Page 158 of At the Mercy of Midnight
She stared at him, and the pain in her chest felt like it would tear her in half. “We can still find a way,” she said, voice shaky.
Silas hesitated, his hands trembling.
Then he looked at her, truly looked, and his expression crumbled.
“Amelia…”
The magic thrummed louder, sensing that a decision had been made.
“Together,” she whispered, pleaded.
But she could see it in his eyes, heart-wrenching sorrow, and resignation.
Amelia couldn’t let it happen. She could talk him out of it, she knew she could. “Silas…”
“No,” he said at once, firmly. The blue of his eyes shuttered, and he looked away from her, a torrent wind whipping through the chamber and lifting the hair around her shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Amelia…” His voice hitched, his chestrising on a hurried, gulping inhale. “As selfish as it makes me, I can’t riskyou.”
She lifted her chin. “You can’t turn your back on everything we’ve worked for.”
His eyes raised, meeting hers, and the anguish in his broke her heart.
“I’m so sorry…” he said again, voice wavering. “I can’t...but I have to.”
She grasped his hand firmly and he almost flinched as they connected, pain flashing across his eyes. “Silas, please—”
“Domare.”
Her eyes blinked, registering for only a scant second what had happened, what he had done.
Betrayal.
The word squeezed at her heart in that small moment she was still herself.
And then, she was gone, sinking into oblivion as the runes on her back activated.
The world around him shook.
Not because of the Rift, the magic, or the wind beating at him.
No.
The ground felt unstable beneath his feet, his world rocking irrevocably as if it would never be the same.
And he knew, with certainty, that it wouldn’t.
The moment he had said the activation word, he had seen it in her eyes. The utter shock, the treachery, the heartbreak.
But worst of all, were the moments that followed. The glazing over of her eyes, the dullness that entered those dark brown irises as though Amelia had been leeched out of herentirely. Her face relaxed into complete complacency, and now she just looked at him. Expectant. Waiting.Obedient.
Silas wanted to be sick.
His stomach roiled with the decision, with breaking her trust so hideously.
But he was saving her, and he knew it deep inside of his heart. There was no getting out of this for him. It was his fate to be the sacrifice.
She would never have understood, he tried to tell himself as he sunk to one knee as though his legs simply wouldn’t hold him any longer. He looked up at her blank expression, feeling ill with it.
After a moment to gather himself, he raised himself up once more and cleared the emotion from his throat. He looked at Demetrius.
