Never Yours ✔️

Ch. 49

 Arysa had managed to slip away.

It wasn't easy, and she didn't have long, but she only needed a few seconds.

Sorven was with Demian, and though she knew she shouldn't leave them, this was her only chance.

Arysa pulled the tiny handheld mirror out of her pocket.

She didn't want to do this. But she didn't have a choice.

She drew the rune across the glass, but her reflection never dissolved, never changed, and she still stared into her own frightened seagreen eyes.

"Serden." She whispered. "If you can hear me, please," She sucked in a sharp breath, clenching her eyes shut. "Please help me. You said you wanted to save me. You said you wanted to save my people. Please."

The mirror cracked. Her eyes snapped open and she looked up, but there was no one around. It was just her, just her reflection, just a jagged line creeping across the glass.

She stuffed the mirror back in her pocket and ran her hands through her hair with an exhale of frustration.

What was she supposed to do?

She turned on her heel and started walking, but she didn't make it far.

"Arysa." He called in a cold, lilting voice. "Where are you going?"

Her fingers curled into her palms, and she didn't answer, and she didn't stop.

She didn't hear him approach, but then his fingers were around her shoulders and his breath on the back of her neck.

"Demian was so sad you left." Sorven teased. "I wish you could have seen how broken he looked in the end."

He turned her around, but her eyes were blank and he frowned.

"He's still refusing to give up his kingdom, of course." He shrugged. "But it doesn't matter. Rahaida will go down one way or another. And I'm sure, when he sees you on my side, he'll change his mind."

Arysa didn't say a word.

Sorven stepped back with a smile. "Come, Arysa," he beckoned, "I have things to teach you."

He turned and started walking, and it took every ounce of strength in her body to take up step after him.

She felt nothing but dread as she leaned over the coffee table in her bedroom, listening to him explain types of Mystic she'd never thought possible. He drew her runes and taught her spells, and she practiced and performed them, knowing this would only lead to her demise.

He did not teach her anything she could use against him.

That, he had said, would be reserved for after.

After she had become one of them.

She didn't know what they were. She didn't know what they wanted or how they operated or how any of it was possible.

But she could already feel it.

The power was a drug, one she had been blind to before, and she couldn't help but wonder if any of her actions after she had delved into the Dark Arts were entirely hers.

Would she have killed the king if she had not welcomed it in?

Would she have passed that grain decree if she did not suffer black veins?

What else could have been their influence? What had actually truly been hers?

She could feel it growing stronger, her resolve, her power, the addiction to it.