Page 152 of At the Mercy of Midnight
Amelia grinned. “Just trying to keep that ego of yours in check.”
Silas cupped her face gently. “My ego evaporated the moment I walked into the Spire when I was seventeen years old and saw you reading in the corner by yourself. I was done for.”
Silence settled again, softer this time. It was a quiet filled with understanding and affection.
Eventually, Amelia curled up beside him, her fingers still laced in his. Silas draped the blanket over them, the tent rattling faintly in the wind.
The morning was coming, and with it, the crux of everything.
But for now, they had this.
One final night wrapped in each other.
Silas exhaled slowly, eyes blinking open just as slow.
He looked around, confusion settling over him as he took in the glassy surface of a lake. A gathering of dark trees lay beyond, and then there were nothing but shadows.
He looked over his shoulder, seeking Amelia.
When he turned back to the lake, someone was there, but it wasn’t who he had been hoping to find.
Pale, elegant, and draped in bright white clothing, she stood above the surface of the water as though hovering there. Her red hair flowed around her, eyes molten with sorrow. She looked as if she belonged nowhere and everywhere.
He shivered, almost afraid of her presence.
“Lyana,” Silas breathed, understanding filling him. “Are you…real?”
“I’m very real, Silas.” Lyana’s voice was like a soft cloth wrapped around a sharp blade, something equally comforting as it was terrifying. “You invited me here, called for me. With your doubt, your fear.”
He swallowed with the discomfort of being in her presence. “I don’t fear you,” he said, though it rang hollow.
Lyana took a slow step forwards, gliding rather than walking. “No. But you fear what you don’t understand, you always have, same as your father. And you don’t understand what you’re about to do, do you?”
He clenched his fists. “My father? What would you know of him.”
Her smile was both sad and terrible. “I know him well. He is here, after all. In the Midnight Realm.”
Silas opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Ice speared through his heart, and he looked around, as though seeking a way out. He looked back to her. “I…we know what we’re doing. We’ve accounted for every variable.”
“You’ve accounted for what you believe, not what the Monoliths truly want, what the Midnight Realm wants to take. You think altering the ritual makes you clever?” Something creeped into her eyes, something that haunted her. “You think you can cheat death, that love alone can rewrite fate?”
Silas swallowed hard, trying to steel himself against the strange, woozy weight of the odd surroundings pressing in on his thoughts. “It’s not just love. It was built from logic. Fromher. She found a way.”
“So did we,” Lyana said, eyes imploring. “We tried, Silas. He tried to save me, his love for me took over in the end. He gave up everything to try and stop what was always fated to come for us, for what needed to justbe. The Realm took us both forthinking we could find another way, and it devoured us while we screamed and begged. It didn’t care.”
Lyana was closer to him now, though he hadn’t seen her move. He tried to flinch away, but his feet wouldn’t budge.
“Do you think it will be any different for you?” she whispered.
Silas’ jaw tensed, his breaths turning shallow. Something about her voice, this place, her words, were peeling him apart at the seams, unravelling him bit by fragile bit.
“It won’t be, Silas,” she said in answer to her own question, fingers reaching for him but not quite meeting his skin. “It only understands balance, sacrifice. Don’t make our mistakes.” Lyana’s gaze pinned him. “One of you must go, that is the law of the ritual as it was always meant to be. The Gemino tribe understood it, but everyone thinks they can change, adapt.” She breathed out a wary sigh, hand falling back to her side. “If you try to subvert that, you won’t just fail, Silas, you’ll be dragging her here with you.”
His heart twisted violently. “No. Amelia…she’s stronger than you could possibly understand.”
“She is,” Lyana agreed, her tone shifting to something suddenly soft and reverent. “She is brilliance and fire and pain and love.” Her eyes met Silas’, fierce and striking. “And if you truly love her, then you won’t gamble her life on a theory.”
His pulse roared in his ears.
