Chapter 22
Nell
Sabina's phone breaks the silence with a sound that seems out of place, too mundane for this moment. She looks at it and her expression changes so fast it's like watching a storm form on the horizon.
“It's Desi,” she murmurs, and there's something in her voice that puts me on alert immediately.
She moves away toward the balcony to answer. The rest of us pretend not to listen, but the apartment isn't that big, and the silence we've left behind is too deep.
“Are you okay? Has he done anything to you?” Sabina's voice trembles between relief and fear. “Listen to me, we're going to get you out of there. I promise. We almost have...”
Silence. Sabina stays very still, like a statue of ice.
“What do you mean you don't want to leave?”
More silence. When she speaks again, her voice has broken into a thousand pieces.
“Desi, he's manipulating you. You're not in love with him. It's impossible that...”
The call cuts off.
Sabina stares at the phone like it's a poisonous snake that just bit her. When she turns toward us, her eyes are wet and her jaw is clenched so tight it seems like she's going to break her teeth.
“She says she doesn't want us to get her out of there,” she whispers, and pronouncing each word seems to cost her a superhuman effort. “She says Kaelisar saved her. That I wouldn't understand. That she's...” her voice breaks, "she says she's in love with that fucking monster.”
The horror in her voice is palpable. Althea gets up immediately to hug her, wrapping her with those arms that radiate heat. But Sabina remains rigid, as if she's forgotten how to accept comfort.
“That's impossible,” I protest, getting up too. “Nobody falls in love with that psychopath. Nobody.”
“Not voluntarily,” Sylara murmurs.
We all turn toward her. The elf has a distant look, as if she's seeing something we can't perceive.
“What do you mean?” I ask with fear.
“There's an ancient magic,” Sylara explains, choosing each word carefully. “Dark magic. Forbidden for millennia. It's called Shadow Bond.”
Sabina lifts her head suddenly.
“What exactly does it do?”
Sylara closes her eyes before responding.
“It rewrites the victim's feelings. It's not mind control, it's not ordinary manipulation.
It's... worse. Much worse. The victim truly believes she loves her captor. She feels it in every fiber of her being. She would die for him. She would kill for him. And the worst part...” she pauses, as if the next words burn her throat, “is that the victim believes she's happy. Genuinely happy. Because for her, that love is real.”
The silence that follows is so dense you could cut it with a dull knife. Sabina has started to tremble.
“It was forbidden because entire peoples were enslaved using that magic,” she adds.
“Can it be broken?” the siren insists. “There has to be some way to...”
“There are ways,” Sylara admits. “But they're extremely difficult. And dangerous. And no one has practiced them in over a thousand years.”
I approach Sabina and take her free hand. It's frozen. Althea hugs her from one side, me from the other, and Sylara joins the group, surrounding all of us with her arms.
It's the first time the four of us are this close. I can feel Althea's warmth, Sabina's coolness, Sylara's solidity. And something more. Something that vibrates between us like an electric current.
It's the bond. It's there. I can feel it forming. It's still very tiny, insignificant. But I know it's there.
Before any of us can say anything more, Sabina's phone vibrates again. A message.
She separates from us to look at it. And for a moment I think she's going to faint.
“What does it say?” I ask with my heart in my throat.
She shows me the screen with trembling fingers.
“Your sister is very happy here, Siren. And Niletta... you should ask yourself why your mother ran from us. Why she hid you. There are so many things you don't know about her. About me. Maybe someday I'll tell you the truth. Or maybe you'll discover it yourself, and it will be too late.”
Suddenly, I remember the words he said when I met him. “We were bonded. Before everything went to shit.”
But my mother was human. Bonded is the word they use to describe a Quad. A magical connection between elementals. Or was he talking about another kind of bond?
“Nell?” Althea's voice pulls me from my thoughts. “Are you okay?”
“He lied to me,” I whisper, though I'm not sure what part was a lie, maybe everything. “Kaelisar lied to me about something. About my parents. About my mother. I can feel it deep inside me.”
“Kaelisar lies about everything,” Sabina says with bitterness. “You shouldn't be surprised. It's nothing new.”
“I know, but this is different,” I assure her, shaking my head and trying to order my thoughts. “When he talked about my mother, when he said she was human... there was something weird in his expression. Like he was enjoying something only he knew.”
“Do you think your mother wasn't human?” Sylara asks.
“I don't know,” I admit with a long sigh while I rub my temples. “I don't know what to believe anymore. I just know there's something he's not telling me. Something important.”
“We could investigate,” Althea proposes. “There must be records somewhere. About who your mother really was.”
“And where do we look?” I ask. “On Google? We type: 'Lasara, possible magical creature, married a Fae and had a half-human daughter'.”
“In Aifshara,” Sylara responds. “If your mother had any connection to the Fae world, there will be records there. But accessing them won't be easy.”
Sabina lets out a bitter laugh.
“Won't be easy? Nothing with Kaelisar is easy. We can't go there. We need a damn portal, in case you don't remember. And the Fae would kill us as soon as we arrived. At most, maybe they'd let her in,” she adds, pointing at me with her chin.
“So what do you propose we do?” I finally ask, drumming my fingers on my cheekbone.
“For now, we move forward,” the elf responds. “We look for the Sphere and the Mirror when Kaelisar orders us to. But at the same time we investigate. About Desi. About your mother. About everything Kaelisar doesn't want us to know.”
“And we get stronger,” Althea adds. “The bond has started to form. I don't know if you noticed when we hugged the siren. If we can make it true, if we manage to make it really powerful, it could be our only chance against him.”
“If we don't kill each other first,” Sylara reminds us.
**
That night, none of us manages to sleep.
The four of us stay in the living room, curled up between the couch and the armchairs, unable to separate.
Althea prepares an herbal tea that nobody drinks.
Sylara leafs through ancient books, searching for information about the Shadow Bond.
Sabina looks at her phone every few minutes, as if expecting Desi to call at any moment.
And I stare at the window, thinking about my mother.
Lasara.
I always thought I knew her story. A human woman who fell in love with the wrong man. A father who fled when things got complicated, a mother who died too young, leaving me alone in the world.
But now I wonder how much of that was true.
I don't have answers. Only questions.
The terrible feeling that if I ever discover the truth, I'll wish I hadn't.
And somewhere, in the shadows between realms, I'm sure Kaelisar smiles from his exile.
Because he knows he's already planted the seed.
And it's only a matter of time before it starts to grow.
END OF BOOK 1