“I feel it,” Elloven said quietly. What else wasn’t true? “I have a high tolerance for pain.”
“You would, wouldn’t you?” Lexsea’s eyes narrowed. “But Jesstin should be screaming right now.”
“How do you know he isn’t?” Taven asked.
“Get on with it,” Estelar said with a hard look at his daughter. “So we can all retire.”
Lexsea’s eyes closed, her head bobbing slightly. She said nothing, but she didn’t need to, because it felt as though the Guardians themselves had taken divine shears to the center of Elloven and split her through the middle.
She screamed and collapsed. Taven caught her before her knees hit the ground.
If Jesstin hadn’t been screaming before, he would be now.
But it was over. Just like that. Ended. And...
Elloven shakily stood. Bile gathered in her throat. Nothing felt coherent. Nothing seemed real. “That’s all? It’s done?”
“She’s ignorant even for a daughter of Laxius, isn’t she?” Lexsea cajoled, her eyes still closed.
“Wait—wait!” Elloven cried, the horrifying realization coming right as a new bond began spreading over her flesh like a tight pair of gloves, exciting her pores, and sending heat searing through her veins. With a sob of betrayal so deep she was drowning in it, she looked at Taven and immediately wished she could unsee the victory in his eyes. “You lied to me. You deceived me.”
“I looked after you, as I always have,” Taven replied. He was as calm as the dawn. “Now no one can hurt you.”
“I assume that’s all?” Lexsea left without waiting for an answer.
“And you? You said nothing!” Elloven howled, thrusting an arm at Estelar. “You knew she could break it without bonding us, and you said nothing until I came here tonight!”
Estelar’s brows spiked in rapid amusement. “You could have broken it as well, Aelloven. The magic lives in you, as a receptor of chaos. But there are many things you can do that you have denied.”
“You both planned this, didn’t you?” She couldn’t look at either of them. She was still taking his words one by one, and each syllable dismantled her more. “Taven, you knew. You knew I’d see through you if you used anything other than Jesstin’s life as a reason to bring me to the sept.”
“Mr. Considine will, as promised, help you connect with that which was stolen from you by the devilish concubine who abducted you from your family and passed you off as your own.”
Elloven was horrified. “You don’t mean Esmeray?”
“She didn’t even bother to change her name?” Estelar laughed. “She’s—” He was cut off by a deep, thunderous pealing of bells. His pleasure dissolved in an instant. Alarm passed over his eyes like a storm. “Stay here. Lock the door behind me.” He rushed away.
“What’s happening?” Taven called after him, but his voice was drowned out by the ringing. “Where are you going?”
Elloven staggered to the desk. She counted the silence between rings—two seconds—and breathed through them. In. Out. In. Out. The bells were the perfect distraction for her to find Lexsea and undo what had been done. It was a weak plan, one that relied on the help of someone who was certain to refuse, but it was all she had. She couldn’t stay bonded to Taven, not for a moment longer. Couldn’t stay in that cursed land another night.
“Ellie?” Taven’s concern was a lash from a reed.
“Don’t touch me!” she shrieked. “Don’t you dare touch me, ever, ever again!”
“But I don’t understand...”
“You understand perfectly.” Elloven shook her head. Tears blurred the room. “But I’d rather die than live like this.”
“What are you saying?” Taven reached for her, but the drone of dozens of boots rushing down the hall pulled their attention to the door.
Jesstin woke gasping for his life.
In his dream, he’d been strapped to a torture rack. His limbs were slowly stretched away from his core, one grueling turn of the wheel after another. The pain had been soul-destroying, inescapable.
When he came to, the pain was gone, but in its place was a hollow void he could only describe as his chest having been carved out with a rusted spoon.
Next came the ringing, cutting off his ability to think.
