“I don’t have time for this,” Katherine huffed, trying to push past Fiona toward the door. Fiona didn’t let her pass.
“What are you going to do? Confront Sylvia? Scream at her and not give her a chance to explain herself and ruin one of the few good relationships you have left because you have a hunch?”
“It’s not a hunch, Fiona!” Katherine’s voice was rough. She hadn’t been this mad, this emotionally raw, since she’d been…
And then she figured it out.
The conversation was not going well.
Silas had practiced his opener a dozen times last night after storming out of Anika’s, but what he’d practiced was predicated on his parents letting him talk first, and they had not let that happen. They’d dug into him the second he entered the room, his father pressing for why he’d left Aestas before his mission was done, his mother pressing for why he’d left Sylvia before she was kicked to the curb where she belonged. A full minute went by before he was able to get a word in edgewise, and by that point, lines of sweat were pouring down the back of his neck, his skin hot and itchy with stress.
“I—” he started, but his mother interrupted him again, stuffing a stack of reports into his hands.
“This is why we need Aestas,” Nina said, her eyes fiery. “Look at their numbers. They’re almost as big as Noctis now. What do you thinkwould happen if they were to continue to grow? If they were to start making their own runes, their own spellbooks?”
“We can’t take that risk, Silas,” his father added. “Our future is at stake.Yourfuture is at stake.”
“But I don’t want it!”
The words burst forth with more force than Silas anticipated. He’d planned to come in here level-headed and calm, with a rational list of reasons why everyone would be better served if his parents started grooming someone else to be the next head of Noctis. Someone like Anika—someone who wanted it, and who had the actual skills to back that up. He could go back to teaching, learning, molding a new generation of witches. Witches who, he’d promise, would revere the Khatri name above all else.
Calm rationality, though, was out the window. Once the dam burst, he couldn’t find a way to get any of that out around the pounding anger in his head. It ran wild, coursing up his body, leaving lava in its wake.
“Silas—” his mom said.
“Did you ever think to ask that?” he interrupted. “If I wanted any of this? If I wanted to be a part of your precious dynasty?”
His father’s expression was stormy as he stepped around the desk and walked to the window. He tapped his fingers along the windowsill, speaking with his back to his son. “This is the family business, Silas. This is your duty.”
“I want my life to be about more than just duty. I’m not going to forcibly take over a coven where everyone sees me as an enemy.” Including the one person whose respect he was increasingly desperate to earn. “I want to live my own life. I don’t want to take over Aestas, and I don’t want to lead Noctis someday. I want to do something that wasn’t handed to me on a silver platter.”
“Silas.” Silas could barely hear his father over the sound of his own whooshing breaths. He couldn’t seem to get himself to calm down, couldn’t tamp down the fire that surged in his chest.
“All we want is for you to live the best life possible,” Vikrant continued. “If that’s not doing this, then we’ll figure something else out.”
Vaguely, he registered that he’d won. His father looked at his mother, and he saw his mother sigh before giving him a reluctant nod, and then, as if he was underwater, he heard Vikrant say that they could deal with Aestas some other way, and that they’d find a way for Silas to help the family in a way that made him “happy, if such a thing is even possible.”
He’d won.
He’d won.
He’dwon.
But he couldn’t get that fire and rage to go away.
His ears rang. Blood pounded through his head, slamming against the walls of his skull. His very bones seemed to sing, screaming agony into the ether. It was all so loud, and his parents were still talking, his father walking up to him, his face racked with concern, but Silas couldn’t hear what he was saying, because there was so much goddamnnoise.
And he was hot. Sweating, dripping, he needed to take his jacket off, but he couldn’t seem to move, and his father was right there, hands on his son’s shoulders, and it was so fucking sweltering and he needed them off and—
And the ringing in his ears escalated to a clang, a bell demanding that he follow, no matter where it led. The itch across his skin built with it, so much that Silas couldn’t help but grab his own arms, his nails trying to tear his flesh from his body.
He was on fire.
What is this, what is this, what is—
His mind brushed on an explanation, but before he could catch it, his mom’s voice raised, and his dad’s hands moved to his face, and he felt the pressure building more, more, more, pushing out any thoughts, screaming at him with the urge to beout—
The noise cleared.
