“Wait, what?”
“I’m getting a headache,” Rydon grumbled.
“What did you see?”
The seer shook her head. “His death. In battle. And I still see it. I’m worried there might not be a way to change the outcome. What if the Fates mean for him to die? What if that’s been his fate all along?”
“You saw this before and said nothing?”
Cassandra jerked back, affronted. “I thought we were going to Metilai! Then you received word of your sister here and the army coming for her, so I thought that the Fates had intervened twofold!”
Rydon shifted his gaze to Terena, whose ashen face and trembling lips told him how she’d received this news. “I don’t understand a word of what she’s saying, but we’ll find a way to save him, Ren,” he said, more to give her hope than any genuine conviction he felt on the matter. He still had no clue why he was in on this conversation.
Cassandra exhaled raggedly, reaching out to grip Terena’s hands. “That’s just it,” she hissed. “I don’t believe there is. I think… I think this is why you are soulmates. Do you know what happens when one soulmate dies? The surviving soulmate is fractured. They become twisted, their soul blackens and they become monsters. I think Daris’s death is what the Fates had inmind all along. I think what that will do to you is tied to your destiny.”
“How can that be?” Ren’s voice cracked.
“The amulet is here,” the seer went on, her eyes shifting between Ren and Rydon. “In Sydney Hall. Surely, that’s why we received word that Sonah and the army were here! That the Fates wanted you to find it before going to Metilai. But I was wrong. His fate has not changed.”
This was a fucking lot, and Rydon could see how well Ren was taking this. Her body trembled and her mouth was doing that thing where she tried to speak but no words came.
“Are you mad?” Rydon snarled. “Why the fuck would you bring this to her now?”
“Would the Fates be this cruel?” Ren whispered in shock.
Cassandra nodded. “Oh, aye. And worse.”
Terena turned her head and stared off into the distance as Rydon glared at the seer. She pinched her lips and straightened her shoulders.
“But I have a thought,” she said as the silence stretched.
Like a drowning man thrown a lifeline, Terena wrenched her head around, her eyes narrowing on the seer.
“I think,” Cassandra said, wetting her lips. “I think if you… break the bond, or makehimbreak the bond…”
Ren reared back, staring at the seer as if she’d turned into a gorgon.
“How the fuck is that going to help us?” Rydon snarled, dropping his head so his nose was an inch from Cassandra’s face. “We don’t know how to do that. She’s a week out from her nameday. There’s no time for us to go on another fucking adventure to figure out how to sever their bond!”
“We… don’t have to. We’re already on the adventure.”
“What’s that mean?” Terena asked.
“Do you know what the Amulet of Kaïrais? What it does?”
Ren stared back at her with a blank look as Rydon growled at Cassandra.
The seer groaned loudly, wiping a hand over her brow. “It corrupts the minds of men. The cypher who wields it breaks into the mind of their victim and twists whatever desire they focus on. So if the victim is ambitious, wanting to better his lot in life, he might… I don’t know, try to kill the olive oil vendor and take over his business. Or assassinate a king if he desires a position of power.”
“None of that makes sense. How does that break the soulmate bond?” Rydon asked with an edge to his voice, betraying his fear. The amulet sounded diabolical, and he thought they might be better off leaving it alone.
It was Cassandra’s turn to growl at Rydon, her lip curling back in a way that made her look seductive instead of angry.
Turning back to Ren, Cassandra held up a hand. “Before I go on, you must promise to hear me out before you?—”
“Say it already!”
“If,” she cast a quick glance at Rydon before turning back to Terena. “When we find the amulet, we can get the cypher to use it and?—”
