9. Syrus #3
“Fuck you,” I spit at him. “That’s not fair.” Then I release the arrow. It whips through the air and strikes right at the heart of the target, my pent-up magic releasing a spray of sparks.
“That’s a neat trick,” Syrus says, his voice softer this time, but more dangerous for it. “Will it save you from the others when they find out you’re harboring a demon lord in your head?”
“They’re not going to find out,” I growl back at him.
“Because you’re not going to expose me, and eventually I’ll…
I’ll prove myself enough to be accepted here.
” I stop short of explaining my goal of getting powerful enough to resist the possession bond entirely.
No need to broadcast my every move to my opponent.
“Why are you so intent on staying here with people who keep trying to kill you off?” he asks, genuinely frustrated. The heat of his anger prickles across my skin, and it’s a heady, distracting sensation.
Goddess, even when he’s pissed with me, the bond likes it. I’m starting to realize the spell prefers any amount of anger over silence between us. Rage and sadness and hurt don’t matter to it as long as we’re experiencing it together. Doing it to each other.
I try to pull myself away from the direction of those thoughts to focus on Syrus’s question.
“If not here, where?” I ask pointedly.
At first, I say it just to get a jab in, to reference the fact that Infernum isn’t an option for me anymore—not since he tried to make it a cage. But once I speak the words into my head, the question behind them strikes me with surprising force.
Where do I belong, if not in Aradis? Where would I be safe?
Not in Infernum, with Syrus’s lies and control, and with the new suspicions I’d face once it was known that I have ephilium blood.
I think a part of me was holding on to the idea of going back to Strata—but my magic will only be slightly less problematic there.
I’m growing more supernatural by the day, and that doesn’t align well with living among humans—if it’s even legal for me to.
Maybe it would be easy to hide my power and strength and fast healing from the Stratans, but what about the fact I won’t age like them anymore?
I didn’t want to think about it too much when Hasteed first mentioned it to me, but it’s been squatting at the back of my mind like an ugly parasite ever since, gnawing at me.
It isn’t enough to just consider the grief of being left behind by everyone I know in Pax—by my human friends, and most of all by Evie—facing many long centuries without her. But if I stop aging like a human, how could I build a life in Strata?
So there’s no option left but Aradis. I may not feel at home here yet, but it’s only been a matter of weeks. Maybe with time, that could change.
Syrus never answered my question, but when he starts to speak again now, there’s a gentle note to his voice—a hint of the way he used to talk to me when we were lying in bed together, my face cradled in his hand. It spawns an ache deep inside my chest.
“Viz and Aster are both fine,” he says. “I should’ve said that before.
But you know them. Viz is busy drawing up a new recordkeeping system for the Morphos with Yealey.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so excited about a project.
And Aster’s back at the dance halls again—her arm is good as new.
” He shifts in my head, and I get the feeling his presence is drawing into itself, the mental equivalent of wrapping his arms around his body.
“They miss you,” he says, so quietly I almost don’t hear the words. “I miss you.”
Goddess, it’s painful. And what’s worse is I don’t think he means these words to hurt. Maybe I should read every line he spins as some kind of manipulation, but I can’t think of him like that.
“Syrus,” I begin, not sure what I’m going to say, but wanting to give him something honest in return. “I wish—”
“Leah!”
I turn to see a young man jogging toward me, a fellow fledgling called Efram who’d helped me out in lessons these last few days. I hold up my hand in greeting.
“Are you all right?” I ask, because as he gets closer, I see he looks a little dazed.
“Yes, no. I mean…” he takes a moment to collect himself. “I just ran into General Garion. General Garion Illidore. I mean, can you believe it? The man’s a legend. He only—”
“Efram,” I cut off his rambling. “Are you saying that my grandfather is here at the academy?”
“Oh yeah,” Efram says, returning to the point of our conversation. “He sent me to fetch you. He wants to talk.”
As I follow Efram back across the training field, I’m suddenly aware of a strange tension in my body. It doesn’t belong to me, however.
“Did he say your grandfather’s name was Illidore?” Syrus asks, and I don’t miss the odd, strained quality to his voice.
“Yes,” I say. I’m curious, but I try to keep my face blank so Efram doesn’t get suspicious. “He was my mother’s father. And you saw my cousin Filippa at the arena. She’s also an Illidore. Why?”
But he doesn’t answer. Instead, I feel a rush of sensation, and Syrus is gone from my mind.