Unsent correspondence, translated to English, and addressed only to My Truth:
I see you everywhere. In the corridors. In my dreams. He could try to erase you a million times over and never succeed.
MALACH
The first thing I notice when I wake is the absence of pressure on my wrists.
Dead. I must be dead. Except... if I’m in the eternal beyond, why do I still hurt?
“Take it easy.”Lyklan. Is he dead, too?
“Neither of us are dead. Yet.”
I cough violently. It’s like breathing fire. “Water,” I gasp.
He brings a cup to my lips, and I swallow greedily, the cool liquid carving a soothing path down my scratchy throat.
I force my eyes to open. The blinding white of my cell is gone, as are the chains. I’m in a small, clean room, laid out on a narrowbed. There are no windows, but it’s a lot better than S’lach’s dungeon.Did Lyklan break me out?There are gaps in my memory.
“Where are we?” I ask, frustration replacing my fatigue when my voice comes out thready and weak.
“Staff quarters. S’lach’s estate.”
Lyklan sounds wary.
He should be.
This wasn’t what I wanted, and he knows it. My memory rushes back in, pain-streaked fragments of my time chained to the ceiling. Spasming fingers—involuntary, and certainly not a sign of surrender by anyone’s definition.
“Take me back to the cell,” I demand.
Lyklan covers my mouth with his hand. “If you know what’s good for either of us, you’ll shut up,” he snaps. “There’s no room for your rigid sense of morality right now, Malach.”
I’m tempted to bite him.
If I had even a fraction of my usual strength, I’d be out of this bed, slapping his hand away from my mouth, wrapping my own around his throat, and repaying his betrayal.
“You’re angry.” He drops his hand. “That’s good; you should be, but you must use that anger wisely.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” I sound petulant, even to my own ears.
Lyklan shakes his head. His eyes are bloodshot and clouded, but I don’t have sympathy for him. “Hear me out,” he says. “And if you still want to get us both killed afterward, gods help me, I’ll let you.”
I stare at him for a long moment before nodding. It’s not as if I have a choice. Lyklan thinks I have a death wish. I don’t have a prayer of convincing him otherwise if I refuse to hear his plan.
He clears his throat, and when he speaks again, it’s in myfamily’s dialect.
I grind my teeth. I know what he’s doing, trying to appeal to our history.
He knows the language because his family has worked as my family’s guardians for generations. I used to consider this dialect as much his as mine, but hearing him speak it now... He might as well pour salt in my wounds.
“S’lach will ask you to judge his enemies, but you don’t have to tell him the truth, Malach. Any adversary of his is a potential ally for you, and you’ll be in a unique position to identify them safely and keep S’lach’s attention off them.”
Lyklan rubs his hand over his face. “I know lying is detestable to you, but truth is not your radiant word. It’s hers. We’re in dire need of some judgment, wouldn’t you say, Brother?”
I frown as I consider the picture he’s painting. Me, a spy—by choice this time—undermining S’lach while gathering allies. It’s not a terrible plan, but do I have what it takes to live a lie?
Celine’s face replaces Lyklan’s, dredged up from my worst memory. Her horror as she learned of the depths of my betrayal, tears spilling from her eyes as the portal whisked her away from me.
