Chapter 57
Ivory strands poured from the three, thorned and writhing as they snared my limbs. I yanked on my own well, forcing their power away. But three against one? I stood no chance.
“We know what you are doing, Elessarum,” the Koron snarled, pressing his large hand to the center of my chest, right over my source of magic. The Korona stepped behind me, digging her fingers to my temples.
The High Priestess smeared cold runes across my skin, the sacred symbols searing as they set.
“No!” I shrieked, thrashing to dislodge their grip.
Is everyone going to stand by and let this happen?
More flashes of the moments Heraphia had seized in my arms rose. The foam that had formed at the corners of her mouth. The way she’d choked and gasped for air.
How Iaoth had drained her dry, stealing every possible thread of the future from her.
The High Priestess took a knife to my palm and sliced. The sting shot up my arm, and I couldn’t even flinch away as she squeezed out hot blood.
I’m going to die.
“Do not fucking give up on me, Sylaira,” Vaeron growled into my mind. “Your passivity will not serve you today. Fight.”
At his words—his permission—I dove deep into my well.
Past the caverns in the southern lakes. Past the bottom of the ocean.
All the way into the white abyss. And when I reached it, I threw my arms around every undulating strand of power.
Absorbed every aching ounce of grief, rage, and agony and let them become me.
With a mighty tug on the core of my being, radiance exploded out of me, knocking the three back.
I half-stumbled to the side, no longer held aloft by their magic.
Dark marks disappeared in furious swipes, mixing with my blood.
I spun a slow circle, focus darting between Iaoth, Stadiel, and the High Priestess, every sense on high alert and waiting for the hint that they planned to launch themselves at me again.
Dozens of gazes seared into us, and even the Atrium held its breath.
The sinister, cruel glint in Koron Stadiel’s eye stole the air from my lungs. My actions, in front of all the Seers, would not go unpunished.
“You will See today,” he ground out, his powerful frame growing ever larger as he stalked toward me again.
But a maelstrom roared in my veins. Every violent vision forced upon me struck like indigo bolts behind my eyes.
The fury of having to run, of having to hide, of being caged time and time again, whipped up alongside it.
The horror of witnessing my best friend die because of her power and how these bastards had exploited it flared next.
Together they emboldened me. Solidified my storm.
Through the tremble in my limbs, I held the line. A Sightkeeper grabbed my arms, pinning them behind my back. The monarchs assumed their prior positions while the High Priestess dipped her fingers in the ruby cuts on my palms.
Energy prowled beneath my skin, crouching for its unleashing. There was enough left in my well for one more forceful throw of my captors. After that…
I was fucked.
The Divine Atrium’s door exploded inward, a detonation of wood and righteous wrath.
The High Priestess whipped her attention to the entry, lips parting. Stadiel scowled, a frustrated groan rumbling in his chest.
I jerked my head out of Iaoth’s gasp as my bond snapped taut.
Because there, a twister of white battering the space around him, was Vaeron.
Amid it, Maelsar stood, fingers curled around black whips. And behind them, Lyriasthe waited, bloodied forms collapsed at her feet.
“Get your fucking hands off her,” Vaeron snapped, stomping forward.
Those in his way scattered.
He and Maelsar didn’t even acknowledge the naked bodies filling the room.
No one around me moved.
Even as the air in the room sucked into a single point in Vaeron’s throat.
“BACK AWAY FROM MY MATE.”
A shockwave of sound shook the space, shattering one crystal chair after another. Metal vines groaned and collapsed, gouging the polished white stone.
As if they were puppets, the Sightkeeper, the High Priestess, and Iaoth leaped away. Only Stadiel remained where he was, hand pressed over the nexus of my magic.
Because Vaeron couldn’t break his mind; the Koron was immune.
A sneer rose to his lips as he faced my mate and Maelsar. “The time has come, Vaeron.”
“For you to release Sylaira? Absolutely,” he crooned.
With the Koron distracted, I tried to step away. Vaeron had spared me from the hold of his magic.
But when I made to move, something tethered me in place—deep in the center of my chest. Fingers sank into my magic, the caress anything but gentle.
What the fuck?
Stadiel’s attention slid back to me. The grin he wore rolled icy fear down my spine. “Oh, you thought my immunity to mind magics won me the throne?”
A muscle feathered in Vaeron’s jaw. Something glinted in his hand as he shifted his position—a dagger, the pommel inlaid with an indigo gem that matched his fighting leathers.
Is he going to stab the Koron?
Vaeron didn’t meet my gaze. He merely stared down the ruler of all the Angels like he couldn’t wait to strike him from this earth.
“I suppose the Elessarum have never had an accurate view of our history,” he tutted. “Which is a shame, really. You might not have been so foolish if you knew.”
“Knew what?” I bit out, trying to step back again. My legs answered me, but my torso did not. Every instinct screamed at me to shove the Koron off, but I was trapped, vulnerable, and defenseless.
He leaned in close, and I flinched. I tensed even more when his lips found my ear. “That I can turn another’s own power against them.”
My mouth dropped open. He didn’t release me, didn’t retreat.
“That is why I am also immune. I simply…redirect their intentions away from me.”
“He’s not lying,” Vaeron said, the velvet of his voice dark in my mind. “Very few know this.”
“Can he make me See?”
“Yes and no. You’d have to call your power forth and attack him with it. But he is wielding mine against you right now, albeit with significant strain.”
Bile clawed up my throat anyway.
