Chapter 32
One more day until we arrived in Sivy. One more day until I met a fate worse than death—worse than being chained to the Issaraeth himself.
This time, there would be no running. No escape. No freedom.
I still hadn’t quite accepted that after all this time, I’d finally been caught. The weeks traveling with my mate had been a hurricane, the eye of the storm where I’d lulled myself into a false sense of security.
Ahead, violent winds waited to batter me into submission.
Even the thought of my best friend couldn’t unwind the knot in my gut.
It didn’t help that the closer we journeyed to the capital, Vaeron slipped into deep thought, often for hours on end, as he drove.
He’d continued to soften. To remain vulnerable with me. To show me that obsessive, possessive side that stitched an odd sense of safety into my soul.
His mind was a flurry of lightning strikes, each thought a bright flash that disappeared as quickly as it arrived. Far too fast for me to snatch at. And yet amid the chaos, desperation cracked through.
I’d thought about creeping into the recesses of his mind, just to watch, on more than one occasion.
But I didn’t want to break his trust when we were finally at peace.
That truce might just be the difference between a tolerable or miserable life once I was behind the silver bars of Thalvireth Palace.
Even though the Korona was his sister, Vaeron would protect me from her.
His actions during our travels toward Sivy were a direct demonstration of that.
First, the robbers. Then, the workers. He’d gotten me a clean, lighter cloak so as not to attract further attention.
He kept me close and scanned crowds like there was danger lurking behind every smile.
His protectiveness was the haven I’d always truly sought. Every hour I spent at his side dripped bitter betrayal down my throat—of my friends, of my family, of my beliefs.
I hated that I didn’t hate him anymore.
We stopped in a town, my mate stepping away to speak with what looked like a group of warriors on one side of the square.
With him distracted, I reached into my tunic and pulled out my last vial of virelthorn.
Uncorking it, I dumped the leaves into my hand.
Three small, curled leaves tripped onto my palm.
My brows lifted. I shook the vial again like that would magically make more of the astringent herb appear.
“No,” I whispered, staring at the empty glass.
I thought I had more?
But with how quickly I’d had to steal a few and chew them in secret, or hide them from Vaeron as I dressed and undressed, I hadn’t had a proper look at them in days.
And it wasn’t like I could hop out of the wagon and scour the forest floor for a bramble of virelthorn. Even though my injured leg bore some weight now without sending excruciating zips up my spine, I still needed the crutches to maneuver. Which didn’t exactly make me stealthy.
With trembling fingers, I picked up each leaf, comparing the sizes to find the largest. One would be enough for today…I hoped. I’d just eat one a day rather than a few at a time.
Everything will be okay.
I didn’t believe the lie.
“What’s this?”
Vaeron’s voice shattered like hail across my skin.
I whipped my head toward the lip of the wagon, finding him staring at the glass in one hand and the leaves in the other.
“What do you have?”
His tone was low, dangerous. The air in my lungs vanished as the predator inside him reared its head.
I slapped my hand over my mouth, throwing the virelthorn back before I lost the opportunity to do so again.
Vaeron surged forward, rough fingers wrapping around my wrist and yanking the vial free. His grip turned bruising as he held me, lifting the glass to the sky and seeking its contents.
“What did you take?” he snarled, attention ripping back to me. A wild darkness bloomed in his eyes as he gripped my jaw and forced my mouth open with brutal hands.
Adrenaline flooded my veins as I flashed into a long-ago vision, the past, present, and possible future braiding together until I didn’t know whether the glacial irises staring into mine were real.
I screamed, clawing at rough fabric, trying to rid myself of the monster holding me hostage.
On the fringes of my sight, one of the warriors barged up. The wagon dipped as he joined us in it, his bulk blotting out the sun. “What the fuck?”
“Hold her, she’s trying to kill herself,” Vaeron snapped, his fingers digging for the back of my throat.
He’d kissed me that morning like it meant something; now, he handled me like nothing more than a creature bred for culling.
I bit down with all my might. Hot, metallic tang flooded my mouth, and the Issaraeth jerked back, scraping more skin off his fingers in the process. “Fuck!”
