Chapter Forty-Eight Sylas
Sylas, I dream of your mother often these days, as if she’s trying to tell me something. Some might say I simply miss her, but I know our world far too well: my end is near.
You are enough, son. You’ve always been enough.
forty-eight | sylas
Mara’s claws wrap around Viola’s arms, and I move.
Ysenia pleads with me to wait for reinforcements.
I consider it. Even with the Imortalis, two killer aspiers, and a healing as-pier, I am no match for the sheer number of undead Delaney and Lorne can summon and the poachers they must have inside the cottage.
But as I watch Mara drag Viola through a small door into the greenhouse, I know time is our enemy.
Damn waiting for help. If I wait, I lose her.
Delaney is upstairs, Ysenia says.
I hug the walls of the cottage, and Raiku and Scar join me, slithering ahead and making sure there are no poachers around—it is odd how few of them I’ve encountered. Are Delaney and Lorne so arrogant to think they don’t need reinforcements?
My only solace is that Railesza is with Viola.
Lit by a string of lights running down the center, the white greenhouse is full of plants, dead and alive, crawling on the glass. I fiddle with the white metal hook, and it comes apart easily. I pause. All this feels… almost too easy.
Still upstairs. They are arguing. The poacher controlling Mara is threatening Delaney. Get Viola and get out.
Where is Lorne? I want to ask, but Ysenia is right. I need to get to Viola.
The overgrown bushes make it hard for me to move forward, but my dagger cuts some of the vines, creating a path. In front of me, Viola sits on the first steps of a white metal staircase, her hands bound to the rails.
My heart leaps at the sight of her.
Sometime in third year, I read a fable about the God of Death kneeling before the other Gods, begging for mortality in exchange for the love of his life. I thought it to be foolish then, but now I understand it.
“How long do I have?”
Ysenia doesn’t reply.
It doesn’t matter anyway; I’m too far in now. And if anything happens, Raiku sits at the door between the cottage and the greenhouse, and Scar is perched on a branch above him. They will slow anyone down.
Viola’s head jerks up at me, her eyes melting in relief. “You came?”
“This life and the next, Viola.” I slash through the bindings around her wrist, annoyed that my dagger doesn’t cut faster. “I am so, so sorry. I’m an idiot.” I work her feet free and pull her up against me. My heart finally calms; it’s finally home.
“Lorne—” she says.
“I know,” I murmur, brushing her hair away, holding her face like it’s the last time I’ll ever see her. She looks at me with renewed hope, and in her eyes, I find my truth. I am so desperately in love with her.
“Your heart is my home, Viola. Without you, my soul has no anchor. I love you, and I will love you. I hope you’ll forgive my outburst. I was so wrong…” I blurt out.
“Sylas…”
“Shh…” I snake my arms around her waist, tipping her closer to me. Then I kiss her, without thinking of the chaos moments away from swallowing us whole. She tastes like fire, like salt and wildberries. She tastes like hope, like the future I want to fight for.
“Can you walk?” I ask as I pull away.
The poacher dismembered Mara. Delaney killed the poacher. Hurry. You can reconcile later.
“Yes,” Viola answers.
We don’t have long before Delaney comes down, but the door is only a few steps away. The aspiers slither back, Raiku and Scar coiling around my arms. And Railesza lifts her eyes at me from Viola’s arm. I nod at her to stay with Viola. She can heal her if anyone attacks.
We step out of the greenhouse and hurry across the clearing.
All the while I glance at the cottage, at the silent windows that seem to mock me.
The moment we cross into the woods, my shoulders tense.
No poacher, no Delaney, and no Lorne—it’s almost like they wanted me to find Viola, wanted to let her go…
“Sylas.” Viola urges us forward. Once we blend into the tall trees, we’ll have more chance of escape. Maybe letting us go was their plan all along, but at least now, Viola is with me, and I can keep her safe. Gryff and Beau are on the way, and I’m certain they’ve alerted Paltro.
As we’re about to take a left to a path that’ll lead us closer to Junction Bridge, a slow clap takes over the silence.
Viola’s hand tightens in mine, and we turn around.
“I liked her drive, your sister.” Lorne slowly peels away from the cottage, bringing his arms behind his back while walking toward us. Behind him, an undead trails. “She would’ve made a fine Mortemagi. Brilliant till the very end, how she connected the dots from my teachings to her research.”
Why is he talking about Lyria?
Viola squeezes my hand, wrapping her other hand around my arm and pulling me backward. “Sy, don’t fall into his trap.”
