Page 57 of The Syndicater (Dark Verse 6)

Chapter 19

Tristan, Tenebrae City

It felt surreal.

Shefelt surreal.

He had been touching her constantly since he'd found her, and yet it felt like she would disappear into the ether, slip through his fingers like smoke, never to be found again.

Tristan sat on the edge of the lake, in a spot he had sat in countless times alone during his teens. If someone had told him that one day, he would be sitting in the exact spot with his sister by his side, he would've done anything for them.

The night descended around them, the skies still lighter with the last rays of the sun. A gentle wind blew through the hills, causing the water on the lake to ripple on the surface. Aside from the sounds from the lawns of the mansion in the distance—where the preparations for Tempest's birthday party were going steady—it was quiet. Tristan wouldn't have noticed so many things in detail at a time like this when he felt so emotionally raw, but it was like his senses were extra sharp, extra alive.

"It's so beautiful here," her gentle voice said from his side. She had a voice he imagined windchimes would sound like in the breeze, soft, sweet, melodic.

She was sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees, her eyes looking over the lake and fleeting coming to him before gazing out again, like she was nervous.

Tristan looked at the view through her eyes and admitted that, objectively, it was beautiful if it didn't have so much of his trauma associated with it. He opened his mouth, realizing how difficult it was for him to communicate even when he had so much he wanted to tell her, so many things he wanted to ask, so many stories he wanted to share. But a lifetime spent training his brain to stop the access to his vocal chords interfered, not letting him speak.

"Do you remember me at all?" he finally gave in, asking the one question that had been on the forefront of his mind since he saw the recognition in her eyes. She had known him when he kneeled before her, and a part of him hoped that, by some miracle, she had even a single memory of him. Otherwise, it would be too cruel of fate that he'd spent twenty years thinking of her and she hadn't.

She shook her head, and something in his heart cracked. He took a breath, telling himself it was okay. She had been too young, and at least she was here now. They could make new memories together.

"Your eyes," she started, then bit her lip.

"Yes?" Tristan encouraged her, needing to know, grasping at any straws.

"I don't remember, but your eyes feel so familiar."

Emotion clogged his throat. He had already broken down once, spilling so many tears, like it had been building and storing within him all this time. Tears were never something Tristan had let escape in front of people. He had cried silently on nightsalone many times. But the only time he had cried in someone's company had been Morana's and, now, his sister's.

He stared into her eyes, realizing that they had changed the shade as she'd grown up, becoming more green. There was silence for a bit, not awkward but teeming with so many unsaid words.

He heard her inhale before she started again. "I like your friends. I'm glad you had… have… people who love you."

Tristan turned his neck to look at her. "What about you? Do you have friends?"

Her body stiffened slightly, her shoulders tensing. "No."

A wave of sadness washed over him at that, at how much was left unsaid in that one word. For all the pain in his life, he'd had good people even in the periphery, a closed circle that had expanded slowly but surely.

She hadn't.

He extended his arm and wrapped it wordlessly around her shoulder, pressing his nose into her hair. She trembled slightly against his side, before heaving in a breath as if to control herself. "I'm okay."

"Yes, you are," he said, his words a promise in his heart. "You always will be."

She gave him a small smile, her eyes drifting to his hand. The smile grew bigger. "I like your tattoo."

He looked down at the tattoo on his ring finger, the dark ink swirling to spellMorana,and something warmed his cheeks. He'd never felt this… bashful. How strange.

"How did you get together?" she asked, curious, and Tristan blinked. How the fuck was he supposed to explain his and Morana's twisted story to her? Their enmity, their history, their relationship. How was he to tell her that she'd been the only constant in his life that he could see, how he'd vowed to kill herbut it had become something else, something so permanent he didn't know how he would exist without it?

And then something else occurred to him on the heel of that thought. What was he supposed to tell her about their parents? That they didn't have a father because he had killed him? That they didn't have a mother because he had driven her away?

Fuck.

Fuck.

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