Fuck, it was one a Sensor was attached to. They’d be here at any moment. And I couldn’t risk anyone discovering this secret. Not yet.
I chased after the female pushing my patience to its breaking point.
“I didn’t choose Dasha. I don’t love her,”I said into Sylaira’s mind.
She didn’t acknowledge I’d spoken. Like the fluid dancer she was, she glided easily around the turn that led to the Seer’s feather. The sound of trickling water was the tolling of a bell sealing my fate.
“Bring me more virelthorn, and I might consider listening again,”was the only response I received as the Sightkeepers straightened, hands flying to their hilts. I smoothed my expression to prevent the absolute torture Sylaira dispensed from rising to my face.
One of the males swung the door inward for her, and she disappeared without so much as a backward glance.
The lock slid into place with a harsh finality.
Because Sylaira was soaring away from me on a violent, rushing wind. Like she dove into the current without a care for how she’d land.
And I knew if I didn’t figure out how to fix this—and soon—I’d lose sight of her forever.
I stood there for a moment longer, cursing my mate, myself, and the Goddess for putting me in this situation.
And then I gathered my cloak and slipped away to Sivy, determined to find more of the vision-suppressing herb.
37
Sleep, like comfort and clarity and control, lurked out of my reach for another night, its gaze ever-fixed and cruel.
After looking at the bedside clock for the twelfth time, I decided to climb into Heraphia’s bed. The hour was early, gray light barely leaking through the mist, and yet she was already awake, staring up at the ceiling like the stone might crack and crush her.
As if she prayed it would.
I hadn’t seen her at all since yesterday. True to her word, the servants had taken care of my every need. I’d scarcely had to lift a finger except when I was working out my knee.
Her absence also meant she hadn’t been here for me to talk to about the Issaraeth when I’d left him staring after me in the hall.
A heavy sigh escaped me as I settled on my back. The flicker of a candle on the ceiling captured my attention.
“Morning,” she whispered without looking at me. For a fewminutes, we watched the dance of fire together in amicable silence.
Yet my mind allowed me no such luxury.
I’d wished for my best friend’s advice more than once while traveling from the lake country to Sivy. But now that the opportunity to seek it dawned, I found myself unable to form the shape of words. To reveal the awful fate that had befallen me.
“Our bond locked into place.” The phrase wrenched out of me, along with a wave of guilt for not being strong enough to outrun the Issaraeth.
Heraphia reached for the ceiling, twisting her hand like the shadows slipped between her fingers, before letting her arm fall to her side again. “I figured as much.”
“I hate it.” But a lie weighed the confession down. Loathing was the primary emotion, yes, but there was so much more to it than that. “I’ve forsaken the Elessarum. All those who have died. My parents. Zuriel. You.”
Heraphia remained silent, blinking every so often at the ceiling. “Then what had you so upset upon arrival?”
Damn her for spearing straight into the heart of the matter. “We’d grown closer on the road to Sivy. Goddess, I was so stupid.” Icy rage climbed my throat at the memory of himkissingDasha. I cleared it before continuing. “And when I arrived, I learned that he is betrothed to another.”
Heraphia’s head whipped toward mine, brows furrowing. “And he didn’t tell you?”
“No.” I gritted my teeth around the word. “I feel…betrayed.”
And it hurt so fucking bad because Imissed him. The past two mornings without him had dug a wound deep inside me. Over the weeks we traveled together, I’d relaxed into knowing he’d protect me. Slept through the night beside him because of it. And now that I’d been slapped with the reminder he was always going to break me in the end…
A deluge of grief drowned me. I berated myself for my foolishness, for believing in a fantasy. For finding an ounce of good in him. For hanging onto every vulnerable word he said.
