I push to standing on trembling feet and Nick helps me rise. Somewhere nearby, Sel moans, and I hear him push to his feet as well, see a flash of black hair in the flame-lit dust.

All at once, I know what I have to do.

“I…,” I whisper to the dream, “I reject my title as Scion of Arthur.”

Around me, the world quiets. Beside me, Nick sucks in a breath.

“I will not rise to dispel the shadows,” I murmur.

The dream fire dims, grows still. The world darkens.

Then, the figure of Arthur appears.

He is in my body in the real world, but here I see him as he appeared at Volition. Shining armor near translucent. But this time, the look in his eyes is of pure rage—multiplied when he sees Nick. “You.”

I don’t know what Nick did to him on the other side, but Nick raises his chin defiantly, eyes like flint. “Yes. Me.”

I step in front of Nick to face my ancestor eye to eye.

“I will no longer take as my own the weight of the blood of the world—”

Arthur’s image grows solid, dimming while my, Nick, and Sel’s bodies begin to brighten. “Stop—”

I look up at Nick, who takes my hand. Nods. From the shadows, Sel’s now-glowing fingers grasp my arm.

“Briana—”

“I reject everything your blood has ever given me. I will not serve the Order’s mission above all others,” I murmur. With every word, we lose density, become as light. “I reject these Oaths, by my blood… and on my heart.”

I wake up in my own body, gasping, my heart racing so loud that I can’t hear the soothing words Nick murmurs against my cheek. All I can see are the bright stars overhead, harsh reality flowing back in around me… or the other way around. Me, coming back to life. He shifts so that his hand supports the base of my skull, a warm palm holding me steady.

“Nick…,” I rasp.

“I’m here.” When he presses his mouth to my forehead, the stubble at his chin scratches the bridge of my nose. “You’re okay. We’re back.”

“Sel…”

He goes quiet, mouth working open and closed. He draws back so that I can see Sel behind us, where he lies flat on his back, unconscious. Sel’s fingers are tipped with black claws, and the dark veins I’d seen in Arthur’s memory have followed him here. “He’s alive.”

Nick’s words are careful. “Alive” is not the same as “okay.”

A fresh gash runs across Sel’s open, upturned palm. Beside him lies Excalibur, broken in two. My eyes fall to Nick’s hand next, where a matching cut travels the same path.

The sticky smear of blood on my cheek. The wide strip of red on my forearm.