"Go where?" Zarathos smirked, all arrogance and cruelty. "The night's still young, girl. Plenty of time to die."

  Ana launched herself at him with the force of everything he could not crush. Everything he could not break.

  "Oh, we're not that easy to kill."

  They battled, Ana's movements lithe and lethal, a stunning defiance of his belief that she could ever be his, that she could ever be less than she was. Each swing of her sword was a heartbeat, a pulse of refusal, a bright echo of her past.

  They fought as if the night had only begun.

  "Don't you get it?" Zarathos growled, his own blade an extension of his menace, an extension of his anger. "Your little hero's dead. He's—"

  "Not." Ana cut him off with a blow that rang through the air. Her strength rose, filled her, pushed her to the edge and back again. She met Zarathos's challenge with the wild certainty that she would see this through. That she would see it all through.

  The fight was fierce and close and alive. It was like a dance she'd never learned but always known, the movements coming as naturally as her breath.

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  As naturally as her life.

  Zarathos lunged with the full weight of his arrogance, the full belief that he could overpower her. But Ana met him.

  He reeled back, and for the first time she saw the disbelief in his eyes, the knowledge that this girl, this tiny threat, was something more than he'd planned on.

  More than he'd thought possible.

  More than his match.

  Ana pressed the advantage.

  She pushed him back.

  She didn't stop.

  This was her fight.

  This was her life.

  And then Caden was there, and his presence was the final, perfect cut. The final, perfect breath.

  Reality.

  And that was the last, impossible blow.

  In a desperate move, he attempted to flee, but that was his fatal error—one swift thought was all it took, and she plunged her blade through his heart.

  Ana's breath was the breath of triumph.

  "We'll see you again," Zarathos promised, and his words were less of a threat than a concession.

  "Oh, I hope so."

  Ana swung her sword with precision, and the act was the act of finality, the act of justice, the act of everything they had battled for. His head detached from his body.

  She sheathed her sword, and the act was the act of victory, the act of life, the act of everything they had fought for.

  "Still alive, kid?"

  Caden's grin was a wound.

  "Ana," he said, and his voice was the last breath of the longest night.

  Caden hugged her deeply.

  The gesture caught her off guard, sent a shockwave through her exhaustion.

  Ana was stiff for one startled moment, then the discomfort vanished, melted away quicker than she'd ever have imagined it could.

  She let him hold on as long as he needed.