I was here, still alive. Still whole.

Everything clicked into place then, as I realized what I needed to do.

I reached for the knife at my back at the same time that I saw Sabara take full and complete control of her new body. Cinnamon-colored eyes that had once belonged to Elena, queen of Astonia, now blazed with the fire of their new resident as they lit on me.

I had only seconds, if that, to stop her, and I launched myself at her, my blade ready. My will determined.

But halfway to her, I felt it.

My airway . . . shutting in on itself.

Sabara was strong enough already, and she had every intention of killing me first. Her hand raised, her fist closed, and she unleashed her powers on me.

The result was instantaneous, and debilitating.

My eyes grew huge as I gasped, greedily sucking in as much air as I could. I was ravenous for it. Insatiable. Terror seized me all at once, and I told myself to keep going.

And I tried, willing myself to stab her . . . to stab her . . . to stab her . . .

But ultimately I did what everyone did when under Sabara’s spell. I panicked while I choked and gagged and gulped for my last few precious breaths. I released the knife, let it fall to the ground as my hands closed around my own throat. I opened my mouth as wide as I could. And when none of that worked, when I could feel Sabara’s choke hold growing, intensifying, I dropped to my knees as my vision began to blur around the edges.

I hadn’t been fast enough, I admitted.

I’d been bested by a ghost.

Sage Caspar had left Xander and Sage outside the encampment, warning them to stay put, to keep away from the fighting. But Xander had been insistent. Despite his injuries, he’d refused to just sit back and watch, knowing Charlie was in there somewhere, being held hostage by Elena.

Sage hadn’t disagreed. She knew her sister, and what she was capable of.

So she and Xander had done what anyone in their situation would have: they’d killed every soldier who’d gotten in their way. Or at least Sage had, diverting as much notice as she could away from Xander, who’d moved more slowly than she had, and more tentatively, guarding his bandaged arm to keep it from being jostled and jarred.

Even with only one hand, and a fever that continued to keep him weak on his feet, he’d proven to be deadly. His aim was true, and he’d saved her butt more than once. At least until his gun had jammed and he’d thrown it aside.

Somehow they’d made it to the centrally located tent with the biggest banners waving from the top of it—the one where she’d known she’d find her sister, cowering from the fighting, the way a good queen did. Elena preferred to let her soldiers die in her stead.

Sage had never understood such nonsense. To her, a good queen belonged on the battlefield with her troops. Taking up arms and leading them into war only when war couldn’t be avoided.

Unlike her sister, who preferred to kill by proxy, Sage knew what it was like to wash blood from her hands.

She and Xander had much in common in that regard. “Stay here,” she whisper-shouted above the battle that continued to storm around them.

She didn’t expect him to obey, any more than she would have if he had given her the order. And when she slipped through the tent flaps, her knife drawn in the hopes of offing at least one of her sister’s guards before she was noticed, she could feel him breathing down the back of her neck.

Her blade moved like hot metal through butter as it slid across the first guard’s throat. She might’ve dropped the bird-masked woman without so much as a single sound, if it hadn’t been for the one last sputtering noise that erupted from the bloodied wound. But that was enough, and the second guard saw her, and threw himself at her.

Sage tried to brace herself, but it was no good. She was already hunched over, trying to relieve the first guard of her weapon—a rifle with a strap that had been secured around the woman’s shoulder. When the second guard hit her, she went down hard, landing on top of the dead woman, the beak of the mask grazing the side of her cheek.

That was when she heard her sister calling her name. Her voice was so weak, so distant . . . so pitiable. “Sage?”

She wanted to feel something for Elena, but she couldn’t muster anything.

This was the sister who’d used her as a weapon. The sister who’d envied her to the point of suspicion. She’d worried that Sage would someday usurp her position on the throne, that Sage could never be happy being only a princess of the realm.

So Elena had put her in harm’s way again and again, always with the purpose of serving her queendom. But Sage had always suspected the truth. That her sister had secretly hoped she would never return.

And now here she was, watching all of her sister’s hopes and dreams come true.

Except they weren’t, it seemed. Not from the look of abject horror on her sister’s face.

Not from the fading expression in her eyes.

Yet Sage felt nothing. Not for her sister.

The soldier on top of Sage punched her in the jaw. Her teeth clattered together, but it wasn’t a solid blow, and she didn’t see stars the way she had in the past when she’d been clocked in that same spot. She grappled for the rifle beneath her, and at the same time, with her other hand, she sawed with her knife at the strap restraining it.

The rifle came free with a snap, and she scurried away from the dead woman, moving just far enough so she could leverage the gun against her shoulder. She aimed it at her attacker.

He paused. And then she pulled the trigger.

His mask, and everything behind it, exploded.