14. Eiri #2
His magic roiled within him in response to the fury he couldn’t tamp down.
It was just as trapped as he was, both him and his magic cut off from the open water that had sustained him all his life.
Lodie sat near the coast, the ocean only a few miles away, but to get there, he’d have to find a way out of this fucking prison.
Eiri circled the room again, fighting to hold on to his control.
The wards were still in place and active, but whoever had created them hadn’t taken Eiri’s power into account.
He’d made damn sure no one knew about his magic unless he completely trusted them, and he could count those people on one hand with fingers to spare.
Unfortunately, the wards were in place to protect a member of the royal family and were stronger than most common protection spells.
He could break them, given enough time, but doing so would mean revealing one of the few secrets he’d managed to hold on to.
If he wanted to escape, though, it would be his only option.
He’d yet to find a chink in the armor protecting Syrus.
While that been annoying before, it was infuriating now, his anger-fueled magic growing increasingly erratic as he searched in vain for a way to escape his opulent prison.
Another futile search left him right back where he’d started, trapped and stewing in impotent rage.
He needed out. If he stayed in this room much longer, he would go crazy.
As massive as it was, he could feel the walls closing in around him, trapping him inside, crushing him down to nothing.
He had to get out. If it meant showing his magic, so be it.
The ward over the window. It was weaker than the one over the door to the hallway. No one could scale the wall outside and the glass itself was thick, tempered to withstand the worst weather as well as magical attacks. Shattering it from within would be simple.
Eiri fought to get a firm grasp on his power, but his magic was as fierce and tumultuous as the ocean’s waves, slipping out of his grasp every time he tried to grab it.
He needed to focus, to clear his mind and let the power flow through him as it usually did, but the walls were too close, his fury turning to panic as he tried to just breathe.
His heartbeat throbbed in his ears and Eiri almost didn’t hear the door opening over the frantic pulse. Even then, it took a few seconds for the sound to penetrate his panicked mind.
“I told you to go away, Kien,” he hissed. He didn’t look away from the window. If he did, his magic would slip away, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to call on it again. His breath sawed in and out of his chest, dark spots dancing along the edges of his vision.
“Good thing I’m not Kien, then.”
The last person he’d expected to see this morning was Syrus and the shock of it was enough to knock him out of his panic. He turned, putting his back to the wall before Syrus could put a knife in it.
“What are you doing here? If you’re trying to starve me into breaking, you’ll have to wait a lot longer than half a day.”
Rather than the hateful retort he’d grown accustomed to, Syrus shook his head. “I’m not trying to starve you. Someone was supposed to bring you meal trays.”
“Well, they didn’t, which is hardly surprising,” Eiri narrowed his eyes, his pent-up anger focusing in on this new target. “Pretending to give a damn about me didn’t work before, and it’s not going to work now. I will not give up who I am just to appease your uptight, narrow-minded standards.”
“Eiri, I didn’t come here to fight.”
“Then why are you here? You’ve made it perfectly clear what you expect from me and I’ve told you that I won’t change, so I can’t imagine we’d have anything left to talk about.
” The lack of heat from Syrus slipped under his skin, feeding his anger.
Syrus may not have come for a fight, but Eiri wanted one.
If he didn’t let his temper find a target, he was going to explode.
“I came to get you out of this room for a while.”
Trying to get a handle on his emotions was like trying to rein in a hurricane. The shock at seeing Syrus had been swallowed up by his anger, but it resurfaced now, leaving him floundering in the depths.
“What?” He sounded like an idiot, but Syrus didn’t belittle or mock him for it, surprising him yet again.
“You’ve been stuck in here since you came to Lodie. I just thought you’d like to get out of here for a little while. It’s a nice day. I thought perhaps we could go down to the shore for a bit.”
“You want to go to the shore with me?” At least he’d managed to string a few words together and form an actual sentence. “Why? What’s in it for you?”
“A little peace?” Syrus shrugged, seemingly unbothered by Eiri’s suspicion. “Do you want to go?”
The temptation was too great. Whatever ulterior motives Syrus had, they were outweighed by Eiri’s desperation to get out of this fucking room.
“Fine. I’m not wearing the clothes your butler left for me, though,” he warned. Even as much as he wanted out, he would not greet the ocean dressed like a Vaetrean.
“I didn’t expect you to. Get ready and I’ll let my guards know we’re leaving. Meet me in the hall when you’re ready.”
With that, Syrus left, but unlike Kien, he didn’t close the door fully behind him.
He left it cracked open, keeping the ward inactive and allowing Eiri to follow him out.
He knew something had to be going on, that there was no way Syrus was doing this out of the goodness of his heart, but the call to the ocean was too strong to ignore.
He would keep his guard up when they got to the shoreline, but right now, Eiri only cared about one thing: getting out of this prison.