Page 105 of Synodic

I assumed whoever it was had died and that Rowen was mourning a lost love. Not this sick, very much alive, sadistic woman.

My insides twisted at the jarring realization. It was all coming together: the dark, shadowed looks, the pained remarks of his past, the smiles that were always so quick to evaporate. He had been suffering from her. But had he been enduring the guilt of loving her or the remorse of losing her while she still breathed?

Was that why he would barely touch me?

“Oh,” she said, somehow reading the look on my face. “He hasn’t fucked you, has he?” Her eyes glinted merrily, and she laughed, the mirthful sound filling the entire cavern like a swarm of malefic pixies. “Pity.”

Rowen slammed the back of his head into one of the men holding him in place with a sickening crunch. The soldier screeched, his hands flying to the blood pouring from his broken nose. The binds loosened enough for Rowen to snatch a hand from his shoulder, and sweeping out from underneath it, he hyper-extended the arm until it snapped. Grabbing another’s head from behind him, he threw the guard over his shoulder and slammed the body to the ground, breaking his neck.

“Uh, uh,” Aliphoura tutted, calm as can be. “So predictable, but another move like that, my beloved, and I’ll have Caeryn slit her pretty little throat, dousing your shoes in her blood.”

I cried out as Caeryn yanked my head back even further against him; a slow trickle of blood seeping down my neck.

Rowen immediately stilled, and one of the uninjured guards punched him ferociously in the stomach, while another slammed his fists into the back of Rowen’s neck. More guards joined to replace the wounded soldiers, and an unfair beating ensued.

“Stop! You’ll kill him!” I screamed and pleaded at the top of my lungs as fists, feet, and elbows collided with Rowen’s unresisting body.

“Enough!” Aliphoura shouted to her guards.

They immediately ceased their barrage but continued to hold him with his arms twisted behind his back. Rowen sagged against them but remained standing. He turned his face to spit out a wad of blood, then looked back to his once love and asked, “Afraid of what I’ll do if I get my hands on you?”

“Oh no, my beloved, that is what I am counting on,” she said with a wicked grin.

“I’ll kill you first,” he growled.

“Holding onto grudges? Are you still displeased with me for killing your precious lord?”

Rowen’s eyes warred and lashed in a way his restrained body couldn’t. “He was like a father to me.”

“But he wasn’t your father, was he? He wasmine.”

“You’ve always been rather fond of that word. Haven’t you, Fou? Taking what you believe to be yours by any force necessary. Tell me, what will you do when there is nothing left to take?”

Aliphoura’s glittering stare darted from me to Rowen. “There will always be something for the taking, always a means of keeping what’s mine. You know my father treated you more like his own blood than he ever did me. A son was all he ever dreamed of, and you filled the role perfectly. How could I ever compete with that?”

“It was never a competition. That you couldn’t see that, proves you don’t deserve his legacy.”

“A weakened legacy in need of rebuilding, but never mind all that,” she said, intimately tracing her fingers along Rowen’s heaving chest, stroking his exposed skin. “Did you ever wonder why you could never utter my name? Or find your way home? Did you ever question why you always felt me near? Always sensed me over your shoulder, listening?” she asked, plucking the stone medallion out from his shirt. “I hated having to curse you with your mother’s necklace. I really did, but I knew you were too sentimental to ever remove it.”

Rowen’s eyes widened in horror.

“I may have eyes and ears everywhere, but none more helpful than the oculus around your neck. Your last treasured possession. I cursed it long ago to keep an eye on you. And I did warn you, darling. If I can’t have you, no one can. You used to fight for me the way you fight for her, which leads me to believe she must be very valuable. I think I should like to keep the little star for myself. Perhaps as my chained pet?” She laughed airily, enjoying each and every moment as this nightmare unfolded to her whims.

“No,” I barely breathed, finally seeing the trap she’d so carefully woven around us all—the moment she’d been waiting for.

“Let her go,” Rowen said breathlessly, his broad chest jackhammering beneath his rising chin. “Take me and let her go.”

38

An eternity seemed to pass before Aliphoura smiled a grin so wickedly beautiful it could bring empires to their knees. “I heard whisperings the Synodic Son had returned. Naturally, my curiosity got the better of me, and my search to find him began. Imagine to my surprise when I learned she was a woman and that you were the one to find her. I’m not sure I get the fuss, though she did manage to survive Caeryn longer than most.” Her voice was unhurried and relaxed as she held our fates within the palm of her hands. “However, if you continue to do as I say, she will remain unharmed. If anything happens to me, she dies. Do I have your compliance?”

Rowen seethed from every pore but agreed with the slightest tick of his jaw, and Aliphoura motioned for her guards to stand down. They roughly released Rowen from their grasp, and he staggered as he fought for his footing.

Aliphoura took another stride towards him, her shadow guards moving with her in lockstep. She pressed her slender body against his, not taking her eyes off me as she did so. She wanted to watch me as she took what I would never have.

“Prove to me in a token of goodwill why I should agree to such a trade,” she said gently, tilting her delicately long neck back to look at him.

Rowen’s entire body stiffened, but he didn’t resist or push away in the slightest as Fou brought her perfect blood red lips to his unresponsive mouth.

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