Neither can she.
“Cultus Mortis are secretly used to train warlocks,” I say, because it feels wrong to see part of her truth and not share my own. “In order for warlocks to complete the Trials, they—we—have to learn to withstand pain. Magic shears our souls. It shreds us into something new. There is no room for weakness.”
She swallows hard. Her hands curl into fists. “How did they train you?”
“Torture.”
It runs a blade across the boy’s throat. Blood gushes. The boy chokes on it, scarlet bubbling from his mouth and splashing against the cold marble floor—but this time, he manages not to scream. They cut him again. Again. He represses the agony, every ounce of it, thinking only of his father. Of what he will become if he does not complete the Trials.
I blink away the memories. They don’t belong to me anymore.They belong to someone else. Someone younger. Someone more foolish. Someone weak. “I know it was illogical. I know you would’ve felt it regardless. But I’ve experienced what they can do, and… I didn’t want them to do it to you. Not when I can handle it.”
Silence descends over us. Scorching hot, as if coals smoke beneath the earth. The mermaid’s gaze roves my body, my wings, lingering too long to be indifferent. And then she says, “I could have handled it too.”
I exhale a frustrated laugh. “I wasn’t criticizing you, Zephyra.”
“I know.” She leans forward, circling her arms around her knees. Hugging them tighter. Through the bond, pain explodes. The faintest echo of a feminine scream, youthful and raw, claws at my ears. So much agony that my lungs squeeze, and my head swims. And then—fast as it appeared, it vanishes. As if I never felt it at all. “I can handle it, warlock.” She doesn’t shy away from the cord. From her truth.
Fuck.
“You too?” I ask, unable to spit out the full question. Unable to ask her what she’s survived when I can hardly stand to remember my own past.
“Yeah.” A soft shrug as she rests her chin on her knees. “This ordeal—it’s not even close to the worst I’ve experienced. At least…” She almost doesn’t finish the sentence. There’s a war in her eyes as her nose wrinkles, and a dozen colorful emotions dance across her face. “At least I’m not alone now.” She looks at me. Really fucking looks at me, as if she’s peeling me open and digging through my organs. As if she knows every thought in my mind and isn’t frightened by the bloody crevices. “You aren’t either. No matter how fucked-up we might be, for now we have each other. If we work together, maybe we’ll survive this. I don’t—I don’t want to die, Arion.”
I don’t know why, but I say, “Whatdoyou want?”
She laughs at that. A lilting breath. “No one’s actually asked me that before.”
That only intrigues me more. I shift closer to her, my wings curling inward as if just as rapt. “I’m asking now.”
“Okay, warlock.” She smiles at me, and my skin crackles as if struck by lightning. “Well, my father assumed I would take over thetaming business with my brother.” At my apparent confusion, she explains, “My family domesticates animals to aid other merrow. Octopuses, fish, dolphins, squid—you name it, they’ve trained it to do all sorts of things: hunting, gathering, cleaning, delivering messages. Anything, really.
“I used to have a pet octopus named Bean, but he didn’t listen to me for shit. Whenever I tried to teach him to sit, stay, or grab, he would slink away to pick coral. And then he would eat the coral and look at me with this blank expression. Not a single thought in his bulbous head.” Her shoulders loosen as she speaks, and she leans against the wall, slowly releasing her knees. Unfolding herself. Relaxing.
I arch a brow. “You named an octopusBean?”
“Yes. And if you knew him, you’d understand. I used to sneak him into bed with me so we could snuggle, and most mornings I’d wake with two tentacles wrapped around my throat and another knotted in my hair. When my dad would barge inside to tell me breakfast was ready, the damn thing would ink. All over me, my bed, my floor. Such an asshole.” Regardless of her harsh words, her eyes brighten. The sight twists in my gut like a knife.She’s fucking beautiful.
“So taming is off the list.”
“Goddess, yes. Without question. And then I left home and had to learn to survive off my wits—”
“By stealing,” I interject.
She rolls her eyes not unhappily. “Call it whatever you want, warlock. I have a knack for scheming and slipping out of tight situations. But I never thought it would be forever. I always hoped it would befor now. Eventually, I’d snag some kind of loot that could buy my way out, and then I could hunker down in a cottage somewhere serene and just… exist. No worries or enemies. Simply peace and quiet and maybe some morning birdsong.”
I can’t help but frown. “That’syour big plan? To waste away in a cottage at the end of this?”
She glares at me. “Do you have a better one?”
I knit my hands behind my head and lean back against my wings.They cushion the hard rock, making it almost comfortable. “Unlimited power. World domination. Ultimate greatness.”
“Humble.”
“I always try to limit my expectations.”
“I can tell, what with ‘unlimited power’ being first on your list.” Her lips twitch at the sight of my grin, and she sighs dramatically. “I’m starting to think I was right.”
“When you’re so often wrong?”
