Chapter 21
My eyes snapped open, heart thundering against my ribs. Outside, a downpour raged, droplets pinging against canvas. Sweat slicked my skin, and I swiped my silver hair off my face, turning to face my mate on his cot. With the lull of the storm, he still slept.
Unease curled in my chest. I wasn’t sure what had awoken me or why my body buzzed like a plucked string that wouldn’t still. Luminous threads undulated in the well of my magic, steady and strong after a deep sleep.
With wraith-like silence, I sat up, slipping out from under the thin sheet covering me. A chill wracked my frame. I rubbed my hands on my bare arms and padded to the water pitcher. Pouring into a cup, I took a drink, hoping that would help me reset and fall asleep again.
But as I turned, the world swam.
Even though the tent was shadowed, more darkness prowled on the edges of my vision.
Fuck!
My spine snapped straight, head tilting to the sky hidden by fabric. A whimper clawed up my throat as I fell to my knees.
The Issaraeth bolted upright, hand flying to the sword resting on the ground beside him. “Sylaira?”
Sleep cleared, and he was on his feet and grasping my shoulders in an instant. “I’ve got you.”
I couldn’t move, every muscle pulled taut as a vision slammed into me.
White detonated, blinding me. I threw up a hand to shield my eyes. But the magic didn’t dissipate. A roar rose all around me, slamming into my ears until they rang.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. A sea of bodies swept me forward, crushing me between hard metal plates. I twisted and dug my heels in but was unable to stop the tide.
“Hey!” I shouted, hoping someone would hear me.
A female glanced my way, turquoise irises shining bright under the power of the rays. Wild curls tangled around her head and fell over the shoulder pads of her silver armor.
“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be south!” she questioned like she knew me.
But who was she? And how could she interact with me in a vision?
“South? Why?” I asked her, soldiers squeezing me and carrying me toward the clash.
But I didn’t get an answer as the battle began. The warrior in front of me caught an arrow with his skull. Gore splattered my face and chest, and I screamed. He fell, blood pooling beneath him, but there was no stopping the swell of bodies.
I tripped, landing facing his lifeless form. Bile surged from my gut, and I retched. A boot slammed into my side, knocking the air from my lungs. I shoved my arms under me, trying to rise. More feet pounded me into the earth like I was already dead.
“Stop!” I screamed, but no one heeded my cry. Tears streamed down my face, each breath a sharp pain. Others fell in a ring around me, stacking and stacking until I was trapped like a rock at the end of a landslide.
And I couldn’t look away from their broken, bent forms.
Thunder shook me, and I shrieked again. “I’m trapped, I’m trapped, someone help me!”
“Shh, it’s me, I’ve got you,” someone crooned in my ear.
Twisting and writhing, I tried to free myself from the pile pressing down on me. The dead eyes boring into me. The tang of blood in my nose. The taste of bile on my tongue.
“Little fugitive.” The Issaraeth’s nickname for me was an anchor in the turbulence of my power.
A sob wracked my chest. Tears clawed down my cheeks. “I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to die.”
It was all I could think, all I could feel, as the future refused to retract its claws.
Arms tightened around my torso. “You’re safe,” he murmured. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“You can’t know that!” I exclaimed, logic lost to emotion. This glimpse into the future was agonizing, like everything I’d witnessed during my first vision of my mate and all the ones after that showed me battles and bloodshed.
“Breathe with me.”
His ribs expanded, forcing mine open too. I followed his exhale, though mine was a shaky, trembling one.
“That’s it, keep going,” he soothed, inhaling deeply again.
Matching his pace, I eased away from the horrors of what I’d Seen and into the embrace of a male who never should have witnessed this torture. The reminder of how he’d switched out the virelthorn swept away the lingering terror and replaced it with rage.
But before I could snarl at him, he lifted me and set me on my feet. “Come on.” He slipped his hand in mine, leading me out of the tent and into the downpour.
The sky wiped away my tears with ones of its own.
“Where are we going?” I asked down our mental connection, the rain loud enough that I would have had to shout over it. And I didn’t want to wake anyone sleeping nearby.
“You’ll see.”
In a minute, I was soaked through, so much like the day I’d tried to escape from him and ended up Commanded to stop.
No one patrolled the camp as we crept past the perimeter. The Issaraeth finally halted past a line of heather, the bushes behind them hiding us from any prying eyes. Lightning cracked the clouds overhead, illuminating his serious features.
