Chapter 45

When I was younger and learning to hunt, Theon taught me to claim my kill immediately, never to leave it in the woods where predators might smell it and take it as their own. I would have done well to heed his advice here at Scarwood. I should have left the same second I snapped Sin's tether, returned home and looked for Cosmina with the help of my family. But instead, I clung to a seed of hope after seeing the faintest glimmer of something gentle tucked away deep inside him. Somewhere along the way, I dropped my heart and left it for the lurking wolf to claim.

And he fucking devoured it.

Cosmina lowers her arm, and I search both of her eyes with my own. Fear glitters in her light blue irises, even now, with my arms wrapped around her tight and our bodies pressed together. Her body trembles, her limbs adjusting to being without the iron turning her blood to lead.

He did this.

While I was risking everything for the sake of Sin's war, wrestling with my own conflicting feelings towards him, he was holding my sister captive.

Not Legion.

Not Sera.

Him.

Everything goes still. My bones harden as if they've been petrified in place, my limbs stiffening like thick spring bark, and I wish I could sprout roots from my feet and bury myself in the organic material. Sin calls my name from behind me, but I barely hear him over the chattering of every moment we spent together replaying in my head, over and over.

"What happened?" I ask Cosmina, my voice barely audible.

She coughs to clear her throat, the sound strangled as her poor lungs are as weak as the rest of her. "I went looking for you when you disappeared. By the time I caught up with Legion, they had just attacked a kingdom outpost. I came to Scarwood to report your disappearance because I knew Legion had taken you—I had no idea you were already here. When I told the Black Art who I was looking for, he had me locked up. They… they did things to me to give them information on you… kept saying you were a Legion spy. They thought I was too. Eventually, they grew tired of asking and left me chained in the cell. Fucking pig," Cosmina spits at the ground, and when she raises her eyes behind me, I know whom she's boring her menacing stare into.

I crush her against me, tears falling into her hair as images of the torment she must have endured flash in my mind. She suffered trying to rescue me. All the while I was dancing in elegant ball gowns with her captor. Dancing and… other unspeakable things.

Shame burns through me.

Cornelius walks forward and hovers a few feet away from us. "After you told me you fought Legion because they were holding your sister, I confirmed with Seraphine we didn't have her. We've been working with Legion for a while, and I never knew of any plan about sisters. If we didn't have her, it only made sense that our enemy did. I found her in a cell beneath the castle, hidden with illusive magic. I got her out before we unleashed the alchemist fire," Cornelius explains.

"How did you find her? You're a transcendent?" I ask. Naturally proficient with illusive magic, a transcendent could have sniffed out her location easily enough, as long as they were searching in the right place.

"No. There's a… a bit more to us than that. Come with us, and you'll see for yourself."

I should have known.

All the time I spent sifting through the complicated mix of emotions rooted in Sin's collective, and I still didn't see it. He let me think he was doing me a favor by allowing me to return home, all the while knowing I would find Cosmina missing, springing his plan into action. He knew I'd offer my aid when I suspected Legion took her—that's why he accepted my offer to fight alongside him so quickly. And that's why he didn't want me rummaging around in his head, because he feared if I looked hard enough, I'd uncover the betrayal he'd stowed away in there.

"Please let me explain, Wren."

Sin's voice shatters the last of my resolve, and I slowly turn to face him. "Is it true?"

He doesn't move for a long moment, and then in a voice softer than I've ever heard from him, he answers, "Yes."

I knew it was true. I didn't need to ask, but I wanted him to look me in the eye and admit what he had done. Tears sting my eyes as they dribble down my cheeks, and I turn my back to him.

"It is time for us to take our leave. Will you be joining us, Wren?" Sera asks.

"Lead the way."

Cosmina steps out from under my arm, and we follow after Sera's group now leaving through the tunnels.

"No. Wren, no—stop!" Sin says, grabbing my arm and pulling me to a halt.

I spin on my heel and shove my hands into his chest as I push him away. "Every. Single. Day. Every day you let me worry myself sick, imagining what terrible things Legion must be doing to her. And every time you looked at me, you knew she was rotting away beneath our feet. There is nothing you can say to me, Singard. Nothing!" I shout the last word.

Cosmina stops in the gate and turns to look at me. I nod for her to go ahead, and she disappears in the tunnel with the rest of the group. Sin's soldiers scatter back towards the castle, beginning to clean up the debris and tend to those injured in the attack, leaving Sin and me staring at each other in the middle of the courtyard.

"I didn't want this to happen," he placates.

"Is that so? Pray tell, when exactly did you decide you didn't want this to happen? Was it before or after you tortured my sister and lied to my face? Before or after you convinced me to slaughter an army for you? Before or after you used me for a goodfuck, Singard?"

"It wasn't like that. Wren, I swear to you, it was never like that," he says, putting his hands up as if to caution my anger.

"You're a godsdamned monster," I choke through the tears falling faster now.

"Your sister came here right after you did. I thought you were both working with Legion, so yes, I… questioned her."

"Tortured her," I correct.

