“I’ve known Carbry for years.”
“But you’re not sentimental. Not when it comes to this.”
Finley caught her gaze, studying her the same way he often had while they were together. Others had mistaken his patient nature for indecision, but Briony knew it meant he was waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
“They were the right choice,” he murmured. Then he turned away, clearly finished with this conversation.
But Briony understood what his reluctance was now. It wasn’t suspicion; it was shame.
“You picked them because they’re weak,” Briony said. “Because you need help to take out Isobel and Alistair, and with the Relics, the three of you could. But when you’re all that’s left, neither will be strong enough to defeat you.”
Finley did not move, and even when he spoke, he sounded coolly collected. “It’s a good plan.”
Briony shuddered. For as well as she could read him, suddenly, she didn’t feel she knew him—not this version of him, Finley Blair as champion. There was something horrifying about planning to live as allies for weeks with the very people you’d marked for easy slaughter, herself included.
But there was also something horrifying about cutting off your little sister’s finger.
“What if there’s a better plan?” she whispered. “One where they don’t have to die?”
This tournament version of Finley may not have been the one she’d known, but she had to believe that boy was in there somewhere. There had been no joy in his voice when he discussed the reality of his plan—only resignation. They were both here to do what they had to do. She could only hope that he would be willing to align his goal with hers.
“What do you mean, that they wouldn’t have to die?” he asked warily.
Briony gathered every bit of confidence she could. “I didn’t become champion so I could win the tournament. I’m here to end it.”
Briony recounted as much of the truth as she could manage. About the research she’d done. How she’d confronted Reid MacTavish and he’d told her there was something to the pairings of the Relics and the Landmarks—some way to dismantle the high magick that constructed the curse without hurting the people inside it.
She skirted over Innes. It was a convincing lie, that her sister had relinquished her role as champion to Briony once she heard her theory, and there was no point in telling him when he would never learn the truth. Not until she broke the tournament, at least.
“I know how it sounds,” she finished. “But my family has this … story. About the Mirror and the Tower, how they go together. How they both sort of belong to us. And there has to be a reason that there are seven Landmarks and seven Relics, right? One of each, for each of us?”
She’d kept her gaze on Finley the whole time they’d been talking, but his expression had been impossible to read. Half his face was cloaked in shadow, the other half awash in red from the glow of the Blood Veil. The silence stretched long and taut.
“No,” he said finally.
Briony’s heart seemed to sink so far, it was buried in the dirt beneath her sneakers. “No? That’s all you have to say?”
“It can’t be possible. Our families’ stories are just stories.” For the first time, his voice cracked. He reached over his shoulder and squeezed the hilt of his Sword as though it was all that held him steady.
Briony knew what that crack meant—an opening. She’d gotten through to him more than he wanted to admit. “So your family has a story, too?”
“Sure,” he spit out. “About how the first Blair was called into a cave in the mountains at the edge of Ilvernath and fought a dragon for the treasure it was guarding, then pulled the Sword—our Relic—out of the lake inside. A dragon, Briony. All you’re chasing is a fairy tale.”
The Sword and the Cave. Another pairing.
“Maybe there’s some … dramatic flourish,” Briony conceded. She had always been fond of a dramatic flourish or two herself. “But there could be truth in these stories, too.”
“You can’t just waste your time here chasing a fantasy.”
“Are you so certain you’re right that you’ll stake Carbry’s and Elionor’s lives on it?” she hissed. “That you’d stake my life on it?”
“Of course I’m not sure!” The crack in his voice had widened, and emotion poured through—rage, fear, frustration. “I was sure. I had a plan. I trained for it. I was ready for it. But now how can I be certain anymore?” He glared at her, as though she had given him a curse instead of a blessing. As though he didn’t want a way out.