“Shh!” I snap, holding my hand to my lips as if the gesture could somehow magnify the sound’s importance. We’ve only flown a few hundred feet away from the rest of the Ddraigs. I really don’t want them to know about my weakness. “The whole camp doesn’t need to know what we’re up to, Siri.”
“Then get it right, so I don’t have to shout,” Siri bites back, baring her teeth at me in frustration. “Although, if you ever do manage to keep me out of your head, I may roar louder than the river just to celebrate the occasion.”
“I’m doing the best I can!” I hiss, sitting on a rock with my legs crossed and my arms tight around my chest. “Why can’t you just shield my thoughts, Siri?”
“I thought I was,” Siri mutters under her breath, stomping through the rocks to work off a little of her tension. “But believe it or not, I’m not perfect. Lady Vatusia managed to get through my defenses to get to you. This particular Vibría is strong; you need to be able to shield yourself too. Maybe she won’t succeed again if we both have mental defenses for her to break.”
My face scrunches up as if I’ve just smelled a five-day-old dead fish left out on the river bank. “That’s not the answer I was hoping for.”
“You look like a petulant child having a tantrum because you didn’t win a game,” Siri smirks, smoke hissing from her nostrils.
“Give her a break,” Cyrus chides, leaning his head back onto Suryc’s black scales. They’ve been silent witnesses to this entire training session, so I suspect Cyrus’s nerves are about as raw as mine. He speaks through gritted teeth as he faces Siri and confronts her. “You just started all this mental training today; you can’t expect her to figure it out after one practice.”
“This is a threat that has to be taken seriously, Cyrus!” Siri exclaims, but her words lose some of their biting ire. “If she doesn’t learn to guard her thoughts from external influencers, then anyone with the Vibría ’s talents and strength can affect her visions. They could—”
“I get it, Siri! I understand the danger we’re in,” I whimper, struggling to hold back tears. “Just try it again!”
“Fine,” Siri snorts, focusing her silvery eyes on me. I see no pity or empathy in her; instead, she looks coldly at me. Emotionless, as if I am her next meal. “Block me out of your thoughts,” she commands, but staring at the massive predator in front of me, I can do nothing but quake in fear.
Feebly, I try to form the image of a cloudy sky in my mind’s eye like she taught me. Imagining myself in the center of these puffy, grey clouds, I examine the scene carefully, searching for any holes or weak points where Siri’s thoughts could infiltrate. To me, the sky looks flawless. It’s like a stormy day in the spring, and it’s so detailed that I can almost smell the fresh, clean scent of the coming rain.
However, as I watch the clouds floating on their lazy paths, I see Siri’s silver eyes appear in the darkest shadows of the vapors. Her dark claws scratch and rip through the cottony forms, shredding through the shield until I see my Ddraig standing in the middle of a field of darkness. She opens her mouth and roars, white-hot fire bursting into the surrounding black void, ripping me out of my thoughts and back into the corporeal world.
“Not good enough!” Siri growls, pacing around the cavern in agitation. “What’s it going to take to get you focused, Iris?”
“Yelling at her won’t help, Siri, so hush,” Cyrus challenges, rising from his seat beside Suryc and walking over to my side. Without a word, he drops to sit beside me on my rocky perch, close enough that our shoulders touch. It’s like an unspoken gift, a gesture of support, and I feel myself lean heavily against his arm, soaking up his warmth as if it could somehow bring me success.
“Siri, come with me. Let’s go hunt for a while. I think you need a snack,” Suryc suggests, spreading his onyx wings and rising up into the fading light. Wordlessly Siri follows, slipping out of sight like a silent ghost.
“What’s going on in your head, sweetheart?” Cyrus whispers, his voice gentle and full of concern.
“When did you get so level headed?” I grumble, wringing my hands just to give them something to do. “It hasn’t been that long ago since I feared you were going to kill yourself or go insane. Yet you haven’t had trouble in ages. What’s changed?”
