by Lynette Noni
“So you Claimed me?” he demanded, rising to his feet, his clawed shirt hanging in tatters. “Are you insane? Now we’re both going to die! They’ll execute us for what you’ve done—you do realise that, don’t you?”
Alex shook her head. “No one has to find out. I’ll free you from the bond and no one but us will ever know it happened.”
Niyx released a bitter laugh. “If you believe that, you’re only lying to yourself. We both know you won’t free me, not as long as I know your little mortal secret.”
As if being stabbed by a dagger, Alex felt the full force of his words like the blow they were. Because he was right. She’d been so consumed by saving his life that she hadn’t thought beyond that, hadn’t worried about the repercussions of her actions. It was one thing for Roka to know the truth about her; Roka who she had faith in and knew would never do anything to harm her. But Niyx was a wildcard. Not only that, he was Aven’s best friend. And if the leader of the Garseth discovered the truth about Alex… She couldn’t bear to think about what might happen.
“I’ll Release you,” Alex promised, her voice shaking. “Of course I will, Niyx. It’s just…”
“Just what, Aeylia?” he asked, a sneer on his beautiful face. “Just that you can’t right now? That it’s not a good time? Well guess what, sweetheart. That excuse is going to get real old, real fast.”
“Niyx…”
“But it won’t matter, will it?” he went on, prowling her way. “Because you can make it so I don’t care. You can make it so I forget why I’d want to care. Stars, you can make me do whatever you want!” He threw his hands up, his fury palpable as he continued stalking towards her.
Sensing it was time to retreat, Alex backed away in the direction of her balcony. “Niyx, please,” she said, her tone uneasy. “You know me. You know I won’t do anything like that to you.”
He paused mid-step. “I know you?” he repeated in a low voice. “Do you really think that’s your best argument right now?”
A flicker of anger sparked in Alex, but she knew she had to stay calm and reasonable. “Despite the fact that I saved your life, I know you have every right to be mad about what I did.”
“Why in the name of the light would I be mad, Aeylia?” he asked, his tone simmering. “Maybe because you stole my will from me?”
Alex flinched as he bellowed the words, thankful that the rain was coming down in heavy sheets loud enough to protect them from any eavesdropping, immortal ears.
“You’re angry,” Alex said. “I get that. Believe me, I do.” And she did, having experienced the disturbing puppet-like effect of the bond herself.
“I’m not angry!” Niyx shouted. “I’m furious!”
“Let’s just—Let’s just take a moment and breathe,” Alex suggested in the face of his wrath as she reached the edge of her room. If she retreated any further, she would have to step out onto the balcony into the rain. But Niyx didn’t stop his advance, so she raised her hands in front of her, trying to ward him off. “You’re in shock. Of course you are. But please—let’s just talk about this.”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he roared in her face.
That was when Alex’s spark of anger flared, prompting her to yell right back at him. “Stop it, Niyx! Take a breath and calm down!”
She felt it the moment it happened. It was like there was a tugging sensation, an invisible piece of string moving from her scarred palm and attaching to Niyx’s chest where she’d created the bond. The effect was instantaneous: he stopped, took a breath and calmed down.
Horrified by what she’d done, even if the result was to her benefit, Alex’s hands flew up to her mouth. With wide eyes, she whispered out, “I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean—” She bit down on her cheek, stopping her words before she could accidentally say something else she didn’t mean.
Raising her fingers to pull at her wet, straggly hair, Alex admitted in a helpless tone, “Niyx, I don’t know what to do here.”
He just looked at her, his gaze furious but his body perfectly relaxed thanks to her command.
Hating what she’d inadvertently done, Alex softly said, “Please be—um, please be you again.” She felt the tugging of her command between them and finished, “Do what you want, say what you want. For the moment, just act like you would if there was no bond between us.”
Niyx’s eyes flashed with her order and his body immediately tensed with pent up rage. Then, without any warning, he drew his sword from the sheath still strapped to his back from his hunting trip and charged at Alex.
Twenty-Nine
Alex only just managed to leap out of the path of his attack, scrambling backwards onto the balcony and into the rain.
“Niyx, what are you—” She had to cut off her cried exclamation when he came at her again, forcing her to duck out of the way and continue retreating from him.
When the low railing met the backs of her legs, she knew she couldn’t afford a repeat tumble off the spiral tower, not with Xiraxus grounded in Draekora because of the storm. So when Niyx swung his sword at her again, she did the only thing she could—she summoned A’enara and met his weapon mid-air. Blade crashed against blade, with blue fire blazing along Alex’s arm, swirling around them both with her movements.
“Please don’t do this, Niyx,” she called to him over a loud crack of thunder, using her free hand to wipe rain-soaked hair from her eyes.
“Is that an order, Aeylia?” he demanded, swinging at her again.
