Page 9 of The Eighth Isle

That’s all I really needed to know.

My body reacted on instinct. My wings spread wide and I was ready.

“Stop,” Syra spit, but I didn’t. Beating my wings, I shot for the window, knowing full well that she would stop me but hoping anyway. Always fucking hoping.

Magic grabbed me by the ankles and pulled me down, slamming me onto the floor in front of her feet.

“Stand down, Hansil,” Syra said, and the magic in the air was so intense it messed up my senses all over again. I pushed myself up on all fours out of sheer stubbornness and somehow made it back to my feet.

“I order you to stand down.Kneel,” Syra said, no longer smiling. No longer amused. No longercalm.

I spread my wings again and I aimed for the sky.

This time, she didn’t let me even jump off the floor at all.

Magic wrapped around me like thick, invisible ropes, pushing my wings inside me. It had never been painful before to fold them since they first came out, but it cut through me like a knife now because I hadn’t done it willingly. My limbs were stuck to my sides, and though she didn’t squeeze and there was no pain her magic caused, it was frustrating as fuck to try to break free when I knew I could.

Until…

“You’re in love.”

I froze solid instantly.

Syra came closer, and this time I couldn’t move away if I tried. Her hand closed over my cheek and as disgusted as I was by her touch, I didn’t even think about moving away.

“You resist my compulsion magic so easily, Hansil. You’re in love, aren’t you,” and it wasn’t a fucking question. “Who’s the lucky girl—won’t you tell me?”

Slowly, her smile turned from sad to pure evil, right before my eyes.

“No one,” I forced myself to say.

“Don’t lie to me, my love,” she whispered, grabbing my chin between her fingers. “Who is she?”

Fall’s face was in the center of my mind. “Vampires don’t fall in love, Syra.”

She laughed, throwing her head back. “That’s what they said about sirens, too!”

Moving back, she took her hand away from my face, but her magic remained around me, keeping me in place.

Useless, though. Useless because now I wouldn’t move if she begged me. I wouldn’t lift a fucking finger if it made her even a little bit suspicious about Fall. If it made her want to findFall and hurt her—no.I would do whatever I had to do.

“It’s not true, though—and not just because I fell in love with my Hansil,” she said as she slowly paced around the room. “Tell me, what did they say about me? What was the story they fed you, my sisters? What did they say?” My eyes closed for a moment. “Speak.”

The order came with magic, magic that I could choose to ignore just fine because that’s how compulsion magic worked with all species who possessed it—sirens, vampires, and the succubi. Once a person was in love, something happened to their mind, and it could no longer be manipulated by that magic. Almost like love created this impenetrable coat around the brain, and the spell simply didn’t work anymore.

But right now, I was pretending that it worked on me. Right now, and for as long as it took, I would let her magic order me, and obey silently until I figured out another way.

So, I spoke.

“They said you lost your head over Hansil, and you refused to go back to the sea. They said he called you a monster, andyou had to keep him asleep for days at a time because you couldn’t stand his accusations. They said he convinced you to find another way to feed Ennaris magic, to swear to never eat another man again. They said you went to search for such a way, to meet with the witches, and by the time you came back, they’d eaten him. They said they left the pieces of him on the beach?—”

“Enough!”

Her word cut me off and the magic that fell on me was so goddamn heavy it would have broken my back if more of it wasn’t holding me upright. Syra had stopped pacing and had closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose with her fingers.

“That’s enough,” she whispered, slowly raising her head again. There were tears in her eyes now. “They lied to you. That’s not what happened at all.” And she came closer again. “Hansil never called me a monster—heknewme. I didn’t keep him asleep for days—I couldn’t if I tried! Compulsion magic didn’t work on him because he loved me!” she cried. “He didn’t convince me to find another way—I did that by myself because it was the right thing to do. And I did find it! I found another way—theoriginalway sirens were supposed to be sources of magic for Ennaris. The original way that the first siren was born knowing,” she said in almost one breath.

Two big tears slid down her cheeks as she stepped in front of me and smiled.

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