“I was going to cover you with my magic so you could dance away your vision.” His jaw tightened as he looked down at me. “But now that we are here, I remembered that I cannot offer you that shelter.”
Self-loathing coiled around him, and he raked a hand through his iron-gray hair, darkened further by moisture.
All the fury I’d found to replace my fear washed away with the deluge. I swallowed, squinting through wet lashes. “I don’t need a shelter. I need a partner.”
The hard lines of his shoulders eased.
Tentatively, I lowered the barrier on our bond. Stepping closer, I rested my palms on his bare chest. Both of us were dressed in our sleeping clothes—him in loose linen pants and me in only a shift. The fabric clung to my body, wet and sticky. My nipples pebbled from the chill of the autumn wind.
His gaze raked over me like a hungry predator. He took one of my hands, threading our fingers together, while capturing my waist and bringing me flush.
Our feet squelched in the moss as he pulled me into him, then moved backward. Then around. To the side. Together, we moved like we’d been dancing together for centuries. Like our bodies knew the shape of one another so well that there was no guessing where the next step was.
Each twist and turn evened out the beats of my heart. Banished the pain of my power from my bones. Soothed the ache in my soul.
Until the storm inside me silenced.
He spun me out, and my fingers swept toward the heavens in a graceful flutter.
On my return, he pulled me into his chest, my back burning from the contact with his skin.
Stormwood filled my nostrils as he shifted his grip and lifted me into the air.
I spread my arms and locked my legs, flying high.
With a twist of his hands, he dropped and caught me.
My tongue flicked over my lips, tasting rainwater. His eyes tracked the movement.
“Are you feeling better?” he murmured.
“Yes.” The word was hoarse in my throat. My body was tense for an entirely different reason now, and it had everything to do with the way Vaeron was looking at me.
The chain linking our fates tightened. My chin lifted, and his face drifted closer to mine. Until our lips slanted together like they were formed only for each other.
Looping my arms around his neck, I tugged him closer. He obliged, deepening our kiss, and I groaned as his tongue swiped against mine.
“Let me be your haven,” he murmured into my mind. “Let me always be your comfort when your visions are too heavy to bear.”
His words wrapped a vine around my heart and squeezed.
“I may no longer have my Command, but I can protect you in other ways. If you let me.”
He broke our kiss, leaving me breathless and bereft. Ice-blue irises shone with the type of conviction I could expect only from him. Lightning crackled overhead again, highlighting the bronze threads.
DUTY ABOVE ALL
Thunder clapped, shaking me to my core. I pressed against his flesh, and he eased me to the ground.
“I don’t know that I can, even though I want to,” I shouted over the gale, voice wavering. Hot salt pricked my eyes, and I was grateful for the rain. Because every time he pleaded with me like this, it was a knife to my heart, reminding me just how thoroughly he could break me.
His brows pinched, and his pristine posture drooped. “I will say it now, and again, and with my dying breath if I must. I am sorry I tricked you into believing that you were consuming virelthorn. I am sorry I stole your choice from you.”
I stiffened, even though I wanted nothing more than to melt into him.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to stop Heraphia from dying.”
Hot tears stung my eyes. I lifted my chin, glaring at the sky like I could wield the violet bolts it offered and strike the palace that killed her with them.
Because that wasn’t his fault—he’d been pulled away by his sister, by his duty to the realm, by everything and everyone who had tormented him long before we met.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Dasha. I knew you’d throw it in my face, and fuck, how I wanted a chance to have you. I was selfish. Still am. Because there’s nothing in all the worlds I want more than you.”
He cupped my cheek, both our skin beaded in drops of water. His form blurred as wetness carved down my cheeks.
“Please, Sylaira.” The way he spoke the shape of my name rolled a shiver of need down my spine. “Tell me you don’t hate me. Tell me there’s still a chance I can work my way back into your heart.”
The Issaraeth’s throat bobbed, and pure agony tumbled down our bond.
“Tell me I’m not a failure.”
My broken heart throbbed—not just for me, but for him. The wall between us lowered, and all his shame, all his rage, all his sorrow, crashed into me like a maelstrom.
Tentatively, I reached for his chest. He froze as my fingers brushed over the bronze threads. A flash of pain passed between us from the feather-light touch.
“What was your plan?” I asked, voice hoarse. “When you asked me to trust you that last time before the trial? What did you keep from me all those weeks?”