“So, Sylaira. Shall I force Vaeron away from you, then allow you to show me what you can do?” Stadiel leaned back, just enough so I could witness the threat etched in his expression. “Or shall I continue to hold you hostage until your mind breaks?”
Bitterness coated my tongue. I hated this male. Hated everything he stood for. Everything he’d done.
Everything he made Vaeron do.
If I didn’t yield, he’d keep me here, draining me, draining my mate. There was no winning. Only survival. And since I had virelthorn in my veins, nothing would come to me anyway. There would be time to scrounge up a plan once I was free.
So through gritted teeth, I surrendered—for now. “I will See.”
“That’s better,” he purred, removing his hand. With the release, I stumbled back, hand pressing protectively to my ribs. My heart thudded a staccato rhythm as I edged closer to my mate.
Vaeron’s magic fell away, blinding me for an entirely different reason.
The Korona and High Priestess quickly threw more bubble lights into the air, illuminating the space. “We must get everyone back on track,” Iaoth hissed at her husband.
“Do it,” he told her without looking at her.
The two females rushed off, their voices filling the silence. Vaeron and Maelsar stepped in, and my mate draped a protective arm over me, shoving me half-behind him like he expected Stadiel to leap for me at any moment.
Instead, the Koron spoke, voice dripping with disdain and low enough for only us to hear.
“I expect you to make a grand show of your failure tomorrow as further penance for your continued embarrassment of my house. It is only through the grace of your sister that your head is not spiked to the gates already.”
For the first time, I truly understood the magnitude of the risk he’d taken at the ball. And now, again, after barging into this room and disrupting the ritual for the second time.
“I understand my position perfectly, Stadiel,” my mate snapped back.
“Good. Now get out of my sight. Take the attendant with you. She’s not to leave Sylaira’s side from here on out. The moment she Sees something, it is reported directly to me.”
Lyriasthe went ashen, but she bowed to the Koron anyway. For her to be in such close proximity to him was as much of a risk as any of us.
“Noted,” Vaeron gritted out. Then, without waiting for a proper dismissal, he tucked me into his side and steered me out of the room.
All around us, Seers drank from the chalice. Sex had resumed, the tang of sweat and sanctimony mingling with burnt herb smoke.
Twin smears of blood shook me to my core. I looked up, starting at the sight of the two lifeless bodies slumped against the wall and Lyriasthe standing nervously beside them.
“Figured you might have to make a run for it, and these two would only get in the way. Again.” She shrugged, then handed a bloody dagger, twin to the one Vaeron still held in his hand, to Maelsar.
“Did you–” I started, but the question died on my tongue.
She shook her head. “I didn’t start it. Only ended it when I realized one was still alive.”
I didn’t know what to make of that. But my body buzzed from the events that had occurred, and I could think of nothing else but fleeing the scene.
Vaeron seemed to sense this. “We’ll walk back together, but don’t stick around,” he told Maelsar and Lyriasthe.
“Best not to disobey the rules so soon,” Maelsar commented with a wry grin. His levity fell flat, unwelcome and unwanted.
Vaeron glared, still vibrating with thin restraint. “Let’s go.”
We slipped into the servants’ corridors, Lyriasthe creeping ahead of us so we’d remain unseen. Yet everyone seemed to know what had happened already, if the whispers that drifted out of sight were any indication.
By the time we stumbled out from behind the painting by Vaeron’s rooms, I didn’t dare breathe. All I could do was offer my new friend a quick embrace as my mate shooed the two away.
My heart thundered, twisted, and roared as he pressed his hand to the door, a flare of radiance unlocking it. The moment we were sealed in, I broke.
Each tear carved down my cheek, splattering on the floor like a rainstorm. Sobs wracked my frame as I clutched my stomach and bowed over. Vaeron’s warmth enveloped me as he gathered me in his arms.
His leathers smelled of stormwood. My nails scraped against them, searching for a grip. For a way to bring him closer. Our bed blurred as he placed me on it, curving around me like a shield amid the storm.
“Shh, you’re okay,” he soothed, strong arms tightening around me.
“I was so scared,” I wept, words shattering in my throat. My fingers dug into his flesh. I needed him closer. Needed him to hold what was left of me together.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured into my hair. I hadn’t realized I’d spoken more aloud.
“Don’t let me go,” I pleaded, unmoored in the memories that whipped through my mind. Tremors shuddered through me, each more violent than the last. “All I could see was Heraphia.”
Flashes of white. Bubbling foam. Absent aquamarine. Pearlescent hair coated in sweat.
I whimpered, knees tucking up to my chest.
“Sylaira,” Vaeron crooned in my mind.
Heraphia’s scream echoed in my ears.
“Little fugitive,” he called out like he was trying to anchor me in the present.
The final moment of Heraphia’s life flashed, clearer than those damn crystal chairs.
Eyes that had spent centuries laughing with me, wide open and crazed. The bruising way she gripped my shoulders, the phantom pain biting into me now.
And the words that wrecked my soul.
“Sylaira. I Saw it. I Saw the end.”
“No,” I sobbed, tears flowing like a rainstorm down my cheeks. “I can’t See. I can’t See. I can’t See. Please, don’t make me See, Vaeron. I will die.”
“While I am around, you will not. I will not fail you.” The conviction in his tone was a lifeline. I clung to it while he whispered more words of affirmation in my mind and in my ear.
Until finally, the traumatic memories loosened their grip.
Until finally, the ache in my soul eased.
Until finally, the breaking was over.