“Suryc’s been helping me with my nightmares. He’s already taught me a lot of what you’re learning now,” Cyrus replies with a shrug, staring out at the sunset. The sun drifts low on the horizon, painting the sky with hues of marigold. “A golden sky,” Cyrus muses, one corner of his mouth lifting in a crooked smile. “Old folklore would say that when the sun sets in gold, the next day will bring triumphs untold.”
“Maybe I should just quit trying this stuff until tomorrow then,” I mutter, silently hoping that old rhyme is correct.
Cyrus sighs, sensing that his attempt to bring me out of my brooding has not worked. “Being closer with you has helped me more than anything. I don’t feel so alone anymore,” Cyrus explains, his voice growing soft. “Suryc tried the same methods with me, but I couldn’t make them work either. For weeks I struggled and failed to keep my nightmares caged in a cloudless sky. Eventually, I just started experimenting on my own. To shield my mind, I needed something stronger. Personal.”
“Like what?”
“Well,” Cyrus hesitates, eyeing my expression warily before explaining, “I asked myself, ‘Why does Suryc want me to use a cloudy sky?’ And the only answer I could come up with is that Suryc loves days like that. It must be one of his favorite things, to soar high and skim the clouds, to feel their dew on his wings. So naturally, that made me wonder about what I love that dearly. What do I cling to so strongly that the very image of it would be enough to block out every outside thing?”
“That makes a lot of sense,” I reply, growing excited as hope bursts to life in my chest. “If I think of my most beloved, cherished things, then I might be able to block Siri out of my head. Maybe that old folklore is right; tomorrow will bring me triumph after all.” My mind races as I try to discern what it is that I hold most dear. Falling silent, I worry my lip between my teeth. “I…I don’t know what to use,” I admit, defeat crashing down on me, quashing the tender hope that was only just kindled in my heart.
Cyrus sits beside me, saying nothing. He focuses intently on the sunset, deliberately keeping his gaze off me. I can practically feel him willing me not to ask the question waiting on my tongue. Even to my own ears, I know the words sound terribly nosy. It’ll sound like I’m asking Cyrus to rip open his heart, to lay his mind bare before me just so I can scrutinize him. But I have to know what works, I rationalize, giving voice to the query. “Cyrus, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. But could you tell me what you think about when you build your mental defenses?”
Cyrus loses the breath I hadn’t realized he was holding, his eyes drifting closed. “You sure you want me to answer that?” he replies, his voice deepening with the rawness of his emotion. “Because I’ll tell you. But if I do, and you don’t like what you hear, you don’t have the right to get angry at me for speaking. So be very sure you really want to hear these words, Iris.”
I swallow hard, shivering as I consider my response carefully. My heartbeat thunders in my ears as loud as a stampeding horse’s hooves. The silence grows unbearable. I suspect I know what he’s going to say, and I know I should stop him. Yet, the need to hear these forbidden words spoken aloud is a nagging whisper in the back of my mind that I find I can no longer ignore. “Tell me,” I rasp, turning my face to the sunset, struggling to calm down before my heart gives out.
Yet Cyrus will not let me escape. Gently he cups my cheeks, turning my head until I am eye to eye with him. “I think of you, Iris. You are my shield. I knit together a blanket of memories in my mind, and it is so strong that nothing can break through it. When the faces that haunt me appear, I hide in the memory of your smile. I trace the form of your
cheek, brush my fingers through your shock of white hair. I get lost in every detail of your stormy eyes. I hear your laughter brightening up the darkest corners of my thoughts, weaving mischievously through each moment. I taste your kiss. I allow myself to spin fantasies of what our life together might be like if you will just be brave. You are the thing most beloved and precious to my heart, Iris. You always have been. When I think of you, I am strong. When I focus on you, nothing can break me.”
I swallow hard against the knot in my throat, focusing on Cyrus’s scars just to keep my mind clear as I process his words. Even though I knew what he would say, I have no response. Not because I don’t feel anything—quite the contrary. I just can’t seem to find the words to say what’s in my heart.
