10. Syneca #3
My throat tightened until I could hardly swallow, until my voice was a broken whisper, even though I hated being vulnerable in a room full of strangers.
“I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to trust you when you’ve been hiding yourself since the beginning.
But I also don’t know how to not trust you when you saved my life.
You’ve saved it a hundred times. And I hate that I still want to believe you’re on my side even when I know I shouldn’t. Especially after yesterday.”
Though his face was blank, his eyes unmoving, I felt what he forgot to hide from our bond.
That flinch. That single second that reminded me why I wanted to believe in him.
But I’d learned this lesson the hard way.
Wickett had taught me flawlessly in his cruelty.
The only person I could trust was myself.
I would be safe with Silas, but only from death.
“Yesterday.” His voice had lost its edge, gone quiet in a way I hadn’t heard from him before.
“You think I meant a word of it? That I’d say those things to you and feel nothing?
” He exhaled slowly. “I needed you angry. Angry keeps you alive. It was the cruelest thing I’ve ever done, and I’d do it again.
Trust me or don’t, Syn. But don’t pretend I haven’t bled for more than just your heartbeat. ”
“Bled for me.” I laughed. “You don’t get to tear me open and call it a kindness, Silas.
You don’t get to decide I need to be hurt and then hand me the bill like I should be grateful for it.
” I stepped toward him, rage crawling up my spine.
“I don’t care if it works. I don’t care if it keeps me breathing.
You looked me in the eye and you were cruel because you decided it was good for me.
That’s not protection. That’s just another person deciding they know what’s best for me without asking.
I’ve spent my whole life being fucking handled.
I am done being handled. Especially by you.
You can take whatever justification that helps you sleep at night and shove it right back up your own ass because that’s certainly where that came from. ”
Whatever he’d braced for, it hadn’t been that, and for once he didn’t have anything cold to throw back.
He just held my stare, jaw tight, taking it.
And beneath the silence, threading through the bond before he could stop it, something that wasn’t anger at all.
Something that felt, impossibly, like pride.
But with it? That flinch, that flicker of something he couldn't quite bury, pulling at the part of me that wanted to believe him. But wanting wasn’t trusting.
I could chase his bargain with my grandmother in circles for hours and end up exactly here, no closer to the truth because he was still in control. So I let it go. For now.
“If I ever question your decision on this,” Dez said, looking at Celeste, “remind me of this moment.”
I shot him a glare as I turned back to the one bargain I did understand. The one wrapped around my own throat. I was trapped. Completely, utterly trapped. Bound by a debt I’d agreed to while dying, to hunt a dragon I’d never met, for a Fury who could kill me with a gesture.
But some part of me understood Celeste’s desperation. Losing your bonded… I hadn’t lost Silas. Not really. But I’d lost the griffin. Lost the creature I’d trusted. And even though I was staring right at him, that ache sat in my chest like a wound that would never heal.
After a deep breath, I nodded at Celeste. “I’ll hunt your dragon. But when I find him, this is done. You release me from the debt. Completely.”
“When Lyric is home with me,” Celeste said, “you’re free.”
I turned to Dez instead of Silas. “How do I get back to Fuerlis?”
Something flickered across his expression. Reluctance. Maybe dread as he looked at the grumpy fucker in the middle of the room before me.
“The veil was weakened when Aureth died,” Celeste said when he didn’t answer.
“It was partly her power holding it together on the other side. There are two kinds of Furies in your world. Those born and my sisters. Only my sisters’ deaths will weaken the veil; however, should another fall, the veil will likely fall too.
I’ve reinforced it as best I can on this side, but you won’t be able to walk through it again. Not easily.”
“Then how do we get there?”
“You let me worry about that for now,” Silas said, moving toward the window as if wishing he could escape out of it.
There he was again. Hot and cold, deciding which truths I got and which ones he’d keep.
As if this were his to control. As if I were a child who couldn’t be trusted with my own life.
It wasn’t his task. It was mine. My life debt.
My mission. And I was sick to death of being the last to know anything about it.
I shook my head. “I swear to whatever god you worship if you don’t tell me the absolute truth, I’ll send you to purgatory myself.”
Then he turned back to face me. “The heart stone in the charidryn’s chest allows him to walk between worlds. We have to free Calder.”