Slaying the Vampire Conqueror(92)

If he tried to protect me, he would die.

I held my hand out behind me, a single splayed palm that I prayed told him clearly, Stop.

And what did it say that a childish part of me, the part of me who had been raised by this woman, couldn’t stand to see Atrius kill her—or the other way around?

What was she doing here?

I hadn’t asked for backup. They certainly hadn’t indicated they would give me any. But perhaps I had been wrong when I’d interpreted my unanswered call to the Keep as a sign that the Arachessen had discovered my betrayal.

Perhaps she had changed her mind.

Perhaps she had come here, knowing we were coming for the Pythora King and... and killed him before we could.

It didn’t make sense. But it was the only scenario I could string together.

I was normally good with words, good with playing different roles while thinking fast. But my confusion slipped to the surface now, despite myself.

“I don’t—did you do this, Sightmother?” I gestured to the king—the corpse, more like it. “After all this time, have we finally—”

The Sightmother approached me, step by step, and cupped my cheek. She smiled. Her touch was overwhelming—she let all her emotions pour through it. Intense motherly love, fifteen years worth of it. The pride of a commanding officer.

And sheer, bloody, cold-as-steel anger. Anger that only cut deeper for all the warmth she felt, burying into my gut and twisting.

Her smile soured as her lip curled.

“What,” she asked calmly, “are you doing here?”

I had experienced fear before. But never fear like this.

There was a right answer to this question. There had to be. I frantically told myself this, forced myself to believe it.

I could give her that perfect answer. I should try.

Instead, I asked, just as calmly, “What are you doing here?”

“I came to meet you, of course.”

This answer was not comforting. Instead, it chilled me down to my bones.

I stuffed that fear as far down as I could, hidden beneath decades worth of genuine love for the Sightmother.

“I’m so happy to see you,” I said. “But why is the Pythora King—”

“The Pythora King is more than a man.”

I didn’t understand. I didn’t even know how to frame the question on my lips.

“The Pythora King has not been a man,” the Sightmother said, “for a very long time.”

A terrible feeling rose in my throat. A buzzing in my ears, like the breath of a monster behind me, a realization that I didn’t want to turn around and face.

I said, quietly, “Sightmother, I don’t understand.”

Her smile flickered. She laughed softly. “Come, Sylina. You’re so intelligent. How can you tell me you never suspected?”

Never suspected what? I wanted to say. But I didn’t want to open my mouth to let her hear my voice. Didn’t want to betray my own confusion.

“There is power in suffering,” she said. “There is power in having something to fight against. We taught you that. And you know it better than most.”

My ears were ringing.

I didn’t want to believe what she was saying. Couldn’t believe it. Because if I was putting these pieces together right, it meant I had just spent my life fighting against a king that didn’t exist, in service to a Sisterhood that had lied to me. Lied, in the name of the very evil that I was so determined to wipe off the face of this kingdom.

Something inside me simply collapsed. Just came apart. I opened my mouth but found no words. I choked them back, because whatever would come out would just betray my devastation.

Think, Sylina. Focus.

“You were never supposed to know,” the Sightmother said. “If you had obeyed, you still wouldn’t.”

Her face hardened. I felt the shift in her presence, something deadly, like a sword being drawn—except the magic of the Sightmother was more deadly than any piece of steel.

“And why didn’t you obey, Sylina?”

She stepped closer, and that little movement was enough to make Atrius’s thread of self-control, already tenuous, snap.

He pushed past me, his still-bloodied sword out. “Get away from her,” he ground out, and the four words were all command; a way I had never once heard another person speak to the Sightmother. But what struck me more was the protectiveness that permeated his presence with those words, primal and unguarded in a way that Atrius rarely was.

I cringed, because if I felt it, the Sightmother certainly did too.

Her brows rose.

And with a flick of her hand and a powerful burst of magic through the threads, Atrius was on his knees, straining against a body that would no longer cooperate with him, his threads bound by the Sightmother’s spell.

Her head tilted to me. “Perhaps now I’m starting to understand some things.”

I did not give myself time to question the words that flew from my lips next. Didn’t allow myself to think about their consequences.

“You told me to gain his trust, Sightmother,” I said. “I have. All you’re seeing is evidence of my commitment.”

Weaver, how my chest ached, when I felt the shock in Atrius’s soul. The hint of betrayal, still now just a suspicion of something he didn’t yet want to believe.