Celeste was wrenched forward by her jaw. Her eyes flew open and citrine was sparkling back at her soullessly but not without utter fury. “Don’t lie to me,” his voice rattled through his hand and into her chin.
Crickets, maybe this isn’t a dream.
She trembled, trapped in his hold, Syphon’s body more real now than it had ever been if…off. The presence of it was imposing, hulking over her in its almost-human shape, both too big yet too thin, clearly masculine yet part beast, and entirely too beautiful. “Please,” she ceded, “don’t make me say it.”
His fanged sneer fell away, and the wide smile Syphon replaced it with verged on comforting. “Don’t be embarrassed, pet.” His touch softened and caressed her cheek, many-fingered hand crawling itself toward her ear and then gently down her neck. “Not with me. Not with yourself.”
Celeste believed him then as his face halted its contortion and solidified into sincerity. The thought had wormed its way into her mind many times, that a sieve plucked arcana out of the world to mold much like she did. And Syphon had been locked away, treated like a monster simply for what he was—what he had been made into. She knew that pain too, and she was only one unlucky spell away from being chained up herself. They were the same, he’d told her himself, so he would understand.
“There,” said Syphon, and he no longer had her by the ankle but had taken her by the arm. “Do you see? No need to hide from me.”
She stiffened and inhaled sharply as he guided her hand back between her legs.
“No?” One of his liquidy brows raised. “You’ve already come undone in front of me, what is the shame in doing it again?”
Celeste tried to rip her hand from his, again shaking her head.
His grip only tightened. “Or is it the subject of your delusions that you’re ashamed of? You were thinking of that knight, weren’t you?”
Even with her gaze averted, she gave herself away with her silence. There was nothing she could do or say, she knew, becauseheknew.
“He doesn’t want you—hecan’twant you.” Syphon’s claws scraped her scalp as he held her still. “Why must you cling to this existence, to being this sad little girl who has to break herself apart every night fantasizing about a man and a life she will never have? Do you not realize what you are?”
Like the breaching of a dam, her heart tore itself in two, and every ugly truth she had always known but only spoke in whispers came pouring out. Tears spilled and a sob broke free from her throat. She knew she had been seeing things that weren’t there, feeling too deeply, but couldn’t she just pretend? Just for a little while? She tried to shrug in her shoulders and hide herself away, but Syphon squeezed her neck and held her blurry gaze, the citrine of his eyes cutting through the tears.
“You’re pathetic,” he barked, pulling her face but an inch from the sharpness of his. “Pining after any holy thing as if the light couldevertouch you,lookat you, without utter disgust.”
“I-I know,” she stuttered through sobs, “But I-I thought…”
“You thought what? Things would be different now than every time before? What has changed? You are still a needy, miserable wretch of a creature, powerless to properly wield the gifts you’ve been given and too weak to control your own absurd desires.”
It was true, all of it, and Celeste’s innards gnawed on themselves as she desperately tried to pinch in her knees and press her head to them, to shrink herself so much she might disappear completely, but he would not let her. He continued to stare into her eyes, and this time, she didn’t dare look away. She wanted to, she wished she were stronger, but as he said, she was not. Even when he released the back of her neck to stroke her jaw, she remained where she was left.
“I understand what you want now, what you would actually request I do,” he said, a gentle shield to the voice that had just gutted her. “You want to be relieved of this, to have me take it away.” A finger slid down to the locket that hung around her neck, limp under his touch as if empty, all of her empty, unused, without even potential.
Celeste blinked, tears dripping off her chin but no more emerging. “You…you can?”
“Of course I can, but it would take time. I can only suffer so much arcana before requiring rest, and you will accompany me. If this is what you want, you will be bound to my side for moons during the process,” he purred, and he continued to urge her hand between her legs. “And then, of course, you will be so grateful you will remain, and how fortuitous for you, pet, to be offered a place at the side of someone willing to shelter and treasure you. A being that understands your worth and will treat you accordingly.”
She whimpered but didn’t dare interrupt.
Syphon’s squeeze on her wrist dug in then, claws breaking the skin and making her cry out. “But only if you give me what I need first.”
“The noxscura,” she choked. She didn’t need to ask, she had known the moment she saw it beneath the village—he wanted it, but there was no way he could touch it and survive, not like she had once.
Syphon nodded, his nose and forehead brushing hers, his too-smooth skin glasslike. “I can take away that which you believe taints you, but first you must give me the strength to do it. You must break through the shield.” As he turned his head, Celeste followed his gaze.
The chamber was no longer empty, though she wished it were. The pool of pure noxscura churned just beside the cot, a silvery, horrifying mass, alive and moving, lapping at the edges of its earthy basin and sloshing against the dome.
“Very little can destroy what those priests created, but it was damaged before by an inferior weapon. You must be clever enough to know what could finally break through it for good.”
Celeste’s heart was in her throat, thrashing too madly to allow her to speak. She did know, she’d seen the failed weapon and she’d spoken to the one that was capable.
But then it appeared she would have to do nothing as a droplet of silvery noxscura spilled through the crack in the dome, and it shattered. Celeste recoiled from the bursting magic, or she tried, but she was still trapped under Syphon’s grip.
“You will destroy the shield,” he growled into her ear, “and you will absorb it for me.” He pulled her hand from between her legs and pushed her toward the pulsing pool.
“N-no,” she stuttered, breath so caught it burned. “Please.”
