Abolisher
34.

Night fell, rain started pouring, and she was still running.

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Lies.

Mysteries.

Continuous deceiving rung her life these days. She didn’t know what was true, what wasn’t. She didn’t know whom to trust and whom not to.

Azryle.

Navy.

Vurian.

All of them masked behind shams. Even Syrene herself. Who was she? Cerys? Syrene? Vegreka? Grestel? Human?

“Syrene, wait!”

The call behind her hadn’t stopped. Neither had she to heed it. It was muffled, swallowed up by the onslaught of rain and the deafening silence in her skull.

A vague sense nudged at her—there was only one human she knew who was capable of keeping pace with her.

Syrene ignored it.

It felt as though someone had snaked their fingers into the scar in her soul, had pried it open until it was a burning wound again. She hated feeling like this—hated feeling broken and dying. Hated feeling as if life had been sucked out of her.

Because it hadn’t. Because there was still something—everything—left to fight for. And she wanted to. She wanted to fight.

Never again did she want to be weak. Never again did she want to feel the need of someone else’s honesty in her life to survive.

She hadn’t known where she was headed. Not until she cleared the trees and reached the cave. She was soaking wet when she entered it. She should have been shivering violently due to the merciless cold, but warmth pulsed in her veins, soothing her.

Syrene dropped to her knees, panting hard.

This was the cave she’d spent her last days as Syrene Alpenstride in—before Silvervale. Before her first day as Cerys Omdrial. She’d abandoned the remaining scraps of Syrene Alpenstride here. A dust-peppered blanket still sat in the corner.

There was nothing else other than that.

She’d killed a passerby stranger and whipped her of her fine clothes and money, and entered Silvervale as Cerys Omdrial. Where she’d met Navy.

Syrene heard the steps behind herself, and forced herself to keep her tears at bay. She inhaled a deep breath.

“Syrene …”

At the sound of her name at his lips, anger flooded through her. She bolted to her feet and whirled on him.

Azryle was soaked head to toe. Midnight hair plastered to his forehead. Silver eyes bright with a well-hidden emotion she wouldn’t have deciphered, had it not been for the leash.

Sorrow.

She caught the stain of blood on the white shirt Kefaas had lent him—the bandaged wound opening due to the chasing no doubt. Caught it, and ignored. Should’ve begun healing now that he was awake.

“Why didn’t you tell me,” she gritted. “About the lea—” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word out loud. It felt like an insult somehow. “About the bond.”

Azryle only stared at her. “Syrene …”

“You had no right.” Her voice was shaking now. “Absolutely no right to keep that from me! Because it’s not only your life, Azryle, it’s mine too. Do you have any idea how it felt—how it still hurts—when that overseer—” She was panting, fighting the unbearable itching in her eyes. “When you died.”

Silence. That sorrow—now perhaps tinged with regret—bore into her.

Her hand went for her chest. Her knuckles grazed the cold metal of Quemcet. “I felt it in my soul, Azryle. I felt it, and I sat there knowing it would never heal. There was no salve—or mejest—or anything—that could heal a literal broken soul. I lost sense of everything. I was unable to grasp where to go from there.”

He said nothing, which only had her blood boiling. “Why didn’t you tell me!”

“How would that have changed anything?” he asked, tilting his head. She watched as calmness abruptly claimed him. Now he just looked like the brute she’d met a year ago. Unfeeling. Any regret or sorrow consigned to oblivion just like that. “You still wouldn’t have seen the blow coming. You still couldn’t have possibly stopped it.”

“I could have been more vigilant,” she spat.

He shook his head, and scoffed.

Syrene saw red.

The audacity—

“That’s the lie you’re telling yourself?” He lifted a brow. “At least choose a good one, cub.”

Rage claimed Syrene. She wanted to punch that calmness off his face. She wanted to claw his eyes out. “So you are still an asshole.”

Azryle slightly opened his arms, as if it were a compliment. Then drawled, “Told you it’s in the blood.” Humor—there was humor in his eyes. The small smug smirk she’d seen a year ago—and detested it with everything in herself—pulled at his lips.

Syrene turned, unable to stand that smirk, that teasing face, and dragged a hand through her dowsed hair. She wanted to break something—she had to break something—

Ryle’s warmth outstretched to her back before she felt him behind herself. She stilled. He was almost touching her back.

His hand reached down for hers—or rather, his fingers did. They started at her hand. Then, slowly, they began tiptoeing their way up her arm. Even with the thin cloth thwarting his touch, with each step closer to her shoulder, he seeped his mejest into her skin, offering her a calm warmth.

His other hand came to slide her hair off the back of her neck—it was effort to suppress her shudder when his finger grazed her skin there.

