The Ivory Rite

Chapter 48

The name that once comforted me is like a deadly weapon shoved through my ear, straight into my brain, where it registers as excruciating pain.

I wish I could say I'm surprised.

My body is surprised. My gasp is one of shock, and my fists clench down, strong enough to break through stone. Every bit of exposed skin on my face and hands turns to ice, which makes no sense to the beads of sweat that appear on my brow, about to blind me.

I wish I was blind. Deaf. Dead.

Anything but this. 

First the stands are shaking and the crowd is screaming, but slowly, so slowly, everything goes silent.

"Diem," Adair says, touching my arm with a gentle hand. I flinch as though he's struck me.

I want to look at him, but I can't rip my eyes away from the stands, away from the swarm of Watchmen over to our left descending on Toryn.

"Diem," he says again, desperate. I turn my head and look down into his terrified eyes.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, and although I think he means it, his fear isn't for Toryn. That look in his eyes, the one that says please no, please don't, is for me. For what he's afraid I'm about to do.

And now I'm the one who's sorry. I'm so, so sorry, because I am a living broken promise. I can't do what he asks—I can't sit idle while my people are murdered. Intention matters little without action. I know that now.

Someone has to take action.

A calm so complete, so serene comes over me. As the panic ebbs away I feel comfort like the warmest blanket, like those timeless moments between sleeping and waking. Comfort like my servant mother's arms, like Colter finding me during a game of hide and seek.

That's who I see as I look at the person being dragged through the stands by the White Watch. Not a young man, but a spirited little boy with freckles and dirt streaked across his face. I have to fight to get enough air into my lungs to speak.

"I'm sorry too," is what I say to Adair, and although it's true, it's not enough. It does nothing to assuage his concerned expression.

"It's going to be alright," he whispers, trying again to touch my arm. This time I let him.

"Sit back down," he's telling me, as his eyes leave my face for the ring. Six monsters of men are dragging Toryn to the center of the ring, and he's fighting them every step of the way. I can hear Adair's heavy swallow.

I watch everything unfold wordlessly. Despite Adair's request for me to sit, I don't move a muscle as they drag Toryn through the dry timber and tie him to the post. I think that watching him struggle must be the worst kind of torture, but I'm proven wrong when he falls still.

He's found me.

No longer fighting, he stares in my direction, his face unreadable. I don't see anything I would expect—no plea for help, no blame. He's simply decided where to look in his final moments, and he's chosen me. His wide brown eyes are ripping my heart right from my chest. I'm going to have to go down there to get it back, or it'll turn to ash, right along with him.

Asmund is reading the last of the Rite.

Adair is trying to get my attention, but I've become a statue, unmoving, unblinking. I wait as long as I can before withdrawing my gaze from Toryn, giving it back to the owner of the hand gripping my arm as though I'm his only solid connection to this world. I take in his emerald eyes and golden lashes, long and defined enough to count.

He's everything the boy in the ring is not, and all of a sudden I'm no longer sure. Hesitation paralyzes me. I am greed personified, because I can't choose.

I want them both.

I give Adair the smallest nod, one so tiny that he wouldn't see it if he weren't looking for reassurance like a man dying of thirst looks for water. Hope surfaces in his expression.

"There's nothing to be done," I say, the words false and cruel. I take Adair's hand from my arm and hold it in both of mine. I squeeze it once.

Twice.

Three times.

I think of the three words I've come to associate with our ritual, ones I will never do him the disservice of saying out loud. Even though they're true, they'll do him no good now.

His body relaxes. He believes me.

I allow myself to waste one more moment. I take the length of a selfish breath to memorize the feel of his hand in mine, the way the sun finds the golden flecks in his eyes.

If he loves me back, someday he might forgive me, is what I tell myself.

And then I pull away from him, hurling myself over the side of the royal box.

His reflexes are destroyed by shock. I hear his anguished yell, feel his fingertips as they graze my right arm, but I'm already lost to him.

I'm already gone.