More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“You have a kind heart, Sylina,” she said. “That is a gift to Acaeja, even if it is, at times, a burden to you. Temper your expectations of this world. But do not dampen your fire. You’ll need it for what’s ahead.”
“Didn’t realize blindfolded ladies could still be lecherous,” Erekkus said. “Still just as unsettling as all your other tricks. Maybe I’d feel differently if I was on the receiving end, though.”
I let him pull me up to the cart. When he dusted his hands off, he gave me a lopsided grin. “But hey, maybe you’ll be different. You’re just his type, actually.” “His type?” Erekkus leaned forward and gave me a conspiratorial smirk. He held out a finger with each word. “Beautiful. Mysterious. Dangerous. And an obvious, clear-as-the-fucking-moon mistake.”
But to my shock, Atrius lowered his sword just as the mass closed around us, shielding its sharp edge from the flesh jammed into every crevice of the hall. He turned back and screamed a command in Obitraen. Then he lifted his sword above his head, high enough to avoid the bodies, reached back to grab my wrist, and pulled me forward, as if to keep me from getting swept away by the sea of people.
His lips thinned. “Maybe kings are the problem,” he remarked. Then, before I could answer that, he lifted his chin down the hall. “How much farther?”
“What the hell are you wearing?” The first words out of Atrius’s mouth when I walked through the door. I gritted my teeth.
Beads of crimson hung suspended in the air. His threads warped, as if manipulated by an outside force. Atrius. The two of them tangled again. Tarkan was off-balance, startled. The next strike had him reeling. Atrius could have finished him then. I saw the opening. I knew he did, too. But yet, Atrius held him for a moment. Shot me a glance over Tarkan’s shoulder. And he nodded at me. The understanding snapped into place. He was presenting Tarkan to me. He was giving me this. I didn’t know why. I didn’t have time to question it.
“Drink it,” he said. “You’ve barely eaten or drank in two days.” I laughed flatly. “You’re keeping track.” “It’s impossible not to notice everything, with you.” I wasn’t sure what I expected from him. But it was not that.
“It matters,” he murmured. Two words that could mean nothing—should mean nothing. It felt like they meant everything.
I was grateful for his honesty. For his imperfect effort. No one who had survived the lives we had could deny the value of that. Most never try at all.
Atrius, standing over my attacker, hacking into him brutally, strike after unforgiving strike, long after flesh was beaten down into formless gore. All around us, there was death. Death everywhere. And yet when Atrius abandoned his very, very dead target and whirled around, he wasn’t looking at any of that—not his own warriors or the people he had lost. Only me. His presence was an anchor. I held onto it tight, like a raft in a stormy sea.
It was in Obitraen, and yet somehow I knew exactly what he was saying: Kill them all.
He laughed, vicious as torn flesh. “You want to see the truth, Sylina? Do you have room in your heart for another dark story?” He was taunting me. Like his jeering tone could chase me away. He was wrong. I thought of the fragments of his vision, still burning in my memory and throbbing in his chest. The snow. The cold. A young vampire man’s head in his hands. And Nyaxia, cold and cruel and drenched in hate. “I live in dark stories. And I’ve been living in yours for nearly four months. If you’re going to invite me in, invite me.” I pushed against his chest, hard. “I already see you, Atrius. I’m
...more
I understood it so painfully well. The desire to believe that something larger than you could save you, even after it struck you down again and again.
Another wordless sound, a choked groan. “You shouldn’t be here.” This time he spoke against my mouth—not quite a kiss, but the promise of one. I whispered, “Why?” “Because you make me ravenous.” You make me ravenous.
“I’m not asking anything. I’m telling you that I would like that person to be you, Sylina. And you can do with that information what you will.”
Maybe it just meant that anger was the antidote to fear.
But what struck me more was the protectiveness that permeated his presence with those words, primal and unguarded in a way that Atrius rarely was.
“Just as it is useless to offer them to yourself.” That single finger slid down, over the angle of my chin, lifting it. “So very terrified of that beating thing within your chest. That is the wrong enemy, child.”
I loved my Sisters, or at least I thought I did. Now, I pitied that version of myself, for whom love meant hiding so many different aspects of herself.
The fight will always be worth it.
