Chapter 14
I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. Not my room, and Tyran hadn’t invited me to sleep next to him since I fake killed Tempest.
A dream.
I rolled to face Carmine and thought at him, Mate.
His gray eyes widened. Mate. Your thoughts are clearer tonight.
My eyes rounded too. Yours too. Still faint, but not patchy.
He’s unaware of our mind speak too.
You’re sure?
As sure as I can be. He would have taken measures to control you if he knew or suspected.
I nodded, and the overwhelm of everything I wanted to speak with Carmine about reared up at once. I stared at my mate, who was a stranger in so many ways and yet in none.
He gazed back, and eventually, his deep voice rang in my mind. We have a lot to discuss, enamai. I have so much to explain, and so much I am ashamed of. Your family…
My family.
There was only one possible situation that could have allowed me to forgive Carmine for the loss of my family, and him being controlled by an ancient white-scale demon was it. You weren’t in control. Tyran was.
Carmine had closed his eyes. I torment myself wondering if I could have resisted more.
I’d seen him try to resist killing our son.
He still hadn’t won. When we’d met the night of my family’s murder, Carmine hadn’t known me beyond recognizing that we were mates.
I could believe that he hadn’t fought Tyran as hard to spare my family, but that still didn’t mean he would have won if he had.
You might have resisted more, and you would have lost that fight still.
I wish that my family had not been murdered.
I wish they were still here, but you should be clear that Tyran killed them, not you.
He opened his eyes, and I saw an age of sadness in them. My smoke. My hands.
One day they will belong to you again.
Carmine’s throat worked, and his voice relayed his emotion even in my head. How did you uncover any of this, Syera?
My chest filled with pride at his awe. How did you?
The tone of his thought was dry. The demon controlling my body gave me an inkling.
I cocked a brow. I mean, how did you manage to research everything despite his control?
He allowed me to do so. My attempts amused him, and flattered him too. There are gaps in his control—his arrogance is one of the biggest.
I repressed a shudder at the vile oppression my mate had suffered. Was suffering. And the dungeon and desert?
Carmine nodded. I wondered if you’d figured that out. There is a force that counteracts Tyran’s power. He does not speak of it, for obvious reasons, but I believe it has something to do with the cult that opposed his views.
The Istg, I supplied. They sacrificed themselves into animal forms with the ability to heal Tyran’s magic. Two of them became butyker, and one dwells beneath the dungeons. You knew him as Hge.
Carmine’s chest rose. Hge was an animal?
He was a demon long ago. I guess he still is, really.
His thought hitched. Is he alive?
I think so. I assume his magic has helped you whenever you visit the dungeon. You thought my father killed him?
Carmine dipped his head. It was the only thing that made sense later.
At the time, I was drained of power and not entirely conscious.
I remember the sense that Hge was slipping away, and then when I recovered, he was gone.
Now that all makes sense. I’m glad to know he’s alive.
I would give much to speak with him again.
Hge really had been important to my mate. I’d wondered if my father purposefully let him live.
Carmine met my gaze again. Your father resisted Tyran far better than anyone of my line. Tyran doesn’t know how he achieved it.
You do?
I have theories, nothing more. I believe that the answer could have rested in his love and connection with your mother—in the same way that our mating gives me some escape from Tyran. I had wondered if they ever mated.
Not that I’m aware of. Our mating, and my sister’s mating, were the first demon-magus unions, to my knowledge, and only possible because of our dual nature. My mother was pure magus.
He nodded. My other theory is that magus power is resistant to his magic.
Didn’t give me much resistance, I thought back.
You are mostly demon, though, he replied.
True.
Carmine continued, When your father met your mother, she gave him more resistance somehow. Perhaps we’ll never know the truth.
He figured out something. That’s for sure. Why else would the Istg have celebrated my father’s coronation with so much joy?
Carmine’s sigh filled my mind. I am happy for him, but his efforts were for naught. Tyran felt that his control was incomplete. He decided to return to my line, so he had your father place the crown upon my head, and then you know the rest.
I traced over the first ink design of our mating.
My father’s efforts weren’t for naught. He gave you a century in Istg territory and years with Hge that may have fortified you against Tyran.
And he conceived me and Tempest with my mother...
Perhaps his purpose was to wear the crown long enough so I could be born and raised to the age of power.
So that we could meet and take Tyran out together.
Carmine’s eyes filled with sadness. Syera, speaking to you like this is more than I ever hoped for, but I have tried everything.
I wrestle for control and act where and when I can.
