At the Altar of the False Dawn... Two Days Ago.
"A new world," Prince Cassian said from the shadows, stepping into the light exactly as he had before. He smiled his pale, sickly smile—the smile of a man who I knew would crush his own father's chest in forty-eight hours. "And a place at its head."
I looked at Cassian.
The world seemed to tilt on its axis. The sound of the cultists' chanting blurred into a high-pitched ringing in my ears.
My mind fractured.
I saw Leonidas dissolving into void. I saw Thomas coughing blood against a garden wall. I saw Felicity dying with an arrow in her chest. I saw Ivan with a hole in his heart.
'It doesn't matter,' the thought spiraled through my head, cold and jagged. 'Whatever I do, they die. If I play the game, they die. If I break the game, they die.'
The Goddess had rigged the board. She had infinite resets. She had infinite pawns.
I looked at the Hooded Leader. I looked at Cassian.
