Page 43 of The Demon Tide

“Minyl,” I say, voice low, drawing on our friendship with my use of her familiar name. “Please. Make an exception. Don’t turn him in.”

Trystan

I wait as Vothe and the spiky-haired soldier deliberate, barely able to think through the tornado of emotion and volatile power that’s wrested hold of me as I watch the Gardnerian blacks smolder, wishing with everything in me to be with family or Tierney right now. I draw in a long, shaky breath, desperate to pull myself together. Unable to pull myself together.

The soldier, Min Lo, sends me a conflicted look as she slices the air with her hands, the terrace’s sapphire lantern light highlighting her razor-sharp features. Vothe and Min Lo grow quiet, regarding each other with deeply serious looks. Then they turn toward me.

I hold Min Lo’s steady gaze, not able to look at Vothe. Not wanting to feel the lightning aura that ignites and fills me with excruciatingly futile want whenever our eyes meet. The concern that washes over Min Lo’s features solidifies into what looks like resolve. Her jaw tightens, lips thinning as she strides toward me, my wand in her hand.

She stops before me. “I’ll petition Ung Li to let you remain in your Wyvernguard uniform,” she states.

Surprise bolts through me, the power in my lines whipping into a frenzy. Min Lo hands my wand back to me.

“Thank you,” is all I can manage as I take it. Min Lo shoots Vothe a loaded glance. Then she strides off, her boots clicking against stone.

I stare after her, fighting the urge to meet Vothe’s gaze. It’s so strong, this draw. So cursedly, overwhelmingly strong. Everything in me pulsing and straining to merge with Vothe’s power, I give in, turn, and meet his dark-eyed gaze.

Lightning energy streaks between us, its charge shivering through my lines straight down to the soles of my feet, and I can tell from Vothe’s expression that he feels it too. His lips part, as if caught on a surprised exhale, his gaze locked tight on mine as lines of forking white lightning flash into being on his lips. His lightning-laced mouth closes then opens again, as if he desperately wants to say something, his body tensed as if brimming with the sheer force of it.

Two young female apprentices round the terrace’s curve, and we turn toward them, our charged connection broken. Vothe averts his gaze and looks distractedly over the Vo, biting his lightning-glazed lips with an expression of intense frustration. The veins of light skimming his mouth rapidly blink out of sight, and a piece of my heart blinks out, as well.

He’s ashamed of his attraction to me.

Despair rising, I view the young women as they draw nearer, both of them glaring at me with looks of revulsion. The taller woman, her hair done in looping black braids streaked with blue, claps Vothe on the shoulder as she passes.

“Koilu, Noi’khin,” she says, meeting Vothe’s eyes with a look of solidarity.

Be strong, kin of Noilaan.

Vothe’s whole body stiffens. But he remains silent.

Completely silent.

The apprentices reach the other end of the terrace and pass out of sight, as my heart constricts with a vicious, shearing ache.

“I need to get back,” I force out, willing myself to avoid his gaze. Not wanting to see his choice clear in it—his choice to keep me out.

Because I know that Vothe’s rejection right now holds the power to level me.

I don’t look at Vothe even once the whole way back to my room, and he initiates no conversation, his silence conveying oceans more than his words ever could as my chest grows tighter and tighter with overwhelming hurt.

We reach my room and I pause, my hand on my door’s handle. I can sense Vothe pausing too, feel the storm that’s gathered between us, just as I can feel Sylla’s multiple eyes on me from her preferred resting spot, ensconced in the hallway’s tunneling webs. I peer up and spot her dark figure in spider form near the ceiling, watching us intently, her Death Fae stillness infusing the atmosphere that surrounds us all.

“Trystan...” Vothe says, and I can hear both his struggle and capitulation to the mob in it. His unwanted apology for his cowardice. Because we both feel this thing growing between us.

“Just go,” I say, wanting to throw a blaze of fire straight through Vothe’s power, to drive him away for good. I keep my eyes focused on the door’s handle, knowing that if I look at Vothe, my lightning will ignite something I won’t be able to hold back.

He pauses for an agonizing, infuriating moment longer, so much hanging in the air between us, as I internally rage—I don’t want you! I don’t want you if you can’t move past all this right now when it matters!

Vothe lets out a wavering exhale, then turns and leaves. The sound of his boots thudding against stone sends a shard straight through my heart. I don’t move. I just stand there, trembling now, my hand on the door.

“I’m struggling,” I admit to Sylla.

There’s a rustling in the webs, like a brush over linen.

I glance up to find her still curled up near the ceiling, but morphed into her petite human form, save for eight dark eyes. She doesn’t say anything, but a deeper silence descends—a Death Fae silence—and I’m filled with the sensation of tunneling down, the torchlit dimness of the hall darkening further. And I can feel it in the preternatural silence.

Her understanding.

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