29. Nora

29

NORA

" T ake me to Bramble."

Silas jolts, straightening his back and shoulders from where he leans against the wall in my living room, one foot bent against the green wallpaper. He's focused, conveniently, on twiddling the silver rings he wears, pretending that he wasn't eavesdropping on our conversation.

I don't want him in my space—when Wrath told us about what happened, I had thought Silas would drop me off outside the building, but no, we landed right in my office. Then he followed me, like a second shadow, up to my rooms under the guise of kingly duty .

I hadn't the nerve to fight him. The urge to see Imogen safe was too strong.

" Now , Silas."

His brows raise to his hairline at my bark. He pushes off from the wall with grace, strutting over to me. My fingers twitch at my side, my entire body trembling with restless anger.

"Yes, ma'am," he taunts. He points to the green and black wings mounted on the wall. "Nice decor, by the way. Very unique."

"If you don't want me to snap this last tether, you need to take me to Bramble right now," I snap.

Silas is shocked into seriousness. He nods, understanding shifting his features. He holds his hand out, and I go to take it but pause when I realize both our hands are bare.

Silas huffs a frustrated sigh. "I'm not afraid of you, Nora."

His hand quickly grabs mine. The world swirls around us, an inky swath of darkness that fills every space between us. It's weightless, traveling by shadow; the only sensation being that of who you are grounded to. In this case, that's the rough pads of Silas's fingertips and the cool metal of his rings on my palm.

I rip my hand free of his as soon as we step onto the white, snowy fields outside Mt. Bramble's entrance.

Flurries catch in my lashes as I storm to the cave, my heartbeat filling my ears. The thin strap of control I have on my rage snaps, and the world blurs around me as I fall into my feelings. It's always the same when I get triggered, as if I've jumped off a cliff, and the rush of air overwhelms my senses.

It's in the fall that I attempt to compartmentalize. I try to pack away the disappointment in myself—the shame of not doing something more to stop the bad things from happening to those I love.

I'm still not powerful enough to stop them.

Still not powerful enough to stop him .

A need churns my gut. It sets my limbs on fire, the restlessness.

I storm through the complex, taking the stairs two at a time and relishing the way it burns my thighs. Footsteps follow mine, Silas tracking me all the way to the roof.

Some would give me platitudes, try to reason with me—tell me that it wasn't my fault that this happened to Imogen. She was right to say my anger was misplaced at Josie. The blame lies with me and Patience alone.

Others would try to fix the issue for me, try to problem solve and use action to cope—and while that should be the option for me, it doesn't help.

The past isn't something that can be problem solved . The future? Sure. But what's happened has happened. I cannot change the past, and that's the issue. The mistake has already been made.

I let Imogen fall into the hands of my enemy, and I almost lost her because of it.

Thankfully, Silas serves me neither platitudes nor solutions as he walks a pace behind me.

Does he understand my need for release?

When I finally burst through the metal door to the mountaintop, I scream.

I pull my gun from its holster at my side, and direct all that burning fire inside of me at the snow-covered targets. White puffs explode with each bullet, and far too soon, I'm pulling an empty trigger.

I throw the gun down, the hot metal melting the snow underneath it, and storm to the storage closet. I hold my hand out, staring at the little lock.

"Key, please," I grind out.

But instead of a physical key landing in my palm, shadows curl around the lock, breaking it. The pieces fall into the snow.

The jerking of the rifle into my shoulder each time I pull the trigger steadies my heart, gives it a rhythm to follow.

When there are no bullets left in the gun, and no ammunition left in me to keep going, I collapse in the snow. The cold wet seeps into my hair and my clothes, but I don't care. It's a salve on my burning soul.

Snow crunches next to me, and out of my periphery, Silas copies me, making an angel in the white fluff. He lies there, unspeaking, both of us sinking deeper into the mountaintop.

If I stay here, let my body freeze in the snow, will time stop with my heart?

"I need to kill him, Silas," I say. "It's not a want anymore."

"You will," he promises.

"When?"

"I'm calling a meeting with the Sins in two days. Your doctor said Lust should be recovered by then," he answers me plainly, which I'm thankful for. "We'll get our revenge soon enough."

"Good."

The finality of the word echoes between the white-dusted cliffsides that tower around us. We lay there for who knows how long—until the clouds have finished their trek across the sky and our bones have gone numb from the cold.

"Tell me, Nora, when is a king not a king?"

My head turns to him, my cheek pressing into the icy ground. Silas stares off into the snowy peaks around us, searching for something we cannot see. My breath curls around me, floating into the sky.

"I don't know. When?"

"Even when he's dead, a king is still a king," he says. "But when he is alone, he is simply himself."

Silas's head turns to me.

I'm sucked into his eyes; the twin black holes are an endless abyss holding everything and nothing at the same time. In them, I find myself, something not completely whole, but not empty either— a kindred spirit .

"When I am here, I am just Silas. And it seems that when you are here, you are just Nora."

When I am with you, I am just Silas, the shadows that curl at our backs whisper.

His unrelenting gaze bores into me.

The hair on my neck stands on end, and my chest caves in on itself. Because I think the Unseelie King may be my friend.

I turn back to the sky.

"If you ever need this escape, it's here for you," Silas says. "But right now, you need to get back to your lover."

"Yeah," I say. "I do."

And when he reaches his hand out, I take it.