Shuddering, Evain fights for control. The binding array doesn’t just prevent him from using his combat magic. His concealment spells are fraying by the moment too. The magic that hides his claws and the true crimson of his eyes.
He wanted to tell Leth, but not like this. Not yet. When they got to town, or a year from now. Five years. When he was ready.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Evain lies, for as long as he can. He’s not a praying man, but he prays that it’s enough.
Frowning in concern, Leth sheathes his sword. “You look sick.”
“Leth.” Evain steps forward, hand reaching on reflex—and his fingertips hit the bounds of the array with a visible ripple. Pain shudders through him. It’s worse when he fights it. “Take Daziroth into town. I’ll look around here and make sure nothing is amiss. But you should head in. See if you can find us a room. I’ll just be a few minutes.”
Nausea rolls through him with agonizing force. His concealment is almost gone.
“Evain, what’s going on?” Leth’s frown deepens. “Don’t fuck with me. Just a minute ago, you were forbidding me from leaving your side. Now you want me to ride into town alone?” His foot touches the edge of the array, but it doesn’t affect him. He’s human.
Evain takes a step back, then another, until the air shivers around him again. His entire world is reduced to a five-foot diameter circle of space, and he can’t run from this revelation anymore.
He doesn’t feel his concealments end. He only sees the moment Leth’s eyes widen in shock.
Red eyes aren’t damning on their own. They could still be the result of a contract. But Leth looks down next at the array lines beneath their feet. For the first time, Evain hates Leth’s intelligence and expertise. Of course he recognizes the runes immediately.
Silence hangs between them, as choking as the binding magic. Evain longs to break it but has nothing left to say.
Leth steps back. The spell beads in his hair click together with his trembling. Another step back takes him outside the array. Seven feet from Evain, and it feels like miles. “Walk to me.”
“You should go to town,” Evain says quietly. “I’ll join you when I can.”
“Evain,walk to me,” Leth repeats. He touches his sword, then balls both hands into fists. There’s no desire left in his eyes, only horror. “Why aren’t you moving?”
His heart the coldest it’s ever been, Evain answers, “Because I’m a demon.”
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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LETH
Leth shatters with the words. Like he isn’t human anymore either, just shards of winter stitched together with skin and fear. Denial chokes in his throat. He doesn’t want to believe it, but he has to.
Every spell has a purpose. This spell’s purpose is to bind demons.
“I’ve hidden nothing else.” The worst part is that Evain’s voice is the same as ever. The same tender voice that’s whispered sweetness and filth into Leth’s ear every night and day for the past week. “I’m still the same person who annoyed you to death in the Locksmiths. I’m still the same person who dragged you out of Ostaris, and still the same—for all the rest.”
All the rest.
The marks on Leth’s neck. The gloves on his hands. The coat on his back. Rough fingers in his hair and soft lips at the corner of his mouth. The hand covering his eyes, an invitation to lose control. Evain’s influence is bruised into every part of him, inside and out, and Leth welcomed the hurt at every turn.
He lost control of everything, step by willing step, from the moment he left Ostaris.
Leth can’t face that, and he falls back on old training to get through his panic. He has to focus on strategic concerns, instead of the ice fracturing in his heart. “What’s your real purpose here? Why are you really sealing the rifts—if that’s even what you’re doing?”
“That was all true,” Evain says. “I like humanity, and the rifts are getting worse. I don’t want to see the entire continent ravaged by demons.”
“You said Lyrisenia was your homeland.”
“I changed some details. The important parts are true.” Evain raises his hand, then lowers it. “You can have the Varans truth spell me, if you—”
“This isn’t a detail,” Leth snaps. “What about the sacrifice in the cave? What do you really know about that?” His lungs hurt. Breathing is too hard. Stumbling back, Leth unpins and unwinds the red scarf as if the cold air on his neck will help. Ludicrous rage fills him, directed at Evain or himself, he isn’t sure. “Should I even be angry at you? Of course you deceived me. It’s in your nature.”
Evain’s red eyes are unreadable. “I intended to tell you the truth.”