The other male gripped my shoulders, pinning my arms at my sides. “I am not trying to kill myself!” I thrashed like a feral thing, fury choking every syllable.
The Issaraeth examined the wound I had given him. There wasn’t a flicker of care that I’d committed an act of violence in my conscience. With my mate, everything I’d once been drowned in a deluge.
When he looked at me again, all emotion was locked away behind a wall of glass. “What did you take?”
“Nothing,” I snapped, spitting out his blood. More dribbled down my chin, but I was helpless to swipe it away.
“Do not lie to me,” he hissed, his knees hitting the floor on either side of my thighs.
With the warrior at my back and the Issaraeth at my front, I was utterly trapped.
The two exchanged a glance before my mate returned his attention to me.
“What was in here? It certainly wasn’t any potion I have given you. ”
My magic surged, ready to aid me in flinging him off, then fell back, my head going fuzzy and world disorientating. I blinked, and the clouds parted for the briefest of moments.
I lifted my chin in defiance and shut out the strange, foreign sensation with its claws in my mind. “It does not concern you.” So much for our peace. The moment he suspected I was going to kill myself, the kindness he had shown me disappeared completely.
Had the tenderness ever been true? Or had it been a method of control, of manipulation, like what I had tried to do to him?
A growl rumbled in his throat. He leaned closer, but instead of pressing his lips to mine, they curled back over his teeth. “Anything to do with you concerns me. Whether you like it or not.”
“Yes, because I am your duty. You capture Seers and drag them back to your sister like a good dog.”
He jerked back like I’d slapped him. Rage and a hefty measure of hurt flooded our bond before turning off like a watertap. That icy coldness in his expression hardened into something that rolled a shiver of fear down my spine.
Then, the air in the forest gathered. The Issaraeth’s chest expanded.
My eyes widened, and I snatched for my magic, racing to plug my ears. A collar of white snapped around my neck and shoulders—the warrior preventing me from protecting myself. From securing my autonomy away from the mate who sought to steal it from me.
“TELL ME.” The Command broke through the barriers of my mind, leaving shattered shards of me in its wake. My spine locked as my mate’s magic wrapped my soul in a barbed net, pricking me until the pain stole my breath.
On the last of it, my confession fled. “I ate virelthorn leaves to suppress my visions.”
Truth spoken, the Issaraeth’s power loosened its grip. As did his soldier’s. A sob wracked my chest, and I slumped forward, wrapping my arms around myself. I refused to fracture in front of the males. But it was no use.
Neither spoke, the only sound around us my soft, jagged weeping.
“How long?” my mate rasped, his voice ragged as it always was after wielding his power on me.
Again.
“A long, long time,” I admitted, not looking up. Because what was the point in concealing the facts now that he knew I consumed it like it was my one true religion?
“Leave us, Maelsar,” the Issaraeth ordered the other male. He shuffled away from me and hopped down, shaking the cart in the process.
I used the ends of my sleeves to dry my tears.
“Sylaira.” The way the Issaraeth spoke my name was so tender, so caring, that I wanted nothing more than to bite him again.
How dare he treat me like a prisoner one moment and his mate the next.
“Look at me.”
I refused, my attention firmly on my lap. My nails dug into my palms as deep-rooted anger grew thorns inside me.
He exhaled, long and slow. “I found virelthorn in your pack originally. I knew what the herb was for. I guess I never thought to check your bag again after I flew you to Stadur.”
He cleared his throat, hand disappearing from my field of vision. I risked a peek up, finding him massaging the front of his neck.
“I wondered why you hadn’t Seen anything in the weeks we’ve been together. Someone with your power…that would be impossible. Even glimmers. Now I understand.”
I loathed the concern etched into his frown.
“My visions are…horrific.” I shuddered at the mere memory of the one that had shown me him. “They disturb me so greatly I am usually inconsolable for days after. My parents sought help for me once my power manifested just after my first century.”
The Issaraeth sat back on his heels, brows tugged together and forming a deep crease. “Your power manifested that young?”
I nodded, hot tears burning my eyes. My mate reached for me when one fell. I jerked away before he could touch me.