“I won’t make you stop,” she promised him. “But I’m asking you to.”
“Then you’re going to have to ask nicer,” he returned, and with a cry, he lunged towards her again.
She had a fraction of a second to centre herself, but she used that fraction wisely, forcing in a calming breath and just—only just—managed to flick the internal switch on her Meyarin senses in time to meet his attack.
It was then that their fight began in earnest.
Niyx was relentless in his assault. Fuelled by uncontrolled rage, he stabbed, slashed, parried and charged at Alex over and over again as she slipped and slid across the slick balcony. She met him almost strike for strike, but only because he was so blinded by fury that he wasn’t fighting well—just desperately. It was the only reason she didn’t order him to stop; she knew he needed to get it out of his system. The fear of nearly having died, the relief that he was still alive, and the anger that his will was no longer his own. She knew what he was feeling; she’d been there herself.
The skies flashed and thunder deafened their ears, but still their fight continued. Alex hadn’t battled many Meyarins in either timeline, only Aven, Roka and Zain, but she could tell Niyx was uncommonly skilled with a blade, even rampaging blindly as he was. She was hard pressed to hold up a defence against him. With the strength of his assault, Alex had no hope of striking any kind of offensive manoeuvre herself, but she hoped to be able to stay standing long enough for him to burn off his wrath and come to his senses.
However, when she slipped and her feet slid from underneath her, Alex knew she was in trouble.
Sprawled out on her back, she looked up through the rain, her Meyarin sight allowing her vision to remain crystal clear as she took in the form of Niyx standing above her like an avenging angel. His sword was pointed down at her chest, holding her in place, his eyes spearing her like shards of purple ice.
“Tell me not to,” he dared, his voice ragged, pressing the tip of his blade against her heart.
Her pulse was erratic and she was panting wildly, both from the fight and from her fear, but she shook her head. “I won’t.”
To prove her point, she released her grip on A’enara and it disappeared from sight.
“Tell me not to!” Niyx repeated in a shout.
“I won’t!” she yelled back at him.
They stared at each other, their furious gazes locked, until Niyx released a savage growl, closed his eyes tightly and stepped away. He spun on his heel and threw bac
k his arm, hurling his sword with all his strength and sending it smashing against the wall of the palace where it clattered to the ground. He then turned back to Alex and, shocking the stuffing out of her, reached down and yanked her to her feet, dragging her roughly back into the shelter of her room.
As if the heavens were playing a great joke at their expense, the rain started to ease and the storm dispersed, leaving them in an eerie silence as they dripped water all over her floor.
“So…” Alex said, needing to fill the silence. “You can fight.”
The look he sent her was scathing. “Unlike you, I’m a real Meyarin—of course I can fight.”
“Hey, I managed to hold my own out there, didn’t I?” she defended, crossing her arms.
“You did,” he returned. “And I’d be curious how you managed that if I didn’t already know the answer.”
“And what answer’s that, smarty pants?”
“You’ve been Claimed before,” he said. “And even though you’re not anymore, somehow the Meyarin blood has stayed with you.”
Her body stiffened. “How—”
“I can feel it,” he said, cutting her off. “I can feel your blood in me, like a taint.”
Alex chose not to take offence to that, since she was hoping his reference was to Aven’s blood, not her mortal blood… Though, she doubted that was the case.
“I can’t feel your blood in me,” Alex said, and she’d never felt Aven’s, either, just the heightened effects of it. “Are you sure you’re not being melodramatic?”
His gaze narrowed, reminding her that he was still very much on edge and she should watch her words. “You’re mortal. You’re nowhere near sensitive enough to feel something so subtle.”
“But as you’ve deduced, I have Meyarin senses.”
“Which is not the same as being Meyarin,” he rebutted. “And besides, unless I’m wrong, you don’t seem to always be using those senses. I had presumed it was because you’d grown up around mortals. Now I know it’s because you are mortal.”
Alex wrinkled her nose, annoyed that he’d managed to notice something like that. “I do suck at being one of you,” she admitted. “But I’m trying.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Alex repeated, eyebrows rising at his curiosity.
“Why are you trying to be one of us? Why are you even here?”
Alex bit her lip, not sure how much she should say. But then again, he was technically bound to her will. She could tell him anything and he’d have to keep it a secret if she asked. The problem was, she didn’t want to have to ask.
“I meant what I said earlier,” she told him, ignoring his question for the moment, “about knowing what you’re going through. You’re right—I was Claimed by a Meyarin, one who ordered me to do unspeakable things, and I hated every single second of it. You can despise me all you want, Niyx, and I’ll deserve that. But please know, I did what I did to save your life, and I’d do it again if I had to.”
She lowered her voice to a near whisper. “I can’t convince you to believe me, but other than keeping my secret, keeping our secret, you have my word that I won’t order you to do anything without your permission. Not intentionally. And when I leave Meya, which won’t be far from now, I’ll Release you before I go.”
