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Three: Always be willing to walk away.
And I have broken each of them.
I have already agreed to give Varin everything they ask for without challenge, and now, there is little chance they will settle for less.
I press a palm to the side of their face—cool and smooth like polished bone—and just as when Varin healed me in my prison cell, I can sense the hum of their power under the surface. The chill of freshly tilled soil seeps into my palm. It’s unsettling to the touch—too much like death. Somehow, I resist the urge to recoil.
The dank dungeon air seeps through my clothes, leaving the material unpleasantly damp against my skin as the demon’s silence continues. Their gaze sparks with their ire.
“Varin,” I say their name slow and gentle, calling them back from their thoughts.
They go completely and utterly still as stone beneath my touch. Only when I sense their full attention, waiting on me, do I lower my arm.
“I have no intention of backing out now.”
The tension around their crimson eyes gradually softens while the demon scrutinizes me, searching for any hidden meaning behind my words. The glowing power from within their irises sinks below the surface, leaving them the warm color of embers burning too low to give off any warmth.
Varin exhales a long breath that ends in a rumble from deep within their chest. They curl inward, hunching their overly long spine as they lower me down. I’m unsteady for several seconds when my feet touch the stone and the long fingers around my waist slowly unfurl.
Brace yourself.Varin’s voice reverberates inside my mind.
Before I can process the warning for what it is, pain lances through my hand like a knife, cutting bone deep and slowly dragging past my wrist, then up my arm.
I claw at the ring on my finger, trying to take it off in any way possible. It refuses to budge, as if it is fused to my skin. I clench my jaw until it aches, fighting for every lungful of air.
It is unbearable.
Gravity upends itself. My stomach tumbles, and I swear I am falling up. Then the unseen force releases me, sending me crashing down.
I flutter my eyes open, not knowing when I’d shut them. The only thing separating my face from the ground is the forearm I managed to bring up to block my head from the impact. Fine dirt stirs beneath my labored breathing. A bead of sweat rolls down my cheek, to my arm, then to the dry stone that swallows it.
I lift my gaze to Varin’s, expecting a reaction, but the emotionless mask I find tells me nothing. My eyes are gritty, and my throat is tight, stinging with the need for water to soothe it.
“If we continue, you will die.” Emotions whirl in their burning red eyes, flashing from one extreme to the next. Varin helps me to stand, then shifts, scuttling backward.
Every muscle screams in protest at the slightest movement. I push past the ache and stand. It takes several seconds to process what they said. “We’ve only just started,” I protest, advancing on them. “It cannot end like this.”
Varin’s retreat comes to a forced end by the wall behind them. “You cannot even endure my power by proxy of the ring.”
“Then we keep working until I can.” I stumble on the next step, but catch myself on the demon’s outstretched arm. “I will bear your power, even if it kills me.”
Averting their gaze, Varin turns and ambles into the nearest shadowy corner, where they curl up like a wounded animal.
It feels like a dismissal. And it sets off a flurry of emotions, the sharpest rising to the top. First, they lashed out with their power, thinking I tried to escape, and now they have given up—doing the very thing they assumed I tried to do.
Fingernails digging into the tender skin of my palms sting as my fists tighten as I attempt to remain in control despite the heightened feelings and sensations from my bond with Alaric.
I set my jaw and say, “No.”
Varin stiffens at the cutting edge of my voice and peers over their shoulder. Crimson power flares in their eyes for a heartbeat. “No?”
“I will not run like a coward and leave him to suffer. This… this cannot be his fate.”
“Everyone believes fate has something magnificent planned for them if only they dare to grab it.” Varin makes a derisive sound, but I don’t think it’s directed at me. “It is never so kind. Most mortals will die alone and forgotten, lost in their delusions, while chasing great things that never belonged to them.”
My stomach twists sickeningly. The thought of leaving Alaric to be slowly devoured by the curse, to be used until there’s nothing left, is unbearable.
“Do not be foolish, Clara. I know you love him, but there is no shame in living…”
