CHAPTER 30 - Sylas
The mathematical certainty of my world dissolved the moment her weight collapsed into my arms.
“Elara!”
I caught her before she could hit the canvas sails, my hands automatically tightening around her waist and shoulders.
Her head fell back against my forearm, her chaotic halo of calico curls spilling over my blood-stained sleeve.
Her skin was freezing—a pale, translucent ivory in the dim lantern light—and her lips, the ones that had just shattered my entire world with a single, desperate touch, were parted and breathless.
For a second, my brain completely froze. I had managed an empire built on whispers, predicted global market crashes, and calculated human intent down to the millisecond. But as I stared at her peaceful, unmoving face, all that infinite math meant absolutely nothing.
She had fainted. The sheer velocity of her euphoria had burned through the very last of her physical reserves.
I reached out with one hand, locking the boat's manual diesel throttle into full acceleration. The ancient engine let out a loud, violent chug, pushing us deeper into the dark, brick-lined tunnels of the Southwark under-canals. There was no security team to call, no medical drone to deploy. I had pulled the plug on Olympus, and Vance’s contractors were likely still hunting our perimeter above.
I was completely alone in the dark with a girl who was bleeding out.
I pressed my palm harder against the wound on her left shoulder, feeling the weak, erratic flutter of her pulse beneath her jawline.
It was too fast, too shallow, slipping away from me with every second that passed.
A cold, suffocating panic—something I hadn't felt since I was nineteen years old—choked my throat.
“Don't you dare die on me, Elara,” I whispered, my voice breaking, rough and raw against the quiet of the tunnel. My fingers were visibly shaking as I brushed a damp, dark curl away from her forehead. “Don't you dare leave me like this.”
Driven by a sudden, visceral desperation that bypassed every defense mechanism I had ever built, I leaned down.
I pressed my lips against hers.
It wasn't gentle. It was a fierce, breathless plea—a silent, physical demand for her to stay alive.
My mouth moved against hers with a raw intensity that tasted of iron, salt, and winter rain.
My hand locked firmly behind her neck, tilting her face up, trying to pour my own heat, my own breath, into the terrifying coldness she had left behind.
I didn't care about the system, the mainframe, or the Board.
If her heart stopped beating, the whole world could burn to the ground.
A sharp, ragged gasp broke through the silence of the cabin.
Elara’s eyelashes fluttered, her chest rising in a sudden, desperate breath as her eyes opened, her dark pupils reflecting the amber lantern light.
She looked up at me, dazed and weak, her fingers instinctively twitching as they clawed weakly at the wet fabric of my shirt, anchoring herself back to the living world.
I pulled back just an inch, my forehead resting against hers, my breath heavy and ragged against her lips.
“You're going to be okay,” I murmured, my hand still shaking as I cupped her jaw, my thumb wiping a smudge of engine grease from her cheek. “I've got you. Just breathe.”
She offered me a faint, exhausted smile, her voice a barely audible whisper against my mouth.
“I told you, Sylas... the mud... is much more interesting.”