We’ve come a long way since the House of Vultures, I admit to myself, my hands longing to trace the lines of his features. I hated you so much then. How strange, then, that I can hold you in my heart as dearly as I do now. My head grows heavy, and I wish that I could comfortably lean against his shoulder. That we could just stay right here and watch the sunset together, content to be in each other’s company forever, letting the rest of the world fight its own battles as we embrace our little corner of peaceful paradise.
Despite all the emotions welling up in my heart, my mouth stays tightly closed. It’s fear. I chide myself for not acting on my feelings. The only thing that’s stopping you is fear. My throat bobs nervously, my lip trembles as my emotions plague me, but not a word do I speak.
My silence is magnified by the intensity of Cyrus’s confession. “Say something, Iris,” he demands, his hands falling away from my face. When I don’t, he hops down from the rock, walking briskly away from me. He makes it about ten steps away, then stops, keeping his back to me.
The absence of him suddenly stifles me, and I feel as if I’ve just plunged myself head first into the River Sangre. All of my unspoken words choke me. I see him standing so far away, and my limbs beg me to run to him. My heart burns in my chest, the pain so strong that I wonder if I’m having a heart attack. “Cyrus,” I wheeze, my hands clenching so tightly to my legs that I can feel my nails biting into my thighs.
Cyrus turns, glancing back at me with a hard glint in his eyes. “What?”
“Come…here,” I rasp, my breath hitching in bursts as I try to breathe. It’s like my lungs have closed to protect me from drowning. I claw at my chest, but I cannot draw a fresh breath.
“Why?” Cyrus hesitates, keeping his feet rooted in place as he watches me. “I keep pouring my heart out to you, hoping things will change between us. But it always ends up one sided; I always end up playing the fool.”
“Please,” I whisper, shuddering as my lungs finally open, gasping for clean air as the panic in my mind slowly fades.
“I can’t keep doing this, Iris. Give me a reason,” Cyrus replies, turning his back to me once more as he watches the sunset. “Or tell me if you can’t so I can leave.”
“Suryc and Siri would not—”
“I’d leave Suryc behind then,” Cyrus declares, his voice hard as he calls to me over his shoulder. “If he and Siri cannot be parted, then I’ll walk away alone. Is that what you want?”
Dropping lightly down onto the grass, I stalk up behind Cyrus as quietly as I can, thinking of what I could possibly say that might soften his heart toward me just once more. With each footfall, I hear my voice whispering all the words I would use to describe Cyrus. Strong, certain. Pure, perfect. Mine.
The last word catches fire in my blood, burning away the fear that has been holding me back. Cyrus is mine. Despite—or maybe because of—everything that has passed between us, he has always been mine. All the words I’ve been longing to say flow easily from my mouth now as if whatever hindrances were keeping them dammed up inside me have finally been removed. I close the distance between us confidently now, wrapping my arms around Cyrus’s waist.
“When I was little, I used to think of you as a forest sprite,” I whisper as I settle against his back, sharing my memories with a soft voice. “I used to sit at my window waiting for you to appear. I made up fanciful stories about how you were born of the trees, and I would watch the forest, hoping to catch a glimpse of you in your tree form.” My eyes cloud as the memories of those childhood days overtake me. “When you stopped coming to my window, I was devastated. I cried for days.”
“I thought you would hate me with my scars.” Cyrus whispers, his voice rough. I cannot tell whether or not my sudden boldness or the topic of my speech surprises him most.
Guiding him to raise his arm, I slide around until I can see his face once more. His arms settle around me naturally, their warmth like a blanket on a cold winter night. Now, I let my fingers trace the scar from his forehead to his neck, stopping only once over his wobbling lips. “How could I hate the boy that brought the world to my window? I thought…I thought you had stopped coming because you thought I was boring.”
Cyrus raises one hand, grazing his calloused fingers along my jaw. “You have always been fascinating to me.”
“And you have always been mine. My heart chose you long ago. I’m only sorry it’s taken me so long to listen. Whatever the future holds for us, I know I cannot keep fighting against you. The thought of losing you only brings me more anxiety and trouble.” My voice wavers as I whisper his name, my fingers pressing softly to his lips to silence him. “So, don’t go, Cyrus. Because I love you.”