He blew out a long breath, then drifted into my mind. “Regicide.”
A gasp slipped past my lips. I replied in kind, because what he spoke of now—even with the storm silencing us and keeping everyone away—could get us killed. “Truly?”
“Truly, little fugitive. After the ball, after I claimed you…everything changed for me. Iaoth and Stadiel cannot protect our realm from the Demons. We need reasonable monarchs, not ones so drunk on power they’re delusional about our army’s capabilities.”
“Did Stadiel order the conscription?"
“Yes, though in nicer terms. It was me who spoke with the other Herr and Kisst to force some of their people to serve after their initial turnout was lacking.”
“But why?”
“Because I will not let you die, Sylaira. The Demons will slaughter us all. You may hold your Elessarum beliefs about them, but you’ve never met one.
Never fought one. The Halálhívó, much like me, knows no mercy.
The three cousins of House Vrak purport themselves as Gods equal to their Fates in their realm.
Have you known a deity to crave anything short of total domination? ”
I couldn’t deny his logic—or the unbridled fear rolling off him.
“What else?” I pressed, because he’d had weeks at court to plot and plan, while I was forced to sit in a crystal chair and pretend to See.
“I switched your virelthorn after the ball. It was part of my sister’s litany of threats. She discovered you’d been suppressing your Sight after rereading reports of your visions.”
Fury flickered to life inside me again, dousing the ember of desire. So much for thinking he’d protect me from her. I stepped back, and his hand dropped to his side.
With agony etched into his expression, he cradled my gaze.
“It was then I agreed to lead the new recruits to the front too. I bargained away the last of my political capital to ensure you would be by my side. I knew you would hate it, but I couldn’t bear the thought of being away from you.
Of leaving you at Thalvireth, in the den of vipers. ”
“So for weeks, you hid from me the truth of the war and that we were going to take an active role in it. On top of making me think I was taking virelthorn, all the while priming me to See. Does that sound right?”
“Yes.” My mate rocked back on his heels, right as the clouds shuddered and doused us in more rain. “Don’t tell me you would have been enthusiastic to aid me with the plan had I told you at all.”
I pressed my lips into a firm line. Because he was right, and I couldn’t deny it. The storm inside me needed to crackle to life before I surrendered my pacifist beliefs.
A confession poised on the tip of my tongue like a dancer in the moments before the first note of Dark Swan. But I caged it behind my teeth instead.
“I’m still furious with you,” I told him, a shiver wracking my frame.
“Be as angry as you need. I can weather your tempest, little fugitive. Just promise me one day, the deluge will end.”
I hated that it was already ebbing, that he could sense the waver in my resolve.
He drifted closer like a specter in the fog. Warm hands wrapped around my shoulders, firm and steadying. “Let’s get you inside and dry.”
“I–” I started, then closed my mouth. No excuse sprang to mind. No way to deny the longing in his eyes—or in my soul.
“No sex,” I finally acquiesced.
“I only want to hold you, little fugitive.” The velvet of his voice whispered over the lie. We both knew how easily we could fall into one another.
Still, I didn’t protest as he scooped me up, letting my head rest against his chest. The steady thrum, thrum, thrum of his heart accompanied his rhythmic stride. It did nothing to quell the chaos in my mind.
The roiling rain hadn’t lessened, and no one lingered among the tents and wagons as we returned from our midnight tryst.
Inside was dry and blissfully hot from coals burning low in the small stove. Vaeron set me down, then peeled the soaked fabric off my body, baring all of me to him. Heat pooled low in my belly as he drank in the sight long denied to him.
Without taking his eyes off me, he peeled off his pants, revealing his already thickening cock.
“No sex,” I repeated, though the protest was weak. Especially as he trailed his fingers along my hipbone to guide me to his cot.
Gently, he pulled me down with him, curling around my back. His warmth sank into my skin, into my bones. A contented sigh slipped out of me as he pulled up the sheet and swept my wet hair off my shoulders.
He pressed his lips to my bare flesh. The side of my neck. My temple.
“Sleep, Sylaira,” he rasped, draping his arm across my stomach, fingers brushing far lower than I wanted—and yet not nearly low enough.
The bond curled up behind my sternum, smooth instead of prickly now that the yawning gap between us was closing.
Yet as my eyelids fell, I couldn’t help but picture all the death I’d Seen in my vision.
And wonder if maybe, just maybe, aiding Vaeron in his plan would prevent that vicious end from coming to pass.