Ranka kept her face blank. She didn’t want to talk about this with her—not now, not in their last moments. “Aramis—”

“You’re strong enough,” Aramis said. “Have always been strong enough. You are not the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. You are the girl who survived it.” Aramis stepped forward, her face suddenly urgent. “Promise me you won’t just give up. You won’t just quit. You’ll fight. Even if it comes to that.”

Ranka’s fingers strayed to her chest. There the kernel of power sat, still frozen and unreachable. “I…” Her throat closed. She would sooner die than return to Belren.

“Look at me, Ranka,” Aramis whispered. “And promise me you’re not heading out there to die.”

“Princess,” Ranka started, her voice soft.

“Promise.”

“I don’t—”

“Say it.”

“I can’t….”

Aramis’s eyes flashed. She stepped forward, grabbed a fistful of Ranka’s shirt, and yanked Ranka’s lips down to hers.

It was not like their kiss in the inn. This was not gentle and sweet, a timid gesture of a girl too nervous to act on feelings she wasn’t allowed to have. This kiss was all urgency. It was anger and want and a demand wrapped in one. Ranka froze, but Aramis didn’t pull away, only wound her arms around Ranka’s neck and pulled her down, and then Ranka was kissing her back, and her lips said everything they couldn’t before—that she was sorry, that she was ashamed, that she was terrified and she had wanted to be better, that in another life she would still try to be better, if only they had the time.

Percy was right—Ranka loved this girl. Would always love her.

Maybe, in the next life, she would make the right choice and be worthy of her.

Aramis took Ranka’s face in her hands one last time.

“Promise me, Ranka Volst,” Aramis whispered, her lips an inch from Ranka’s. “Promise me you won’t give up. That you’ll show them what it means to be the Bloodwinn. Promise you’ll fight your way back to me, or don’t promise me anything at all.”

Outside, the sun was setting. Each second wasted was a second that could cost them everything. Yet still Ranka hesitated, frozen in the intensity of Aramis’s gaze, her lips swollen and her body aching for more. The look on Aramis’s face—it wasn’t forgiveness. Ranka’s betrayal was too new for that, too raw. There was so much work needed to mend the wound she’d wrought between them, if it could be mended at all.

But Aramis wanted her to win this. That much was clear.

Aramis wanted her to come back.

And that was a gift far beyond anything Ranka deserved.

“Okay,” Ranka whispered. “You win, Princess. I promise.”