Mother may be here helping her now, but this is all her doing.
How dare she stand there looking at Larus like she regrets it? How dare she pity me?
My blood boils with anger, but I don’t lash out. Octavia is still here, still alive, and I intend to keep it that way.
Instead, I look at my sister, the illegitimate God-Queen, the woman who bears the responsibility for everything that has torn this family apart, and I ask her, “Is this what you wanted?”
Because I know deep down that it isn’t. And I hope it haunts her until the day she dies.
We’re brought into the dungeons beneath the palace, the same dungeons where I was held after they believed I tried to assassinate Ronan.
I expect them to separate us and to place Seth in a fire-born cell, but they can’t. The dungeons are far too full. Instead, the three of us are tossed in with an older man who looks to have been tortured, repeatedly, judging by the scars that cover much of his frail body.
“Welcome back,” he says with a familiar annoyed tone when he sees us, and my stomach drops as I realize that it’s Cyrus.
“My God. Isn’t that the Grand Vizier?” asks Octavia.
“Not anymore,” he says, standing slowly, his body creaking and snapping as he moves. “They found me outside the city about a month after you left. Believe me when I say I tried not to tell them anything.”
“I believe you,” I say, and I do. It’s clear that whatever information he gave them—likely everything about the Guild and the anti-magic suppression, everything he remembered from Zara’s research—he didn’t give it to them willingly.
“Where is Ronan? I thought you’d be together. I told you to stay together.”
I sink to my knees. Thinking of being apart from Ronan is just too painful right now when I’m feeling this raw.
“He’s with the legions,” Seth says for me. “He’ll be here soon.” I know he says this for my benefit, and I appreciate the effort, but it just makes me sob.
“Did you find the prophecy? Did you go to the tomb like I asked you?”
I tilt my head up to look at him. “Did you know? What the prophecy said, did you know it?”
“I—no, it was struck from the records—”
“Did you know?” I spring to my feet and grab him by his collar.
“Sylvie!” shouts Octavia. “Let him go. He’s barely even alive. This isn’t who you’re angry with.”
But it is. It’s another person who knew something and didn’t tell me. Another person with a plan that involved hurting me. Hurting Ronan. “Did you know?”
“You found it then. The power. Oh, thank the gods. The Viziers have been trying to bring this about for generations. Hundreds of years. But the church has always been there ahead of us.”
The way he’s smiling, a smile that is missing several teeth, I realize in horror, I know he doesn’t know what the prophecy says. “The Shadowbound Prophecy is the end of the world. That’s what the power is. The Viziers have been trying to end the world?”
Cyrus stutters, his eyes darting around our cell. “I—that is to say, I don’t know about that. But I’m certain it’s what is meant to happen. I’m just one of a long line of Grand Viziers from House Horatio. It’s an honor I hoped to pass to my son one day.The story has been passed down in our family for generations. I never thought that I would be the one to see it come true.”
“It isn’t coming true.” I slump back down to the floor. There are only two beds in this cell, so I guess this is where I’ll be sleeping.
“What? But you must. You must see that it’s the only way to fix all of this—”
“Let her be,” says Seth. He bends down and picks me up off of the floor, and I don’t have the energy to fight him. “It’s been a tough day.”
Seth lays me down in one of the beds, and he slumps down on the ground next to me. After everything that happened today, I’m grateful he’s still with me.
“Stay with me?” I ask him.
“Always,” he whispers back.
We settle into a routine that isn’t unlike the one Seth imposed on us himself when he held Taran and me captive.