“When she confronted me, I offered her the opportunity to join me.” Lorne lets out a longer sigh. “Aspieri and their loyalty. Did you know, there isn’t a single Aspieri within my army. She would’ve been the first. A pioneer.”
I offered her the opportunity to join me… I don’t hear Lorne’s mumbling past that. I let go of Viola’s hand, Raiku already primed to attack.
“Lorne mindtrapped Lyria,” I say aloud as my mind catches up with the events of the last few days.
“Lorne is Grimm,” Viola croaks. “I was trying to tell you—Sylas, don’t be reckless. He has Faro’s cuff. He’s immortal.”
“So am I.” Scar slithers ahead as I march toward Lorne. If I have to die to kill him, I will.
“So easily provoked.” Lorne—no, Grimm—tips his head back, laughing. “Killing is so messy, and I don’t like to get my hands dirty.”
Another undead emerges from the ground, spitting dirt as it rises, but Raiku’s already at its neck, fangs in the top of its spine. It crumples to dust in front of Grimm. His eyes flare, then he scoffs, raising three more. “I can do this all day.”
“So can I.” I close in on him, throwing the first punch.
Grimm is surprisingly nimble. He moves to the side and spins behind me. His lanky arm wraps around my throat, pulling me back. I slide my hand behind his arm and push forward, whirling to come face-to-face with him. The sneer he wears reeks of overconfidence, then twists into something evil.
He lunges for my neck. I kick him. Raiku bites his leg, and Scar wraps herself around his neck. None of it works. Grimm is relentless. He throws punch after punch to my jaw, my shoulder, my temple. Palming my pants for a dagger, I find it just before his fist reaches my eye.
I stab straight into his neck. He won’t die, but the quick loss of blood will slow him down. He staggers, and I shove him to the ground, whirling around to check on Viola.
As I turn, Delaney walks up to her out of nowhere, grabbing her by the hair. Viola spins and pushes Delaney away, and the vile woman loses her grip on Vi’s hair. It doesn’t last long, because she closes her hands around Viola’s arm and drags her forward.
This is why everything felt so easy. They planned this. They could have killed Viola at any point. That she is still alive means that Grimm is playing a different game.
Behind you.
I duck and roll away, in time to avoid an undead’s claws from impaling my chest, and land in the dirt. Behind the skeleton, Grimm summons two more, and they crawl toward me, quicker than bones have any right to be.
“You remind me of your ancestor. Smug and stupid.”
I ignore him, spinning my dagger, ready to tear into the skeletons, but these undead don’t attack. I try to kick them away, but they are too fast: they grab my arms and hold them down, pinning me to the ground. I struggle against their grip, but it’s like pushing against a rock.
Grimm steps over me, sharpening a golden blade against his cuff— Faro’s Cuff. “Do you want to know how he died, Sylas? Your ancestor?”
I jerk my head away, try to pull myself up, but his minions of death are too strong. To my side, Raiku and Scar fight an incessant stream of undead that Grimm summoned; for every few they turn to dust, more keep emerging from the soil.
“Let me kill her.” Delaney throws Viola to the ground, and I lurch forward suddenly, breaking free from the undeads’ hold for a moment, only to be slapped back down by Grimm. “Her cuff is all we need.” Delaney clutches a pack of relics to her chest.
“Do not touch her,” Grimm snaps. “Not yet. I want Viola to watch.” Grimm smiles as he brings the knife close to my neck.
The cold of the blade brushes against my skin; I don’t move.
He lowers his head to my ear. “I will tell you how he died, Sylas. He was beheaded while his children watched, but Gorhail never taught you this, did they? He tried to drive Mortemagi to extinction, and he paid the price.”
“That’s not—” I stop.
Every mage knows the story, but I know it best because it’s the story of my ancestor, Fia Ronin.
Poachers beheaded Sileas Ronin in his own home in front of his wife and children.
They stabbed his oldest daughter, Fia, only seven at the time, and he passed the Imortalis to her to save her life, placing himself at the mercy of the poacher’s blade.
And when Raiek went to the girl, her mother threw herself onto the poachers to give her children enough time to run.
But her younger brothers were too slow; they didn’t even make it across the threshold of their house before Mortemagi poachers dismembered them. All in the name of Grimm.
He pulls away from my face, one hand gripping my collar and the other holding his golden dagger to my throat. “Hating us is in your blood. You can lie to yourself, Sylas, but she will always be a Mortemagi. Her veins will always pulse with her line’s bloodshed.”
My gaze trails to Viola, who fights against one of Grimm’s undead. Grimm could kill me right now, and I would claw my way out of the Underworld for her. I would defy every one of the six Gods for her.