Pain radiates through my arm, shock appearing in Cyrus’s eyes as he startles away from my touch. The ivory, crisscrossing lines of my Dadeni bond with Siri come alive, glistening with a molten fire. The initial spark of the fire in my skin fades to a dull, slow burn. Fascinated, I watch as thin slivers of silver, scale-like markings bleed out of my fingers into the air. They shift and blend before my eyes like smoke. Beside me, Cyrus has a similar peculiarity, the only difference being the color of the smoky apparitions before him.
“What is this?” he wonders as the whiteness of my Dadeni lines swirl with the darkness of his. Everything slows when they touch, and I feel a flare of pain as the dark smoke writhes onto my skin, twisting like gnarled branches, knotting itself into the remaining silver binds on my arms. On Cyrus, I see my silver threads like spider silk caught on the dark brambles of his remaining marks. The scar on his face glows with my silver fire, and I wonder if he shows somewhere on my face too. It is over in a moment, the pain like the shadowed pressure from a burning kiss.
“My heart chose you,” I repeat the sentiment even as I hear Siri’s heavy footfalls crashing up in the grass behind me. “I believe that was the coupling bond Siri’s been hounding me about.”
“And I can’t believe I missed it!” Siri howls, silver sparks of fire erupting all around us in her excitement.
“Stop that, or you’ll start a wildfire!” I admonish with a laugh, captivated by the way the fire glitters in Cyrus’s eyes.
“I’m going to tell the others Ddraigs; we have much to celebrate tonight,” Siri announces, practically trotting like a dog as she hurries off to complete her chore.
“What about you, love?” Cyrus asks with a crooked smile. “Off to celebrate or plan for tomorrow’s troubles?”
“We still have a lot to do,” I agree, trying not to laugh as Cyrus’s face grows somber. “But I think the worries and burdens we carry can wait another night. What do you think?”
Cyrus’s soft chuckle and answering kiss is all the reply I need.
***
Helena’s eyes fly open with the rising sun, her heart pounding forcefully in her chest. The strength of the spasm is such that her lungs will not expand. She desperately claws at her throat, digging her fingernails into her skin as if she intends to burrow into her trachea and release the spent air poisoning her lungs. Burning, lancing pain erupts through her nerves, pulsing in time with her heartbeat. It’s as though her body is being struck repeatedly by lightning, and eac
h strike grows in intensity as breathless seconds pass.
Until, finally, her autonomic senses retake control. Helena gasps wildly as fresh air enters her throat, rolling off the infirmary bed onto her hands and knees. A single, terrified sob racks through her as she struggles to calm down. Seconds drag into agonizing, slow-passing minutes before Helena feels strong enough to move. She crawls her way back onto the infirmary bed, sitting upright on the edge of the mattress.
“I was dreaming,” she realizes, turning her head to inspect the surrounding sick beds, searching for any signs of life in the room. Finding no one, Helena lays her head back on the pillow, wiping a hand across her cold, sweat covered brow.
It was so real, Helena whimpers as she recalls her dream, a shiver shuddering through her bones. I was crouching on the floor between two nameless guards, kneeling before Alaric and a strange man I’ve never met. Ithel was across from me, a grim, hard look of determination on his face. He seemed to stare over my head as if he could not be bothered to notice me.
Doors opened at the back of the room, and I watched in horror as my daughter was dragged before the king. She was beaten, and not just in a physical nature. While her face and arms were covered with purplish bruises, it was the empty look in her eyes that really pained me. It was like staring into the eyes of a long-dead ghost. I called out to her, but she did not react. She was so far lost in her grief and agony that I’m not entirely sure she could hear me.
She offered no resistance as the guards jostled her into a standing position. She spoke not a word as Alaric taunted and teased her, his words incomprehensible to my ears. But I clearly heard the scream burst from my throat the moment Alaric released Ithel, giving him one simple command. “Kill her,” Alaric declared with an airy wave, turning his back on the scene as he marched back to his throne.
Brood of Vipers Page 20
