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It wasn’t a craft, but rather a smaller vehicle, for one man alone. Erol rode past me, his face twisted in a mask of anger.
As if he sensed me, he pulled the craft up short and turned his head. His dark eyes locked on mine, and a cold finger dragged a line down my spine, making the hair on my neck stand on end.
His power was thick in the air around him, the fear and the darkness palpable. It made me want to cower, to back away, to run. He scowled at me. It was what he wanted, wasn’t it?
I was about to turn and flee. What could I do against him alone?
Despite the darkness and the fear that oozed out of his pores as if they were his entire makeup, something beneath it beckoned to me. It was a spark of light, a flash of goodness. I frowned, tilting my head. When I looked at Erol, I saw all the darkness, the pain he’d inflicted, the fear he wielded. I felt his power, running over my skin like electricity.
At the same time, I saw a man who was filled with light, shrouded in love, and happy. It was strange, seeing this double vision of him. Whenever I blinked, the one was gone, with only the darkness remaining, but then it would show again.
I shook my head.
“What?” Erol snapped, and his frustration crackled in the air around us.
“Erol,” I said softly. “Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” he demanded.
“You just seem—”
“How would you know what I am and what I’m not?” he cut me off. “You’re here by royal decree, and you can do whatever you want to the Conjurites who volunteer for your outreach program, but don’t you dare think you can drag me into this.”
His words were harsh, and his lips curled away from his teeth in an animalistic snarl. I saw the man who’d captured us and thrown us in the dungeon. I saw the man who’d marched Ellie out of the dungeon countless times to do Falx’s bidding.
I feared him, but at the same time, my anger flared to the surface.
“You are a piece of work, you know that?” I snapped.
Where did my boldness come from? I’d been ready to run a moment ago.
I wasn’t a prisoner anymore. I wasn’t weak. I had power. I had purpose. I had a sense of belonging I’d never had before.
Erol had bullied us and hurt us and done the bidding of someone who’d only wanted the worst to happen.
It wasn’t his fault. He has good in him. He has a spark of light that no one can deny, they just don’t see it.
The thoughts yanked me out of my anger and frustration.
I’d had a snarky remark prepared, but instead, I let go of my anger. I saw the man he used to be—that was what it had to be when I looked at him. I saw a man who was pained, tortured, a man who’d been hurt as much as he’d hurt others. His wounds were emotional, but the scars were there, a reminder that would never go completely away.
That changed everything. Erol had been hurt somehow, too, though not in the same way we had. He was still hurting.
I could forgive him for what he’d done to us. It had been Falx, not Erol. He was a prisoner. He just didn’t realize it yet. I was the only one that saw it—he had a spark of light, but he was somehow held hostage by the darkness.
“What are you looking at?” Erol demanded, and I snapped out of the strange vision I kept having when I looked at him.
“Nothing,” I said quickly.
He climbed off the bike and marched toward me. The fear he wielded preceded him and tried to wrap around me, but I wasn’t scared of him. Not the way I used to be. I still broke out in goosebumps and considered which way would be the fastest to run to get away from him, but it wasn’t as it had been before.
Erol wasn’t a threat. Somehow, I knew he wouldn’t hurt me no matter how domineering he looked.
He stopped right in front of me, and when I stood my ground, glaring up at him as he stormed toward me, his steps faltered. Confusion flickered across his features.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked. “You should be in your room.”
“I was taking a walk.”
