I used to think they looked alike.
Now I know better.
My judgment rolls inside me, agitated and desperate to lash out at him, but it’s as trapped as I am. Ruined.
She’ll never forgive me for this.
“You see, daughter.” S’lach glances over his shoulder. “I wasted years searching for you before it occurred to me that I was going about it wrong. I thought to myself, why am I doing all this work when there’s a perfectly good fool on hand to do it for me? I knew Malach would never let you go—he needed revenge for your betrayal; his judgment complex demanded it—so instead of trying to find you, I followed him.”
“I had to be patient, but Malach came through for me.” S’lach spreads his arms wide and scoffs. “The joke is on him, though, because you and I both know that no daughter of mine would waste her life adhering to the old rules about radiant words. Imagine being naïve enough to ever believe that you cared about those insipid vows in the way he did.”
Celine’s face is bone white, but she’s not looking at S’lach, she’s looking at me. Part of me is desperate for her to tell him she doesn’t believe him. The rest of me only wants to get this over with.
“Malach here believed you would come home one day, but I decided it was time to teach him a lesson in reality.” He sucks in a pleased breath and pauses to soak in his triumph.
“I infiltrated his guardians. It was painfully easy: anyone can be bought, just ask Lyklan, then I lured him back to my estate. Since he’s such a devout believer in the old ways, I included him in a time-honored tradition that he couldn’t refuse.”
S’lach tugs my shirt up and reveals the burning red scar on my hip.
I’ve been physically unable to show it to her, terrified and desperate for her to find it.
S’lach’s rune of silence is raised and angry, because no matter how he twists the truth, forcing your mark on someone else is abetrayal of radiant magic. His rune doesn’t belong on my body. It’s been poisoning me since the moment he carved it into my skin.
Celine gasps, and the sound is agonized.
My heart cracks down the middle, our strained vows quivering from the pressure of S’lach’s reveal. I had no choice, but it’s better if she thinks I betrayed her.
“Silence is the ultimate radiant weapon,” S’lach says. “On the surface, it’s deceptively simple, but the control you can wield by stealing someone’s voice...” He shudders, overcome by sick, twisted delight.
“I’ll give you a choice, daughter: leave now, betray your childish vows, and I’ll take Malach as my prize. I’ll stop hunting you and your lovers.” His lips curl with disgust. “But if you forgive his betrayal and try to protect him—I’ll kill them all.”
His gaze travels across them one at a time. “The vampire, the demon, the basilisk, and the veydra too. I’ll make you watch as I take them from you, then I’ll send assassins to your filthy Fringes. That pathetic siren, the one who’s terrified of water? I’ll have her drowned along with all your other friends: the spider, the stupid witch, and the harpy who’s keen to look after spawn that aren’t her own.”
His brown eyes glitter with malice. “Then, only after you’ve tried and failed to protect each and every one of them, will I send you to the eternal beyond to reunite with your mother. It’s what I should have done the second I saw those weak, revolting wings.”
“Lies,” Celine snarls. “You’ll try to kill me either way, and we both know it. For someone who hates my wings so much, where are yours, huh? Hidden, even in your moment of victory? Tell me, Dad, what are you ashamed of?”
“Silence,” he roars. Runes spread across his skin, but they aren’t gold like mine and Celine’s, they’re a sickly, putrid shade of ocher.
Celine activates her truth, and S’lach’s control bounces right off.
He stiffens, the glee on his face laced with rage.
She’s incredibly strong. Inside my battered body, I fight with everything I have, but my judgment can’t match his silence. The only weapon able to defeat S’lach is standing across from him, and he’s known it since we were children.
S’lach can make up as many excuses as he wants to justify his actions, but they’re all lies.
He doesn’t hate Celine for her wings. He can call them embarrassing and claim her emotions make her weak a million times, but she frightens him because she’s the only thing standing between him and unchecked power.
That is why he hates her.
And that is why he’s hunted her to the ends of the universe.
He can’t accept knowing she’s alive and living outside his control.
Celine is his foil, the monster under his bed, and the ghost whispering in his ear at night. She haunts his every step, crawling beneath his skin and forcing him to acknowledge that everything he’s built could come crashing down the moment she decides to finish him.
S’lach’s only chance is me—a living shield—and he knows it.
