Chapter 15 #2
I took careful steps back, toward the window, all while holding his gaze and trying not to trip over my overeager dragon. Isanara butted her horns against the crowned glass window.
The patience of a toddler.
Been around many toddlers, have you? Isanara quipped. She butted my arm instead of the windowpane as I reached behind me and fumbled with the latch.
Only Kyrelle. None of my sister’s other descendants had ever let me close enough.
I shoved that thought and all of the associated ones forcibly out of my mind. The Dark God did not just watch with his eyes; I could feel him lingering at the edges of my mind. I recognized the cold, slightly different than my own. Older. Even more dangerous.
The latch gave easily under my fingers, a cold wind blasting through and shoving the panes open. None of us shivered. The window was large, reminiscent of a time of warmth. A few minutes, and the brutal breeze would snuff out the roaring fire.
Isanara had already clambered past me up onto the ledge. It could not be this easy. Maura had captured us, and now my familiar could just… go?
This could be a trap.
Isanara snapped her jaws. They know I will not leave you.
You should. She’d be safer.
I’d rather die.
That was dramatic. I felt the same way.
I could only watch from the corners of my vision as Isanara flared her wings, the pale lavender membranes catching the white morning light, glinting deep turquoise then shifting to emerald.
Be careful.
I received only a disgruntled sound of annoyance in reply, more teenager than toddler, as she launched herself into the sky.
I wanted to watch her fully, to note her direction, but I did not dare take my eyes off the Dark God.
Still, from the very corners of my vision, I thought she flew north over the water.
Then she seemed to veer right, back toward the castle.
But that must have been a trick of the light.
“Your familiar is more than capable of taking care of herself.”
His voice was so dark. There was no other way to describe it.
It wasn’t the way it worked his throat or the expression on his face—the mind speaking offered none of that.
Even the tenor and tone were not so different from other cunning males I’d encountered over the centuries.
But there was something that underlined it all, something foreboding.
A sense of absolute darkness that was both terrifying and tempting.
It tempted me to stab him with an ice dagger.
Isanara could take care of herself. She’d only remained in the dungeon Maura had put her in to give the illusion of weakness.
I’d realized that in the liminal space of revelations when I was falling back asleep after hiding from Garrick.
Isanara may be an adolescent in size, but her intelligence far exceeded that of other species of similar age.
Dragons were something different, and I needed to remember that.
Just like the god before me was different. Dangerous.
“I told you to stay out of my mind,” I said sharply.
The Dark God lifted his chin, the only sign of amusement the way that the light danced in his blue-black eyes. “There is no yours and mine anymore. We are one.”
I had not thought it was possible to grip the sheet in my hands even tighter. “Not yet.”
An unbothered shrug. “If that is what you wish to tell yourself.”
“I hate you.” I did not have to try to force emotion into the words. They dripped with it, with truth, even without raising my voice.
The Dark God’s shoulders firmed into a straight line.
“Most do,” he said. “Get dressed, or don’t. Clothing is immaterial in controlling your power.”
I glared at him. And did not move.
He flicked a hand at the window, and it snapped closed. I jumped at the sudden sound.
“If you do not wish to hold me to my promise, I am more than happy to be on my way. I have better things to do than watch witches struggle with their insecurities.”
There was no mistaking the provenance of the cold breeze that slipped beneath the sheet and prickled my skin. The Dark God was taunting me. Every moment since waking—since before waking—had been a dare.
Maura had mocked me mercilessly for centuries. But this was different. He was trying to manipulate me again, just like he’d manipulated me into staying in Balar Shan. Now, he taunted me to get me to train with him, when he knew how much I loathed him.
Why?
I was spending way too much time trying to answer that question. It applied to almost every aspect of my life now.
Except Garrick.
My eyes jumped to the door, for one hopeful second. Hopeful? I’d pretended to be asleep and hidden under the sheets to avoid him. Now I hoped he would come and save me from the Dark God—the one entity from whom I could never actually escape?
Fuck all of this.
I was a master at lying to myself; the Dark God was correct about that.
Because I knew why I’d thought of Garrick in that moment.
Despite the protestations in my chest, I understood Garrick and his why.
He’d betrayed me to save his mother, and though it hurt like hell, I understood it.
He, at least, made sense. Even if it broke something inside me to acknowledge it.
I could not let the Dark God break me, too.
“Turn around,” I said.
Those blue striations in his eyes danced again. He’d never revealed the nature of his own power. But even as he turned his back to me, I had a sinking suspicion that the Dark God already knew my body as well as he knew my mind.