Chapter 18 #3
He was hunched over a thick tome, a stack of worn volumes at his side, a deep furrow between his brows as he scanned the brittle pages. The scrape of wood cut through the silence as a chair slid back. Rìan didn’t look up. “Sit.”
I stepped forward and sat as I was told. I was grateful for it—I wasn’t entirely certain my legs would have held me much longer between the wine swimming in my blood and the fear humming beneath my skin.
I waited. The minutes stretched like hours.
Finally, he exhaled and closed the book slowly before lifting his gaze to mine. I loathed him. Loathed that I was bound to him. And in that moment, there was no mistaking the look on his face. He loathed me just as deeply.
His eyes pinned me where I sat, dark and unforgiving.
Dark.
I blinked.
His eyes…
For a moment, I simply stared at him, trying to reconcile what I knew with the scowling male across from me. The silver… it was gone.
“Your eyes are brown,” I blurted.
Rìan frowned, but didn’t answer. Immediately, heat rose to my face.
Segolayne let out a mocking breath behind me. “She’s drunk, my lord.”
His brows lifted slightly, the smallest movement, as Veylan cackled somewhere in the shadows. All I could see was his grin, suspended in the darkness like a crescent moon.
Rìan folded his arms across his chest, his sleeves shoved past his elbows, the lean muscle and tendons of his forearms standing out beneath his skin.
“To break this bond, we need to decipher Levinica's prophecy.”
My heart sank. So they hadn't found anything.
He drew a single page toward him, and I recognized it immediately—Levinica's vision, hastily transcribed in Segolayne's hand.
“So you’re going to help me find these gates.”
He gave a brief nod toward Segolayne. A moment later, a stack of books landed in front of me with a heavy thud.
Rìan pointed toward them. “Start reading.”
I stared at the pile, the damaged volumes stacked precariously, their burned covers barely holding together the parchment-thin pages.
He took my silence for defiance, his fingers pressing into the pitted wood as he leaned toward me, his voice dropping low, threaded with warning. “If you want your precious mate’s mind returned to you anytime soon—then read.”
I looked up from the books, wishing the floor would open and swallow me whole.
“I can’t.”
A deep growl rumbled from him. “Read, Eidra. That’s an order.”
Heat rose to my cheeks. “I can’t,” I shot back, the words cutting despite the twist of shame that knifed through me.
His brows drew together, something shifting in his expression as he paused. And then repeated, more slowly this time, deliberately enunciating each word, “You can’t read.”
Segolayne let out a derisive snort, but I ignored her, keeping my gaze locked on his.
“That’s what I said.”
He straightened, baring his teeth as he looked down his straight nose at me in open disgust. “So you’re telling me,” he said, his voice low with contempt, “that not only are you a useless Eidra who can’t properly wield her magic, but you’re also an illiterate…” He let the word hang. “…and a drunk.”
My cheeks burned, my throat tightening. “I’m not a drunk.” The words came out small and weak.
Segolayne’s laughter broke over the alcove, loud and ugly, grating against something already tender inside me.
He reached for the stack of books and dragged them toward himself. Opening one, he bent over the pages without another glance in my direction.
“Get out of my sight.”
I forced myself up and crossed the room without looking back, my chin high and shoulders squared. Even as my chest felt like it was caving in.
The doors shut soundlessly behind me. Only then did I let it catch up to me.
Useless.
Illiterate.
Drunk.
I pressed a hand to my mouth, stifling a sob as the words replayed in my mind, each one cutting deeper than the last.
What hope did Aedric have?
What hope did I have?
Rìan was right—Useless. In the human realm, I’d been valuable—my curse, my ability to sense the Infection before it spread… that had been my worth. But here, without the Bone-Wrought, I had nothing to offer. No skill. No strength. Not even my magic.
Among the Fae, I was nothing.
Aedric had wanted me from the moment he saw me—but was it truly me he wanted? Or was it simply that he couldn't bear to lose his mate twice? What could I possibly give a lord like him when I couldn’t even coax a spark from my own magic?
And now, after what I'd done to him, his only hope of healing lay in the hands of his enemy—the monster of Elantis—who wanted him restored so he could find his nephew, reclaim his full strength, and rid himself of the burden of me.
There was nothing I could do to save Aedric. And nothing I could do to stop Rìan.
I didn’t remember deciding to move.
One moment I was pressed against the wall, and the next my legs were carrying me forward, through corridors and chambers, past the silent servants. Something inside me gave way.
The doors opened. The guards watched me pass, but no one moved to stop me.
And before I knew it, I was outside, walking away from the castle.