“I suppose I deserve that,” he muttered, retreating. He eased off to the side, then rocked back onto his buttocks. Draping his arms over his knees, he stared at his bloody, healing hand like it was something that had acted of its own accord.
A minute passed before he spoke again. “When I thought you were going to end your life, I was consumed with panic like I’ve never known.
And not because I have a duty to deliver you to Iaoth.
” He rubbed a palm over his jaw, sighing.
“I hope after the last few days, you realize I care. It’s not just the bond for me. ”
How badly I wanted to believe him. It was utterly pathetic.
“I’m your obligation,” I said, the word bitter. But did I want to be anything else? Something more? Especially after what he’d just done.
“You’re far more than that.” His voice was whisper-quiet, like if he’d spoken it any louder, the Goddess herself would have descended from the sky and cursed him.
“You may not fight with your fist or magic, but you have battled me at every turn. For far too long, everyone I hunted has cowered at my feet, but you…”
His throat bobbed like he was swallowing glass.
“You challenge me. Wreck me. Make me feel alive again. And it’s not just your storm. It’s the strength you use as a shield and the softness you bury behind it. I see the parts of you the rest of the world will never earn. And to me, that is sacred.”
His validation unfurled something velvety and dangerous deep in my soul.
“Prove you choose me, then,” I whispered, the demand fracturing out of me. “Get me more virelthorn. Don’t force me to See. I’d rather die than have another vision.” He’d never been in my head, to glimpse the seeds of what the Goddess had planted stored in the dark recesses.
Even to myself, I kept them locked and buried, never to surface again.
Destruction. Decay. Death.
The three headed beast roared, the force shoving the future to the forefront of my mind.
I squeezed my eyes shut and banished them away again.
There was no hope for keeping my power at bay.
If the Issaraeth sourced more of the herb to suppress my visions, it would be defying everything he’d been for centuries.
The weapon forged for killing, its edge permanently dulled.
I was everything the Korona wanted—needed—to win the war against the Demons.
But I didn’t care.
One of us had to break.
It wasn’t going to be me.
“Okay.”
The word knocked the air from my lungs. I blinked at him, studying the hard set of his jaw, the way his ice-blue irises—mirror to my own—traced the shape of my face like it was the last time he’d ever glimpse me.
If Vaeron was sincere in his promise, that meant he was choosing me over the war. Over the potential extermination of our race.
He was…no longer my enemy. And that possibility terrified me.
“Really?” The question was tentative, like I stepped onto the surface of an icy lake, waiting to see if it would crack and drown me.
His fingers dug into the hard muscles of his thighs. “If your visions are as terrible as you say…then yes.”
Hope took flight in my chest, but the stilted pause in his tone pierced arrows through its wings.
“However…” He looked away for a moment, across the square to where his soldier had disappeared.
“What is it?” I questioned, wariness holding me on tiptoes.
“You have to pretend, at least sometimes, to have one. Iaoth will be suspicious otherwise,” he explained, his forearms tense and hands flexing.
“That I can do,” I promised.
He met my gaze again, lips rolling like he was considering his next words. I fiddled with the edge of my sleeve.
“When we reach Sivy…” He sighed, a heavy, laden sound that carried the weight of a burden I didn’t understand. “Everything will be very different. I need you to trust me, no matter what happens. Can you do that?”
“I–” I started, but cut myself off. Could I trust him? I’d shared a shard of my body, but did that translate into the rest of our lives?
If I wanted more virelthorn, did I have a choice?
“Okay,” I finally responded, word quaking in my throat. A body-wide tremble threatened to break free.
I had no idea what that promise would bring me. Pain? Pleasure? A battle between duty, defiance, and desire?
In my bones, my intuition sang a haunting melody. It only grew louder when Vaeron leaned in, kissing me slowly. The way his lips danced with mine—desperate, apologetic—blended with the melody of the song inside me.
The one spoke of cages and silver bars, of false freedom and clear eyes.
If my mate let me stay blind…
I couldn’t pretend to hate him anymore. I couldn’t pretend I was already losing myself.
And that truth—that quiet, suffocating truth—was the most dangerous thing of all.