Abolisher [Drothiker #2]

6.

Syrene Alpenstride slid out of the apartment a couple hours before dawn.

Even as silence stretched far and wide, she walked along the shadows of the alley, hidden from any eyes, picking her way to the Stone Chamber. The tavern was situated at the corner of the alley, right before the dead end.

The chill weather had Syrene's teeth clattering; her breath visualized as soon as it escaped. It was good—the frigid weather. It helped keep the power in her veins at bay. Kept it slumbering, numb. Summers in Silvervale were rare—aside from the town's anonymity, that had been another reason why Syrene had chosen Silvervale to hide in.

But now, as she walked down the spooky alley once again, she wondered whether she would have chosen this town at all, if she'd known of the eeriness.

Maybe. Maybe not.

She didn't waste breath thinking on it.

As Syrene neared the Stone Chamber, she caught a hint of gleaming lavender hair as they captured the moonlight. Heard the whisper of wind as the man looming outside the tavern whirled when heard her approaching.

Syrene kept a loose rein on her stealth as she went, just enough so the man would hear her advancing, and not get startled and shriek.

His face cleared, and Syrene caught that familiar curious glint in his eyes. Still thriving, still fuming like an outrageous fire in those olive eyes. Syrene had envied it once—that glint—when she'd just been half alive in that fortress, when she'd been too exhausted to summon any sort of curiosity in herself. And this man ... he'd had such lively inquisitiveness in those eyes—so intense that it seemed to have been keeping him alive—when everyone in that fortress had been miserable from slavery.

It had felt unfair.

And now, as Syrene neared Eliver Domwil, she saw that curiosity as her salvation. Saw the answers to the questions that had been driving her insane.

Eliver's eyes were wide with awe when she stepped before him, as if he hadn't quite expected her to be real, to be in one piece.

Syrene nodded her greeting. "Eliver."

Eliver breathed, "Holy burning Saqa." His breath clouded before his mouth.

Syrene waited as that fanatic spark in his eyes grew enough to take over those large eyes wholly.

"You—you're ..." He trailed off. Widened olive-green eyes scanned Syrene head-to-toe for moments and moments. Then, "You're intact."

This was the man who had gotten convicted to Jegvr due to his eternal interest in Drothiker. This was the man who hadn't shut up about the forbidden device, and made every slave want to rip their ears out. It would take a while for him to take Syrene in.

Elite Kaerions and Drothiker ... they held Eliver Domwil's interest like a human body might hold intestines. Like a sky might hold moon and stars.

Being a Kaerion with Drothiker in her veins, for him, Syrene might as well had been an otsatya. She cringed at the thought.

"Can I— Can I see it?" Eliver asked. "It's in your veins, right—can you summon it?"

"Eliver—"

"You said in your letter that you need help—"

"No, I said I want answers."

"But you—you do have it in—in yourself. That means you're the last heir of the King of Hemvae. No—no, you're the last full-hemvae." His eyes again trailed her covered body with that curious gaze. "That means you have zegruks—but you don't have them on your face like Prince Azryle—and I've seen your hands before, you didn't have them on there either ..."