Page 104 of Obsession

He hasn’t been practicing his powers, which are so strong and absolute that, if he released them on Jaegen, he’d lack accuracy; in trying to hit Jaegen, he would kill me. Yet, leashed, destructive energy gathers; the waves crash hard and angry, the fire pulses, flames rising larger than I am tall, nearly enveloping Aris in a swirling inferno. He has never seemed more inhuman, trembling as he barely clings to this form.

He looks like death incarnate, surrounded by the flames of Hell.

“Let. Her. Go.”

Jaegen scoffs. His hands tighten on my scalp, and tears leak out the corners of my eyes. Aris’ nostrils flare at the proof of my pain, and he takes a step forward.

The ground below us shakes, a testament to the slight power he’s releasing. A show of his restraint.

“You are not taking her from me.”

He takes another step but freezes with a click of Jaegen’s tongue—a quiet noise that echoes around the empty beach.

“No closer,” says Jaegen, again tugging on my hair. It feels like it’s being ripped out of my head.

Aris watches, eyes narrowed, stuck on every tear I cry. The inferno rages behind him, so big now that I can feel it from fifty feet away, and spits of heat lightning sprawl in the distance. Shell-shocked, and enraged, Aris knows that he can’t win; he has no idea how to fight. Jaegen may kill me, or just take me away, and no matter how angrily Aris says that Jaegen can’t do that, the truth of the matter is that Jaegen, of course, can.

Aris is at his mercy.

The ground is becoming more unstable—either because my legs are weak and about to go out from under me or because Aris is causing an actual earthquake.

Lightning strikes several meters off with a boom, close enough that I’m unharmed but that, if Jaegen weren’t gripping it tight, my hair would be floating from static. The bolt has dissipated, but the air still feels charged, and, where it struck, the heat of the lightning turned the sand to glass.

“Compose yourself,” snaps Jaegen, his knuckle curling against the back of my head.

Aris takes a long breath, but the spindly, outstretched lightning and roaring bonfire betray his failure to calm. “Just… stop hurting her,” he grits out.

Jaegen is silent for a moment, and then, when he speaks, I hear a new smile in his voice. “What would you give me in return?”

Black eyes flick to my own, then back to his brother’s face. “What do you want?” Aris says through his teeth. “I’ll give you anything.”

“Anything?”

“Yes.” Aris does not hesitate. He repeats, “Just stop hurting her.”

Jaegen’s hand stills, then he pulls my hair taut, fisting it until more tears come to my eyes. Aris goes to take another step forward but manages to stop himself, his body trembling from effort.

“Then I have only one thing to ask, brother of mine: Relinquish yourself. Give yourself to me."

Relinquish himself. Like Sem did.

That’s the closest thing there is to death for Aris and his kind.

"No!" I yell, trying in vain to fight Jaegen’s grip. It only causes more pain, chunks of hair dislodged into his meaty palm, but I don’t care; I can’t stop myself.

Quiet, child, Jaegen hisses in my mind, and his hand on my throat suddenly feels heavier.

He'll die! You'll kill him!

And the scourge will end. This is what we wanted.

This isn’t what I wanted. You said you were going to trap him!

And, with dread, I finally realize: No. Jaegen was never going to trap Aris.

He wasn't leaving us in a cabin to make some new, arcane amulet. We didn’t escape the cabin, either; he let us leave. He let us leave, so we would spend more time together, so our feelings would develop. He pushed me to sleep with him, to let Aris hold me and want me.

This was his plan. He’d been waiting all along to hear Aris declare his love for me.

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