Masks of Fire and Shadow

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Cylas

~

"I know I am the knife's edge she risks herself on, yet still she reaches, unafraid of the cut."

I wake with a start, unaware of my surroundings as I take in the cavernous bedroom around me. My mind reels, and all I can really remember last is the sound of her voice as she told she was forbidden from seeing me. It's technically a royal decree, which means...

Fuck.

Which meant if anyone did catch me here, I would be dead.

But the thought that terrifies me more was that, in that circumstance, she would also be dead.

Eowyn, whose sleeping form beneath me shifts with a soft whimper of protest in her sleep as I lift myself up on my elbow, supporting my weight above her. Two perfect parallel lines form between her brows, furrowed as she sleeps and I frown at the thought that anything negative would ever plague her.

I still can't put a name to whatever this feeling is in me that pulls me to her like this. It's driving me to the very edge of insanity, and I can feel myself spiraling downward into her, even with how much I want her to pull me in completely.

Scaling a ten-story tall sheer stone faced castle wall with my bare hands was crazy enough, but now my heartbeat quickens at the idea of one of the Bitch Queen's guards finding me here. Eowyn's handmaiden I tentatively trusted, but if word got back to Vespera...

A cold shiver runs its way up my spine. I can't risk Eowyn's safety like that. I can't risk anything happening to her, not because of me.

With a quiet grunt, I gingerly ease my arm out from underneath Eowyn's pillow. I freeze when she squirms, whimpering as the breeze from the balcony caresses her back, and I lean over to soothe her back into sleep, pulling her covers up around her shoulders. She settles into them, the creases between her brows disappearing with a light sigh.

My body slouches in relief, and I gently shove myself off of her mattress and head for the open doors. I tell myself I'm making the right move, that she'll wake up and she'll know that it's for the best. She had been trying to warn me of her mother's orders anyway, so I'll just chalk it up to that.

Or something. I don't know. The farther away I get from her bed, from her sleeping soundly in belief that I'm beside her, the more the tight panicked feeling in my chest becomes. I reach the threshold of the balcony, letting my head fall back to rest against the frame.

"What the fuck are you doing," I mumur to myself. Nothing but silence responds. I heave a deep sigh, and shaky my head as if to clear it. None of this made sense to me. I've never experienced this before- barely knowing someone but constantly having the feeling that I need to be around them. To protect them, keep them safe.

It was infuriating. I hated the gnawing gut feeling, the now-constant reminder that the useless lump of coal beneath my ribcage still beat. Still felt. And there was a part of me that was angry that every time she looked at me, something ignited so viciously within my chest that I felt like I was in flames. When she smiles, or the way her nose scrunches when she snorts with a laugh.

Sylvaneth don't do this. My race, my people. We don't venture outside of our comfort zones, or do anything reckless. We are born and bred to be mindless killing machines, or cold, aloof commanders. My people are about efficiency, and nothing about the last couple weeks have been efficient at all. My tongue runs over where my Primaries have been filed down, my body's self-created tic to nervous energy to remind myself to steady myself.

I need fresh air. I need to run, to work this feeling off. For a moment, I miss the forge until an annoying, nagging voice sounds in my head.

"The forge is too far away from her," it says, and I clench my jaw to silence the hiss that threatens to escape my teeth.

Fine. More stone-grappling wall climbing it is then, I bargain with myself. At least then, I wouldn't be far from her, and this voice gripping my thoughts can shut up.

I effortlessly step up onto the stone railing of the balcony, looking up at the intimidating tower above me that seems to disappear into the night sky as I grip my fingers between the stones, and begin the climb up.