Chapter Fourteen Sylas #2
Raiku hisses, and this time, the sound fills the area.
The poacher lifts her head straight at me.
My hand reaches for the dagger strapped to my boot.
She’s not getting out of here alive. In fact, neither of them is.
The poacher steps forward, baring her teeth.
Her hands are no longer hands, but claws.
I don’t think. I throw.
Between my blinks, the trees are gone, the clearing nonexistent. I stand in a vacant room with no windows and a single door.
“Bloody saints, Archyr. You’re an idiot.” Corvi’s voice brings me back. She lies on the floor, hands pressed to her abdomen, around my dagger. Blood trickles from her side to the tile.
I shake my head, pressing my eyelids together. I threw my dagger at the poacher. Did Corvi step in front of her?
As if she can hear my brain struggle to piece together what happened, she interrupts my thoughts. “I can’t believe this,” she grunts as she tries to move. Railesza hisses at me. She’s right, she shouldn’t move with a dagger in her abdomen. “Why are you standing there like a statue? Help me.”
Railesza springs off my arm before my legs move. Perched on my finger, Raiku watches as she wraps herself around Corvi’s arm, then he glances at me, shaking his head before coiling around my wrist.
My steps are measured as I approach her. Railesza’s healing won’t help until the dagger is pulled out. I kneel next to her, and my green aspier glares at me. “You were speaking to a poacher… I didn’t mean—”
“Swallow your excuses,” she snaps, but her words are pained.
The copper scent of blood mars the faint smell of roses on a rainy morning.
If I don’t heal her soon, she will pass out, and I don’t want to deal with the wrath of Parrish when she learns I stabbed her new protégé.
“You’re a Gorhail-trained mage, for Death’s sake.
What happens behind the Doors of Desire isn’t real…
” Her words falter, and her breath slows.
Realization smacks me in the face. It was all an illusion: the door showed me what I wanted to see.
This is why my aspiers were hissing; they can’t break through illusions.
I should’ve known something was off, should’ve paid attention to the details, to the smooth tree bark, to the forest humming the song of the wind when a poacher is around. But instead, I stabbed her.
“You might not care if I live or die, Archyr, but…” She pauses, catching her breath. “Olivia… I can’t miss her funeral. It’s the last time I’ll see her.”
I swallow, my thoughts empty. Pull the dagger out, I tell myself. Then Railesza will heal the wound. Without a second thought, my hand hovers over her abdomen, but her groan stops me.
“I will bleed out if you…” she manages to say. “Take me to a healer.”
I frown. I am a healer, but she wouldn’t know that, would she? Of course they didn’t tell her who healed her; it would go against every single lie Mortemagi love to spread about Aspieri.
“Trust me,” I try, realizing how ridiculous I sound. Why should she trust me after I just threw a dagger at her?
“Just let… me… die,” she breathes out, before her eyes close. Even on the brink of death, her wounded pride takes over her reason. Or perhaps it’s the delusion from losing so much blood. Railesza hisses, and I come to my senses. She cannot die—we won’t find Beau’s body nor his killer without her.
My left hand lightly presses on her abdomen, and my right hand wraps around the hilt of my dagger.
Once I pull it out, Railesza will have minutes to save her.
My aspier’s fangs hover over the veins of her arm.
I blow out a breath; I’ve done this on the field before, so why am I hesitating? Railesza hisses at me once more.
In a single motion, I pull out the dagger, and her fangs sink into Corvi’s veins.
My hand slides over the wound, and I gently press on it, her blood coating my fingers.
My aspier is calm, her breathing in sync with Corvi’s.
“What am I to do with you?” I whisper as my right hand reaches to stroke Railesza’s head.
They say aspiers mirror their mage, but Railesza isn’t me at all. She has Dad’s golden heart.
My aspier will heal her, but I doubt she’ll want to help us after this.
Moments later, Corvi stirs, and her blood dries underneath my hand. Her eyes slowly peel open. The moment she sees me, her pupils widen. “Stay the fuck away from me.”
Railesza unhooks her fangs from Viola’s arm, slithers back to mine, and coils herself back to sleep. “A thank-you would suffice,” I mutter, pulling away from her. Corvi’s gaze lingers on Railesza for a moment.
