Abolisher [Drothiker #2]

34.

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

Secrets.

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."