27
A web I can’t escape
ZARA
Istare at the cracks in the ceiling and count the problems I’ve got to solve. I’m still dealing with the pain of knowing my coven had betrayed me, and now I’m stuck with the man who killed them. I ought to hate him, but I can’t help thinking he did me a favor and saved me from an unenviable fate. Kade and I are more than just two souls bound by an ebon chain, and I don’t know what that means. I don’t know if I want to know what it means, but I don’t think I have a choice anymore.
Not now, his brothers have arrived.
We’re in the middle of a warlock outpost, searching for his tutor while we’re accumulating enemies. Someone wants at least one of us dead, and I’m willing to bet I’m the one they want to kill. Kade’s standing between me and every other warlock out there, and if he’s as vicious as I think he is, he’ll want something in return.
The chain merges our magic, and mine’s already altered.I’m learning to use his but it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel safe. It’s tapped into something dark inside me and that terrifies me.
But Kade scares me more.
It’s not the kind of fear that comes from facing an enemy with a knife at your throat, or from knowing your coven turned against you. Kade brings a different kind of fear and it burrows into my chest and makes me question who I am, who I’ve been, and what I’m willing to become.
I don’t know how to fight alongside Kade.
The chain that binds us isn’t just a leash. It’s a twisted, suffocating tether that fuses our strengths and weaknesses together in ways I never signed up for. I should hate him, but I’m starting to respect him. My feelings should be clear, but they’re confused instead. I shouldn’t want anything to do with him, but there’s a sick curiosity brewing inside me.
I want to know more about Kade. I want to find out what we can become together. Worse, I want to see if I can change him and use him to get what I want.
“Are you ready, kitten?” he asks.
I don’t want to be ready.
In all honesty, I don’t know if I want to break the ebon chain. I want to keep it if it makes me stronger. If it lets me unleash what’s bound inside me. If it keeps me safe from the beautiful monster I’m starting to fall for.
“Stop calling me that,” I snap, brushing past him to grab my cloak.
He steps closer, his voice dropping into an indistinct murmur. “You’ve got to play the part, Zara. Out there, they’re looking for cracks. Weakness. We give them none.”
I don’t answer. He’s right, and it grates on me that he knows it. I settle the cloak around my shoulders and glancetoward the door.
“Where exactly will we find your tutor in this hellhole?”
“Malric isn’t a warlock you find. He finds you. But we can make it easier for him.”
Kade leads the way out of the room, his stride loose and confident, as though he isn’t threading his way through a town full of warlocks who’d kill him if they thought they could get away with it. I follow, keeping a hand close to the hilt of my blade, my eyes scanning the opulent corridors of the mansion as we make our way down the grand staircase.
His brothers aren’t around, but I can feel their presence. Their magic seeps through the walls and floors, a reminder of the evil that they are. It’s all hard lines and sharp edges, rules that were made to be kept and never defied.
It’s foreign.
It’s wrong.
It’s becoming normal and I want it.
When we step into the streets, the cold night air hits me like a slap. Varric’s Hollow is shrouded in a dense mist that clings to the cobblestones and muffles sound. The town feels alive in the wrong way, its twisted alleys and looming spires vibrating with a latent energy that makes the hair on my arms stand on end. Warlocks drift through the mist like wraiths, their faces shadowed, their eyes glittering with malice or suspicion, or both.
“Stick close,” Kade says over his shoulder. His voice has lost its mocking edge, replaced with something sharper, more focused.
“Great,” I mutter.
Kade slows and casts me a look of calm confidence before turning his focus back to the shifting shadows ahead. The mist parts suddenly, revealing a narrow alley that seems to bea dead-end against a crumbling stone wall. But Kade doesn’t hesitate. He steps forward, his hand brushing the wall’s surface in a deliberate pattern.
The wall shudders, the stones grinding together as a hidden doorway yawns open, spilling faint blue light into the mist. The air inside is colder, sharper, carrying the faint scent of iron and ozone.