“It was you,” she trails. “You healed me that first night.” She pushes up on her elbows and winces in pain. I don’t think, and my arm reaches behind her back to help her up. Her face is inches away, her eyes locked on mine, her breath frozen.
She wasn’t expecting this.
Neither was I.
“It was me.” I don’t look away. I can’t. This bond has me under a spell that will get me killed if I don’t break it.
Her eyebrows twitch, and her lips part in a gasp. “Why?”
“It wasn’t by choice.” I roll my eyes as I straighten up.
It doesn’t matter why I healed her the first night.
What matters is that I healed her today, and no one was threatening me with prison or my aspiers’ death.
I could’ve walked away, found a different whisperer, but I didn’t.
Of course, I’m not about to tell her that.
I will not give a Mortemagi even the slightest power over me.
She sucks in her cheeks and looks down. Was she expecting a different answer? Some terribly broken part of me picks up on the fragments of disappointment within her, and I want to take back what I said.
“You stabbed me,” she reminds me calmly.
The coldness of her words sobers me up; I rise to my feet, extending my hand out to her.
She considers it for a moment, but then she pushes herself up, shakily.
“You are even more despicable than I thought you were. You are so desperate to pin the blame on a Mortemagi, you wouldn’t see the truth even if someone painted it for you. ”
Without looking at me, she stalks to the door.
“Viola, wait,” I call after her. I don’t know if it’s my use of her name for the first time or the unexpected anguish in my voice that makes her stop. Her fists clench at her sides, but she still doesn’t turn around.
“She’ll guide you back.” I lower my hand, and Railesza slithers from my arm to her. Viola bends, and my aspier wraps around her arm. Then she walks out.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1939
The clock ticks to five in the morning right as I step into Founder’s Room in the House of Poison. The only light comes from the low crackling fire. Haal, did Lyria leave without putting out the fire again?
A huge portrait of our family hangs between Beau’s room and my room.
Dad had it painted by an old woman in Iserine.
My mother’s face on the wall looks at me with a smile.
She holds baby Lyria, while I’m in my father’s arms, laughing.
Next to them, Beau’s parents look down at him with so much love.
And behind them, the Darros stand with Gryff and Grayson.
We’re all blissfully ignorant to all the horrors that await us—soon after, Mom and Beau’s parents would be dead, and years later, Dad would join them.
What would Mom think if she knew I saved a Mortemagi twice?
I huff out a breath and take a few strides past the open study and Beau’s room, until I’m in front of my room. To my right, someone moves, and my hand reaches for my dagger—the same dagger I almost killed Viola with.
“A second time tonight, really?” Viola deadpans as she stands. I notice Railesza still wrapped around her arm, and it stings a little.
I sheathe my dagger. “I’m sorry, I—” I really want to ask her what she’s doing in Founder’s Room, but I realize Railesza probably brought her here.
“You can’t kill a man and apologize to his ghost,” she says, and I look away. It’s a common Balish expression that means that your apology means nothing.
“The night Olivia was killed.” I choose my words carefully.
If anything, I can offer information as a truce.
I need her to find my brother’s body and ghost, and she needs me to help find her sister’s killer.
“She found out Lorne was seeing someone else. I think that’s why she walked out of Gorhail in the middle of the night. ”
Viola’s face twists in horror. “How could he do that to her? He’s the reason she…
She would’ve been alive if it weren’t for him.
” Then her shoulders sag, her eyes lost in a sea that I am too familiar with.
Guilt. I know it’s consuming her from the inside, but why does she feel the weight of her sister’s choices?
I also know that nothing will ease it until she gets answers. Only then might it sting a little less.
I nod, silently, afraid to make any sudden movements. I need her to trust me, to realize that we have to work together. “What happened in the Poisoned Stairwell?”
She wraps her arms around herself. “I don’t know. I heard a voice I recognized—Victor’s, the other man who was with your brother. I heard it before, but this time, it was different. The voice was textured, layered. It kept telling me his last words.” She pauses, mulling over what she shared.
“His ghost then,” I say quietly. Victor’s body is with Beau’s.
This further confirms that the same person killed them and kidnapped their bodies.
A strange feeling blooms in my stomach. If Victor’s ghost is here, why isn’t Beau’s?
Could he have…? No, I refuse to believe that someone as astute as Beau would let a conduit drag him to the Underiver.
“Could you… share his last words?” I ask. “Please.”