11. Chapter Eleven #4
My fists clenched, his despicable words ringing in my ears. His insensitivity shouldn’t have been surprising, but yet I had a hard time coming to terms with any of this and found myself wishing that he might show even a shred of decency.
“So what then? I abandon the temple? The souls—”
“You abandon nothing.” His tone held finality in it. “You serve them still. But to serve them, you’ll walk roads you’ve never touched. See what you’ve only read about in your hallowed scrolls. You really shouldn’t complain. This is an opportunity most would die for, and I don’t say that lightly.”
I huffed. “And you think the Fates binding me to you makes it all possible?”
“I don’t think,” he said. “I know.”
I cursed under my breath, his blatant disrespect for me and my station boiling my blood. “You’re infuriating. Every answer is an enigma. Why me? Why now?”
“Why anything?” His voice dropped as he stepped closer.
The newly forged tether between us tightened with the motion.
“Because you’re the one they chose. And believe me when I tell you, I have my own reservations about that.
” He gave me another once over and shook his head.
Like I was some weakling who couldn’t handle the weight of duty, even though duty was all I’d ever known.
I let out a low sound that almost resembled a growl. It only served to amuse him further. The quiet certainty in his voice wrapped around me, along with his obvious disdain for everything I represented and his abject disregard for my intelligence.
I snapped my gaze away, forcing a brittle laugh. “And you? What? You’re meant to be my guide? My so-called protector?”
His expression darkened. “Something like that.”
Even with the new bond between us buzzing around me, I felt the weight of his stare. The regal expression I’d grown used to was gone—what remained was carved out of something older, deeper. Cruelty in its rawest form.
“You’ll have to get used to it,” he said.
“Used to what?” I snapped, my tone hard.
His mouth twisted into a sneer, his carefully contained rage making an appearance once more.
“Being yanked about by the Old Gods on their thrones. Always demanding. Never considering what the price will be for their actions, because they aren’t the ones who will inevitably have to pay that very price.
Taking and taking and taking. Never giving.
” He took another step forward with every word, towering over me with fury radiating through the fiery thread that now tied our souls together.
My breath hitched. I remembered the Priestess’s words, the way her gaze had cut through me when she told me he’d bent the knee.
And for a heartbeat, I truly saw it—the loathing he carried for them.
The feral look in his eyes coupled with his angry words were enough to stoke fear in me.
Because if a god—particularly this one—was under the thumb of the Godhead, what else did they control? Fate itself? What did that mean for me?
I didn’t push. Too much danger there. Instead, I folded my arms and did what I did best, cloaked my fear in attitude. “Walk yourself back to wherever it is you dwell. Leave me. I don’t need your shadow, nor your blatant disregard for my fragile humanity.”
That earned a crooked tilt of his head, eyes gleaming beneath the hood with amusement once more as if his ferocity was simply an afterthought. “As you wish, Little Seer.”
Mist rose before I could speak again, curling from the ground, swallowing the clearing whole. My heart lurched; the world shifted.
And then, I was on the edge of my bed, cloak still damp, hair loose around my shoulders. Alone.
The mist hadn’t fully dissolved when my chamber door creaked open.
Saorla leaned against the frame, silver catching in her hair from the moonlight coming through my window. “Didn’t hear the latch.” Her smile was razor thin. “Which means you didn’t walk through the door, girl.”
My jaw clenched. “And?”
“And nothing,” she said airily, stepping inside. “You’ll tell me what you want to tell me, when you’re good and ready. Until then, I’ll just keep pretending that you’re still just sneaking out with Branwyn to drink mead in places you shouldn’t.”
I snorted, but it came out hollow. Saorla had always known. She always knew more than she should—had since I was a child.
When she left me to myself, I reached under the chest for the tome, setting it on my lap. The leather was cool. The sigil burned into its cover was strange and ancient. Eryndor Vale.
The name coiled in my thoughts like smoke.
The name had a familiarity to it, like I should have known it. But the Fae realm was the most mysterious, and their stories were not often spread here.
I should have opened it. Should have read until dawn. But my body buzzed with leftover fury, my mind too loud.
Not tonight. My thoughts were heavy with the weight of yet another chain, and I was exhausted.
I splashed water over my face, stripped out of my damp cloak, and slid into a nightdress that clung light against my skin. The tome sat on the table beside me, waiting.
I rolled onto my side, hair spilling across the pillow. Sleep took me before I could change my mind.