“You’redrinking?”
Taryn tipped his head back against the cell bars and closed his eyes. “Helps with the pain,” he said simply, and drank.
Airess gaped at him. She couldn’t believe that he managed to sneak a flask into the cell and that he was speaking to her so casually after being almost beaten to death. This male wasinconceivable, and has quite literally become the cause of all her problems. If it weren’t for him, she would have been on the way to Rune by now, hidden away from the Luciens. Airess tried her best to ignore the simmering anger in her gut.
Taryn set his flask down, leveling a cold stare at her. “Do you want to explain what happened in the woods?”
“I don’t know what happened.”
Taryn raised a brow. “You aren’t a very good liar.”
“I’m telling the truth. I’ve never done that before. I didn’t even know that waspossible. I just remember panicking and… well, it just sort ofhappened.”
Taryn made a sound resembling aHmm. Airess looked down to her shackled wrists, panic rising in her chest, in her throat, constricting and squeezing her. She blinked rapidly, fighting away the tears that threatened to come to the surface. It was a flaw she hated about herself—crying whenever she felt angry or panicked. Airess swallowed the feeling down. She wouldn’t cry, especially not in front of him.
“I can’t go back,” she whispered.
“Why? Why did you leave in the first place?” Taryn asked the question like it was on the brink of his mind, the question eager to be asked.
“It wasn’t planned,” Airess confessed. She wasn’t sure why, but she vaguely explained the events directly after the engagement ball explosion. Perhaps it was because she needed someone, even if it were him in this lonely, twisted world. Airess made sure to leave out the details about The Obadiah. She hadn’t had time yet to eventhinkabout that, or what Ima had said in the dreamworld.
“And yourseamstressorchestrated all of that?” Taryn asked in disbelief, taking another swig of his flask.
“Yes. She knew—” Airess stopped herself before she divulged too deeply into her past with Arzhel. “She knew what I went through there. That is why I can’t go back. He’ll kill me.”
“Whowill kill you?” Taryn pressed, his tone laced with a hint of urgency Airess didn’t understand.
“The prince,” Airess chuckled bitterly. “Perhaps the queen, too.”
Not wanting to speak of the matter anymore, she changed the subject as she stared at the green substance dripping off of the chains. “What is this? It burns.”
“Donstenyte,” Taryn supplied. “It's a poison. It can mute out Magick entirely, and given the quantity of it, there’s not a chance in hell we would be able to use Magick to escape.”
Great. As if things couldn’t get much worse.
A beat of silence passed before Taryn spoke, “I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry for compelling you, for taking you against your will. I should have never done that. I should have told Eryxno.”
Airess folded her arms, remembering who she was talking to. “So then why did you do it?”
He looked away. “It wasn’t voluntary.”
“Who is Eryx?”
Taryn’s jaw flexed, as if the question triggered something within him. He huffed out a breath. “The leader of the Mrkynian Guild. The man who sent me to find you.”
Airess weighed the name in her mind.Eryx.She had never heard of that name before. Why would he want her? How did he know about her power that apparently everyone but her was convinced she possessed?
Airess finally understood what she sensed when she opened her Sight to Taryn’s energy. The way Taryn felt repulsed by his own actions confused her at the time, but now, she realized it was because theyweren’ttruly his actions. Perhaps he too was compelled. Taryn said taking her wasn’t voluntary. Was he a prisoner to someone else, like her?
Stay with the male, Ima had said. Had the dreamwalker meant for her to travel to Rune withhim? While Airess still had every intention of finding her way there and claiming her freedom, she wasn’t so sure about Ima’s advice.
“Your accent,” Airess pointed out. “You’re from Rune?”
Taryn locked eyes with her, lifting his brow. “Yes. Why—”