Azryle’s lips came to touch her ear.

“Calm, Syrene.”

She felt his voice, then, the way he sang her name as if it were a prayer, all the way to her toes.

Chills seared her skin.

Syrene found herself leaning into him, her back met his torso. “I hate you,” she whispered, the rise and fall of her chest began quickening. “I want to.”

Gently, as if she were ethereal, Azryle’s lips met the soft spot behind her earlobe. “You do.”

It became arduous to keep track of his words as his lips began descending to her neck. Her treacherous head tilted involuntarily to give him access, leaned into his shoulder. Her heart was hammering—in sync with his. She felt the unsteady beats against her back like blaring music against her skin.

She had to clamp her lips shut from executing any crude sounds when he kissed the curve of her neck.

When Azryle’s hand reached her shoulder, he withdrew his head from her neck and turned her around. Syrene opened her eyes, and was struck with the unbound desire brightening the silver eyes threatening to impale her with that intensity.

He retreated from her, and walked to the cave mouth. Back to her, Azryle watched the pouring rain as if it would help flow forth whatever he was to speak out of his heart.

Warmth flared inside Syrene’s chest—and in her face—when he did speak.

“I missed you,” he breathed, his shoulders relaxing slightly. “Otsatyas know I shouldn’t have—I didn’t even know I was capable of that certain feeling. But I did. Every passing day, every passing second. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. All the drinks brought you to me—so I drank more than I should have.” His fingers were flexing at his sides, as if he were hauling the confessing out of himself.

He heaved a hand through his wet hair. “Felset set us against each other.” A shame entered his scent as he lifted his fingers to graze his jaw. Syrene recalled it the same moment he did: the merciless punch he’d dealt her a year ago—a courtesy of the Enchanted Queen. “And I despise her much more for it. Felset knew—when she set me to train you … to break you …” He gripped the back of his neck. “She knew I wouldn’t be able to hold my guard against you. She knew breaking you would break me.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to be against you anymore, Syrene. Because being against you has me battling the undiscovered parts of myself. I don’t want to be the person who’s bid to be your foe over and over.”

“You’re not my foe, Azryle,” she managed, all the anger, all the irritation she’d felt mere minutes ago, it’d all singed to a sweet warmth fluttering her heart.

He turned. And the sincerity in his eyes had her chest squeezing. “What am I, then?”

She hesitated. That was the question she herself didn’t have an answer to. Then she simply shrugged. Fine, then. Let all the truths lay bare. “You’re the person I owe more than my life to. The person who may have been assigned to break me—but managed to help me fix myself when I was shredded in every which way. Foes or enemies or rivals don’t do that.” She paused, faltered. “I suppose that makes you my … friend?”

Silence.

Then, slowly, Azryle began advancing towards her. Each step had her heart racing a bit more. “What if I don’t want to be your friend?” he asked. “Friends don’t do what I’ve been wanting to do to you, Syrene.”

Her heart dithered. She swallowed hard as a different sort of heat lay claim to her. “What do you wish to be, then, Azryle?”

He was not a step from her, yet somehow managed to move closer. Syrene’s heart threatened to gash out of her chest when he gripped her chin and lifted it. “Someone who gets to do this.” Slowly, as if savoring each second, he lowered his lips to hers.

Syrene didn’t think she could breathe.

The lightning and fire came alive inside her. She didn’t know whether it was her mejest that roared in her skull and zipped through her veins at the thrill, as it had been the last time—or simply his lips. She couldn’t think—all her thoughts narrowed down to the touch of his lips, as he pried open the way into her mouth with his tongue.

The kiss was slow at first—relishing, and teasing. As if he were waiting for her to object, to deny.

But how could she deny when all her thoughts had dwindled? How could she deny when each inch of her craved him—had been for the past year?

Her body answered before her mind did.

Syrene lifted to her toes, giving herself into the moment, answering to his melody note to note. Her arms slid around his neck, hands balled in his hair. His arm came around her waist and he pressed her to himself, and deepened the kiss, as if he’d imagined this moment over and over and over, and now that it was here, he wanted to clasp it to himself.

Lethal fire bellowed in Syrene’s head, in her very blood, when his tongue found hers, and this time, Syrene didn’t have any thoughts to think over as a moan slid throat.

It was as if any chains fettering him came undone. Azryle gripped her thigh and pressed her against a nearby wall and kissed her so hard that Syrene felt his unruly desire seeping into her own bones.

Her blood thrummed and she was shaking from the need for him.

Her hands roved his shoulders, his neck, his hair. She might even have let out a low impatient snarl when she found cloth instead of skin. She settled one hand at his nape, pulling him closer—if possible—and the other balled in his hair.

