Page 58 of Obsession

“And, he came: Jaegen, the being of neutrality, the Watcher. He listened as we begged for a way to speak to our god, and he told us that he would heed our request. He said that if we lived forever, we might live to see Aris. Just like that, I was cursed.”

“Isn’t living forever a good thing?” I say after a moment. “Most people want that.”

“Destruction is the foundation of the Following. Everything must end for something new to begin. By taking our ends from us, Jaegen robbed us of the most sacred sacrifice we could offer Aris: our deaths.”

I struggle to wrap my head around that. It makes me uncomfortable, the perverse obsession the Following has with Aris. With death. Destruction.

Before us, the house is charred. Open rooms are revealed to the night air, the corners blackened while antiquities remain soundly inside. The Following would have rathered it all burned.

“Do you still think it was a kindness?” asks Silva. “He knew what he was taking from us.”

I say nothing. I fully believe that Jaegen knew that death was important and took it from Silva anyway. Sometimes, it’s difficult to justify the wickedness of the person I am working with.

“Well, isn’t this unfortunate?”

Jerking back, I do an actual double-take at the appearance of Aris next to me. Lips twisted in a smirk, amused as he registers my surprise, his eyes flick to Silva.

The man instantly falls to his knees with a declaration of, “My Lord!”

Nearby followers also stumble to the ground, coating themselves in ash while Aris looks at me.

I stare back, uncertain and still half in shock from my encounter with Jaegen. Aris and I haven’t spoken since he revealed… everything: the death of his sister, the goals of his brother. It’s strange, now, knowing personal details about him. I’m not sure what to do with them.

“You’ve had quite a night,” he remarks.

He doesn’t know the half of it.

Reading the wariness on my face, Aris perks a brow, and he reaches forward to put a hand in my hair. I freeze, having no idea what to expect. Can he somehow… sense Jaegen on me? Can he feel the magic, the deception?

Aris pulls back, a twig between two fingers. He flicks it to the ground before bringing his hand back, gripping my chin as he turns my face from left to right to better study it .

“You’re hurt,” he notes with displeasure. “All of the nurses must have burned alive, else you’d be cared for by now.”

The others stir, hearing the thinly veiled threat in Aris’ voice. But I’ve had a long night and am just tired. “We were a little busy,” I say pointedly, giving him a look like, where were you?

He squints back, then says, “Silva, get up.”

The older man immediately springs to his feet. “Yes, Dark One?”

Aris finally puts his attention on him. “Make her better. Use hospitals, or herbs for all I care, but fix that face.”

“Fix my face?” I demand.

Aris frowns. “I don’t like it marked up like that.”

Without preamble, Aris strides away, moving to bark more orders at his other followers. Silva comes closer to me, a more analytical look in his eyes now as he studies my skin.

Hardly interested, I continue to watch Aris. “Can he fix it—the house?”

“No, for the same reason that he cannot heal you,” replies Silva. “He cannot create; he cannot mend. Will you sit down? You’re half-covered in soot, and I can barely see the cuts to clean them.”

Body on autopilot, I listen, taking a seat on the grass. Silva promptly follows, raising a wet kerchief to rub at my face.

I instantly pull back, startled and annoyed by his familiarity. Silva only rolls his eyes and continues to scrub. His hold is firm, and I try not to wince as he digs in at some points.

“I’ve seen him make shadow monsters,” I challenge.

“To transform is not to create.”

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