Gathering Darkness (Falling Kingdoms #3)(106)

“Yeah, I suppose it is.”

“Stop it,” Lysandra snarled. “Both of you.”

“No,” Felix said, flicking a cold glance at her. “Jonas started this and I’ll finish it. Couldn’t be any other way. I’m surprised it took this long, really.”

The smugness was gone, replaced now by what Jonas saw as pained disappointment.

Without another word, Felix shoved Jonas down the stairwell. He stumbled and fell, unable to right himself until he landed with a crash on his back on the floor. He pushed up and staggered into the tavern, with Felix right behind him.

Jonas grabbed for his dagger, but Felix was there first. He knocked it out of his grip and backhanded Jonas across his face as he tried to get to his feet, then punched him hard in the gut. Jonas spit out a mouthful of blood and found he could barely breathe; the air had been completely knocked out of his lungs.

Lysandra ran down the stairs, a knife in her hand, but Felix turned, grabbed her by her throat, and shoved her backward, sending her crashing into a table.

Jonas tried to get up, but found Felix’s knee pressed to his chest and his blade to Jonas’s throat.

“So here we are,” Felix said. “My little secret’s now out. Too bad, I like to keep my secrets secret.”

“I trusted you.” Jonas growled.

“Trust goes both ways, friend.”

“So kill me already.”

“Did you consider, for one damn moment, that I’m not as bad as you suddenly think I am?”

“You work for the king.”

“I did work for the king. I did a lot of bad things for the king, actually, and got paid well for all of them. Ever since I was only eleven years old, I’ve killed for him. I was a cute kid. I could get into a lot of places his other assassins couldn’t. Kept Limeros running nice and tight, no problems. But things have changed since the war. I’ve changed.”

Jonas stared up with disappointment—almost heartbreak—at the boy he’d come to consider a friend. “Really.”

“I told you how I grew up, just not where or who my boss was. I never had friends. I was raised not to trust anyone unless they were part of my clan. I came to hate those people.” Felix’s expression grew haunted. “Got my latest assignment from the king, which was to track you down and infiltrate your little group of rebels. Lo and behold, when I found you, you had no group. You were as alone as I was. Call me crazy, but I decided to make a change right then and there. Felt like the right time for me to start down my path of redemption.”

Jonas frowned, uncertain what to believe.

“That’s right. I wasn’t planning to betray you or kill you.” Felix voice was thick with conviction. “But the moment you hear something you don’t like, you betray me, you decide to kill me. Without a second damn thought. Doesn’t sound like a real friend to me.”

Jonas shot a glance over to Lysandra, and was dismayed to see that she was lying unconscious on the floor. Felix followed his line of sight. “I didn’t mean to shove her that hard. But sometimes we hurt the people we love. Life’s like that.”

Then he plunged his dagger through Jonas’s shoulder, pinning him to the floor. Jonas screamed.

“Don’t worry, it won’t kill you. It just feels like it will.” Felix ripped the leather pouch off its ties around Jonas’s wrist and pulled out the crystals. He held them as if weighing them to determine their value in gold before curling his fingers around the moonstone.

“My blood, my crystal. It’s only fair.” He tossed the orb of obsidian at Jonas; it landed heavily on his chest and rolled off to the side. “We’re done here.”

Jonas watched through a curtain of pain as Felix turned and walked out of the tavern without a backward glance.

Lysandra groaned and began to stir. Galyn emerged from behind the bar and ran over to help her up to her feet.

Jonas lay still, literally pinned to the floor, until Lysandra helped him remove Felix’s dagger and patch his wound.

“It’s all right,” she told him, her expression one of anguish. “We’re better off without him.”

Jonas wasn’t so sure about that. Trust was a fragile thing. And in that moment, he couldn’t even trust himself anymore.

He’d learned a few important, but very painful, lessons tonight.

The first was that he’d screwed up.

The second was that true friends were rare. And those with dark pasts didn’t always yearn for dark futures.

He could have given Felix a chance to explain, given him the benefit of the doubt after he’d shown his loyalty time and again.

It seemed that Felix wasn’t the only one now ready to earn his redemption.





CHAPTER 31


ALEXIUS

LIMEROS



While many of Alexius’s memories had grown foggy since Melenia applied her obedience spell to his flesh, one had remained crystal clear. It was of a starry, moonlit night in Paelsia when, in hawk form, he’d watched two sisters use magic enhanced by blood and death to steal a newborn child from her cradle.

He’d watched as they slipped away into the dark forest, the tiny baby swaddled between them. Then, soon after, he watched one sister betray the other in order to deliver the child to the man who’d given her the mission in the first place, a man she believed she loved—a man who would one day be king.