The kiss a knife, it ought to bring death. And such sweet end, Syrene welcomed it with her open arms.

Syrene’s mejest swirled in her—lively and lovely. Thrill coursed through her. Kissing Azryle was something she would always crave—even while having it.

Azryle felt like a combination of euphoria and freedom in her life. She lost her senses around him, lost her damned mind and at the same time … Syrene wanted nothing else in the universe but him.

Him.

Azryle Wintershade—her euphoria and her freedom. The combination, she knew, would raze her to ruins.

The kiss deepened until she couldn’t breathe. Yet she didn’t want this to stop. Ever. With him tangled with her, she enjoyed the lack of breaths. Or thoughts.

But Syrene felt him hesitating, felt him giving his all to restrain himself.

Reluctantly, they both pulled apart, breathless. His forehead was still pressed against hers as he breathed down on her face. His lips were swollen and red—like hers, she knew.

Neither spoke for long moments.

“I think I’m ready,” she breathed, finally gaining sense of words.

“For what?” His chest was heaving relentlessly.

At her indication, Azryle stepped back, releasing her, giving her space—but not so far. He was still close enough to feel his breath on her face. Yet, Syrene felt his absence like sharp stabs of ice.

Her hand went for the rim of her shirt. For a moment—only for a moment—she hesitated. Offering him this meant she was allowing him to touch her life like no one else ever had. Allowing him to enter the darkest and the most personal parts of her life.

But Azryle had already touched her life like no one else had. Somehow, she wanted to do this.

She said, “Remember the day before the duel, you offered me a share of your soul. The night of Feast of Melodies—after the Masquerade Ball. After Lord Crevim had …” She bit her lip, and shook her head, abhorring that memory. “Did you know, then, when you came to me? About … about us?”

It took a moment before he shook his head. “I wasn’t leashed to you, then. Your mejest was still there, in my system—I hadn’t fought Felset’s leash then.” He looked away when he said that, as if it shamed him.

“Good.” Syrene pulled off her shirt over her head, and tossed it to the ground.

Azryle’s eyes instantly shot to her face. Exclusively to her face. But then relaxed when he saw the thin undershirt. She caught the roll of his throat that set her lips smiling.

His eyes lowered to her torso—only a thin cloth covering her. His lips parted slightly, and then came his scent. Otsatyas, his scent—

She saw the tremor in his fingers at his sides, as he used all his training to keep herself from touching her.

But she also saw the unsureness. Saw the wall of a certain wounds towering between him and her.

Syrene turned to face the wall, her heart bellowing in her ears. “Today, Azryle, I offer you a part of my soul.”

There was a pause as he understood—grasped the offer she’d lay down for him.

“Syrene …” Azryle rasped. An unspoken question.

She pressed her forehead against the cold stone, and nodded.

She heard the quickening of his heart.

For moments, he did nothing.

Then, gradually, his hands come to the zip of her shirt. His rough knuckles touched her nape, and then went sliding down along her spine as he undid the zip.

Syrene shut her eyes, her hands fisting, as cold air brushed the scars so personal that she feared touching them even herself, afraid what corners she might discover.

The shirt now hung from her shoulders, Syrene wrapped an arm around her stomach to keep it holding.

She felt Azryle’s gaze itching at her back, as rage sparked in his scent.

And not particularly for her. Azryle hadn’t the faintest idea what went on inside Jegvr, what they did to the slaves. No one did, because those who went in came out as broken slaves, or never came out. He’d been obeying Felset’s orders blindly, his mind reined.

But Azryle understood. He’d been a slave for three centuries himself. He understood, and Syrene knew for a fact that when they took down Felset, when he would be king, there would be no slaves to be found in Cleystein.

“Syrene …” he rasped again. This time his voice was tinged with that anger.

“I killed him.” If the overseer had been alive at all.

She heard Ryle swallow.

His thumb scraped her lower back, and sparks burned that spot. Her nails dug in her palms.

His thumb trailed to her waist, igniting invisible flames in its wake.

It skimmed the border of the lowest scar, right before she felt his lips on her shoulder.

His hand began touching the scars now, and Syrene let herself get lost—willed all the thoughts to dwindle, lest regret stretch its nets to her, while his lips came to her ear. “You’re divine, Lifyre.”

Her mejest came alive. Everything inside her seemed to gain life.

He’d called her that word before. A year ago. The word that’d pulled her out from the depths Felset had attempted to entrap her mind in.

She wanted to ask what that meant—wanted to, but the thoughts slipped when Azryle kissed her scars, and salvaged her soul.

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