.” The flames on his fingers went out, and for the first time since she’d known him, he looked frightened. His brows were pulled tight together over eyes shot through with red. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Did you also not mean to kill her?” Tella accused.

Gavriel released Scarlett and his hands flared into fire once more, incandescent balls of fire forming in his palms.

“Stop this!” Scarlett screamed. “Paradise wouldn’t have wanted you to hurt her daughter, or your daughter.”

The Fallen Star’s eyes cut back to her. The flames of his fingers went as black as betrayal.

He’d caught her slip—he knew that she was not his Paradise—but Scarlett wasn’t sure it was a slip. Her performance had failed to elicit any feelings of love, so maybe it was time to stop performing.

She took a step toward him, looking in his injured eyes instead of at the hands that had burned her multiple times. She couldn’t think about self-perseveration—it was too closely related to fear, and she remembered what her mother had written about fear giving Fates power.

Scarlett refused to be afraid. Fear was poison to love. And love was poison to fear. She still couldn’t bring herself to love him. But she could bring herself to be vulnerable, and maybe that would get through to him.

“I know you’re afraid of love, I know it’s hurt you in the past and you see it as a weapon. You think love is a disease, but you’ve become the disease. Your fear of love is destroying you and everyone you touch. And it doesn’t make you powerful, it makes the world around you tragic.” Scarlett waved a hand around his catastrophic throne room, with its ugly stage, its awful cage, and a throne still burning with angry fire. “You told me you didn’t love Paradise, but I know you did.”

He didn’t flinch. But he didn’t lash out, either.

“You loved my mother and I know that she loved you. The Assassin did go back in time. He took me to see Paradise and she was bursting with her love for you. She wouldn’t want any of this for you, and she wouldn’t want you to do the things that you’ve done.”

His eyes finally lowered to the gaping hole in Scarlett’s sleeve and the ruined skin beneath it, blistering and burning from where he’d touched her.