“I told you that Sylas is finally able to rest, that he is at peace. He is a necromancer, Winter.The Almighty Necromancerat that. The Valley of the Dead would not be a source of peace forhim. You didn’t consider doing this immediately, even though normally it would be the most obvious step, because deep down you already know it’s not possible. You understood what transpired when I struck him with the Spiral Thorn, how I did it, what it was infused with at the time.”
I swallowed thickly. “No.”
“He has been wiped from existence. His body will rot like any other, but his spirit, it has—”
“No!No!”
“Shh,” he said, stroking my bare chest with his palm.
All of me was bare—fucking naked. He’d stripped me with his magic the moment we’d arrived here and also bound me withNihilumbrain a failed attempt to calm me down. This shit on bare skin obviously left no barrier, making it all the more painfully intense. But I knew the way Ruxnoth operated too well now to believe that had been the extent of stripping me. He’d wanted to cause vulnerability in me, thinking that would tame me. And, of course, it was also an intimidation move and a power trip to him.
“Don’t you see, miraculous boy? The only peace available to Sylas Morgrave was nothingness, the absence of everything. Akin to a dreamless sleep.”
I bucked against the restraints. “You’re lying!”
“You know that I am not. You feel it. Your connection to him would have ensured it, sensed his erasure.”
“No!No!”
My power tried to surge against my will.
But with the binds, not only wasn’t it possible, but it had them pushing painfully into my flesh.
I didn’t care.
I kept pulling, screaming and screaming in anguished rage.
Even as I felt them tear into my skin, ripping my flesh apart all over the place, everywhere they touched, I didn’t stop.
“Dad!Dad! No!”
I heard Ruxnoth cursing. Then, in my mind’s eye, I was aware of chaos erupting.
I couldn’t even fucking see, my vision blurring, my attention only on the grief of losing my dad. My dad!
I thought I saw faces obscured by magic, people rushing in.
Frantic surges of power.
Ruxnoth’s disgusting hands on me again.
Others holding me, restraining my bucking.
And then something sharp pierced my throat.
Things started to slip away all too quickly.
I wasn’t given the chance to get a handle on it.
Dad’s voice rolled through me, and I saw him there in a beautiful memory, him grasping my shoulder on that mountaintop and telling me earnestly,“Don’t you see, my sweet and gentle son? You are our peace.”
I held onto that as forced sleep took me.
3
~Ambrose Wisteryn~
“Do you have him?”