He sighs but doesn't deny it. "I made a horrible mistake. When Cathal told me what you were, your secrecy made sense, and I realized Cosmina had been telling the truth when she said you had nothing to do with Legion. But I still didn't trust you. I had no idea who you were or what you were planning. All I knew was I wanted you on our side when we met Legion head on. You were an asset I wasn't willing to lose, and I didn't tell you about your sister because she was leverage if I needed to force your hand. I wanted to tell you. The night after we went to the temple, I wanted to tell you so badly, but I knew you'd be furious, and you wouldn't have fought the same if you didn't think they had her. You didn't hesitate killing them because you thought you were doing it for her."

I capture my bottom lip between my teeth and shake my head. If it was possible to hurt more, I do as his words pierce my chest as if they could carve out my heart and plop it on a silver platter.

An asset.

"Do you bed all your assets, Your Grace?" I ask, resting my hands in the divots of my waist.

Sin takes another step towards me but halts when I fling my hand towards him, my own fire magic simmering in my palm. I lower it when he nods in acknowledgment and backs off.

"What happened between us after the war… that was never a part of the plan. When I followed you into my study, I felt a… a hunger I never have before, and it wasn't just the caster's high. It was like the high kept me from hiding how I felt about you. How I've always felt about you."

"Save it," I say, no longer meeting his eyes, unable to stomach looking at him for a second longer.

"I didn't know how to let you go," he continues. "I didn't want to. I knew when I released your sister and you learned what I'd done… I couldn't bear the thought of losing you like that. I planned on sending you away when I returned from the city, but seeing you at the ball… there it was again. This feeling like if I let you leave, I wouldn't be able to breathe. It was selfish and wrong, but I couldn't let you go. But after we… again…" he waves his hand to imply our coupling in the throne room, "I was so furious with myself, and I knew I needed to let you go. That's why I was sending you away, because when you were safe and home, I was going to release her and make sure she was returned safely. I just couldn't bear seeing your face when you learned what I'd done."

I try to fight back the tears, but they rush down my cheeks. I run my hands through my hair, gripping the roots too hard as if feeling the pain in my scalp will lessen the ache in my chest. "You know what the worst part is, Singard? It isn't the lies or the betrayal… no. It's that I didn't even see it coming. I read your collective so many times, and I couldn't see the manipulation through all the guilt you feel about yourself. I actually felt bad for you—I wanted to take that pain from you. If I could have, I would have, to spare you from that hurt, and now I don't know which one of us that makes more pathetic."

"Wren," his voice cracks around my name.

"I TRUSTED YOU!" The words fall out before I can stop them. "I brought your enemies to their knees before you, and I would have turned them to dust had you simply asked me to. You watched as I ripped their blood from their skins and as I fought to hold onto my humanity. And all the while you stood there, KNOWING it was for NOTHING!"

"You'll never know how sorry I am. For all of it," he whispers, lines creasing his forehead. "Don't leave with them. Leave me, leave this place, but don't join them, Wren."

"Why not? Are you worried I'll expose your little secret? Imagine how your own mother will feel when she learns her son is killing his own kind."

"Because we're going to war with them," he growls.

A humorless laugh rattles from my chest. "Scared?"

"Yes. But not for the reason you're thinking."

"So, not because you're worried they'll finally tear your godsforsaken kingdom down, piece by piece and limb by limb, with me on their side?"

He shakes his head softly. "Because they won't win, Wren. And I don't want you on their side when the fighting begins. I cannot protect you if you're on enemy lines."

"Protect me? You forced me into servitude, and now you're worried about me getting hurt?"

"It's different now. We are different now."

"We are nothing," I spit.

He's against me in a blink, his chest brushing mine and his hand cradling my cheek. "I have never felt this way about anyone. And I know you feel it too. I would burn the realm to ash to keep you safe, but if you join them, you are making a direct threat against the kingdom. I know you're furious with me, but don't… don't do this, love."

When I rise onto my tiptoes and crush my mouth to his, heat explodes between our bodies like a million stars raining down on us.

And I know our fate is as sealed as our lips.

With a final tug of his hair between my fingers, I pull away, eyeing the fire now feasting inside the turrets behind him. It's only destruction magic, nothing he won't be able to put out quickly, but my intent is as palpable as the flames licking the castle's guts.

Turning my back on him, I dart through the open portcullis, Cosmina pausing when she hears my racing footfalls. My sister gives me a knowing look, noting the tears staining my flushed cheeks, my reaction to the Black Art's betrayal too visceral to stem from anger alone. When she opens her arms to me, I throw myself against her, tucking my head against her bony chest, and she wraps her frail arms around me.

An unearthly yowl pierces the caliginous night, the sound of Sin's torment sinking into the cracks of my fracturing heart. I slam my hand to my chest as if I could stop myself from shattering completely, but his pain bleeds through my fingers and seeps through every splintered nerve until I can no longer separate his suffering from my own.

Smoke swells into the sky as the remains of the fire I birthed in the castle rises to the heavens, carrying my message along with it.

War is coming.

To be continued…

Wren and Sin's story will continue in The Bonds That Break Us.