I am well versed in manipulating Tyran through his arrogance.
I have looked into every way to heal myself of him, and even into ways to kill myself with the hopes of taking him with me. There is no end to this curse.
I rested a hand on his face as a sudden realization hit me. The two books. The book for demon healers and Methods of Execution. You were figuring out how to kill yourself, or heal yourself. That was why you acted so strangely when Gratia brought them to you.
He pursed his lips. I thought that you’d noticed the white magic in yourself and sought an end, as I had.
I’d already healed myself by then, mate. And again after the last ritual.
Carmine blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. There is none of Tyran’s power in you?
I shook my head.
His breaths shallowed, and I watched the effects of my mate’s ordeal drag him into panic. He had just dared to hope, and his mind was reminding him that he’d given up long ago. I had wondered, and then that seemed impossible. Don’t tell me how.
You don’t want to know?
I fear knowing.
I could understand that. What other weaknesses does Tyran have?
Carmine’s breaths evened out, and his face hardened. He takes me to the arena each year after Tiers to recharge.
That made so much sense. I’d figured out that we were being used to feed the white magic there.
He stared again.
What? I asked.
I’m lost in how little I deserve you.
If I won this battle, then my next battle would be to repair the damage done to my mate.
Carmine went on, These dreams, and our mating power.
He doesn’t realize that I have grown stronger with each ritual.
I have taken care not to vie for control any more than usual.
But I am stronger since the smoke ritual.
After our joining ritual, I found that I could push more of myself into general conversations, and even push in words to twist what he was saying. In the hopes of giving you clues.
I winced. Took me a while to realize that’s what you were doing.
Tsan had noticed, not me.
We fell into silence. I had no idea of the passing of time here, but nothing could have made me interrupt Carmine as he traced the contours of my face.
Beautiful, he whispered in my head. What a gift to hold you this way. Even if it’s in my mind.
I laid my hands on his chest. My mate’s chest. I knew there had to be a reason for our mating.
I wondered for so long what sense there was in our pairing.
Carmine, I’m sorry that I didn’t see all of this sooner.
I’m so sorry that you’ve been put through this.
I’m going to do my best to save you. Whatever it takes.
Carmine tilted my chin. Not whatever it takes, enamai. Never that. Not your life. Not our son’s.
Our son. I’d also made sure to think of Adeuto as mine—my son. But the ache in my chest as Carmine’s words filled my mind told me that I’d carried all kinds of unconscious hopes and dreams in my heart.
He continued, My life is worth neither of those, and if death is what it takes to end Tyran’s reign for good, then know that I will be more at peace in death than I have ever been in life.
I do not fear it. I fear a realm and a future where he is allowed to exist to terrorize all, including those I love.
Promise me that if there is no way to separate us, you will end his rule anyway.
Erase his magic from this realm, and then hold the throne for our son.
He closed his eyes again. My son will be a free king, and he will start the long journey to repair what damage the rest of us have done.
I kissed his eyes. There was no other way at the time. Tyran could not be beaten outright. He had the upper hand politically. Utyrth wanted to refuse the crown and was convinced by the leader of the Istg to take it up.
How do you know this?
I was given the tiara of the Istg leader and used my magus power to visit the past. I wasn’t strong enough to see everything, but I saw that interaction, and how the Istg celebrated your coming.
But why? I have failed at every turn to force him from me and this realm.
The only reason they’d celebrate is if they believed Tyran’s wrath curse would end with you.
Carmine’s face worked. I don’t see how it ends.
I wouldn’t either if I’d lived his life. I see the end, I told him. I see the end for both of us.
I tucked my hand into his and rested my head against his chest.
Syera?
Mmm?
Please tell me about our son. When did you discover you were pregnant?
You must have left soon after finding out for me to never sense the changes in you.
I never suspected the truth—we created a child together so quickly, and while only partly mated.
I keep imagining you alone and giving birth in the desert without me there.
He swallowed. I wish that I had been there…
I wish we had shared that experience, and that things could have been different.
I tightened my hold on his hand. I wished all of that too. But I lived. Our son lived and thrived. Now our family may get a chance to really become a family.
Adeuto… that’s his name?
A lump rose in my throat, and tears gathered at the rims of my closed eyes. When I could trust my voice, I said, His name is Adeuto, and Carmine—he will love you so much, and you’ll feel as much wonder when you look at him as I do. Shall I start at the beginning?
Carmine’s voice was hoarse. Please, enamai. Please tell me everything. Leave nothing out.