She held his gaze as she finished, “Everyone has a right to free will. I won’t keep yours from you. Not for long, anyway.”
He was watching her carefully throughout the entirety of her speech. “You mean it, don’t you?” At her questioning look, he clarified. “You’re really going to Release me?”
She nodded. “I promise.”
“And you won’t make me do anything I don’t want?”
His eyes remained trained on her, so she kept her face open, showing her honest intent as she answered, “Nothing other than having you stay quiet about my mortality and our bond.”
“And if I asked you, right now, to Release me,” he said, “and gave you my word that I wouldn’t tell anyone your secrets, would you let me go?”
Alex hesitated and Niyx saw it, his features darkening in response. She hated seeing the harsh look on his handsome face since it reminded her too much of his future self.
“Wait,” she told him before he could take a bite at her. “I’m thinking, okay? It’s not an easy question for me to answer.”
“A simple yes or no will suffice. You either trust me, or you don’t.”
“You don’t know what’s at stake.”
“Then tell me,” he barked at her.
“I’m from the future, okay?” she snapped at him. “When I say there’s a lot at stake, I mean there’s a lot at stake.”
Niyx reared back as if slapped. “What did you say?”
Alex huffed and stormed over to sit on her bed, careless that she was making it even wetter than it already was.
Summing up what she’d told Roka a week ago, Alex said, “I’m from the future, I’m human, I was Claimed by a Meyarin, and it’s believed by a number of… people… that I’m the only one who can stop that Meyarin from doing all kinds of bad things, which means I have to learn how to fight like an immortal if I want to live long enough to see my real future actually become a future.” She finished by adding, “Roka’s been trying to teach me, but it hasn’t been going so well.”
“Roka knows about you?” Niyx said, moving to stand before her.
“I got a stupid paper cut, if you can believe it,” Alex said. “He knows pretty much everything now.”
“And he’s been training you?”
“Not very well,” Alex admitted, trying not to feel guilty about her lack of appreciation towards the prince. “He’s too careful with me, too afraid that he’ll hurt me, so he’s constantly holding back. Not at all like you.” She laughed quietly and pressed a hand to her bruised backside from where she’d fallen hard to the ground.
Niyx’s expression was unreadable as he looked down on her.
“How important is it for you to beat this Meyarin of the future?”
Frowning at him, Alex returned with a question of her own. “How are you not wondering how I’m from the future?”
Niyx waved a dismissive hand in the air. “Your draekon brought you through the abrassa, or so I’m presuming. Probably unintentionally, judging by how lost you were when you first arrived.”
“I was not lost!”
“You pretended like you didn’t understand our language and you were as skittish as a terrified kitten for days,” Niyx shot back.
Alex gaped at him. “How did you know I understood you?”
“Just because the others are exceptionally unobservant doesn’t mean I am,” he said condescendingly. “I also happen to know more about the vaeliana than most, including how the bond allows for language exchange.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Alex asked, but even as she asked it, she remembered the pointed jabs he’d repeatedly made. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
He looked like he didn’t understand why she was arguing with him, and she wondered the same herself. “I figured you had your reasons for wanting it kept secret. And besides, I knew that within days you’d learn our dialect properly and have no excuses, no language barrier to hide behind. Your knowledge wasn’t harming anyone, so…” He trailed off in a shrug. “Now it’s your turn to answer my question. How important is it for you to win against this future enemy of yours?”
Alex called to mind what the Library had shown her, skimming over blurred images of villages burning, people screaming, death and destruction, until she finally stopped on the image of Meya with its crumbling ruins, abandoned like a ghost city. She didn’t realise that she was mentally projecting the memory as she answered, “If I lose and my enemy wins, Medora will be destroyed. Does that sound important enough to you?”
When Niyx didn’t respond, Alex looked up to see his slack, shocked face. “Niyx?”
“What was that?” he whispered. “What you just showed me?”
Alex sq
uinted in bafflement. “What I just… what?”
“Was that the future I just saw? Meya in ruins? Medora in flames?”
Her jaw dropped. “You saw that?”
We’re bonded, Aeylia, his dry tone said in her mind. That’s what happens when you perform forbidden rituals you know nothing about.
“Holy crap!” she cried, jumping to her feet. “Get out of my head!”
“Take it easy,” he said, reaching out to place a steadying hand on her arm and only narrowing his eyes slightly when her words came out as a command.
“Sorry,” Alex said, feeling the tug and realising that she’d accidentally broken her promise—except for the caveat she’d given that she wouldn’t intentionally give him orders.
“I can see this bond of ours is going to be a problem,” Niyx said through gritted teeth, before rolling the tension from his shoulders and relaxing again.
Alex, however, was confused. “Don’t you—Aren’t you going to promise to keep my secrets and ask me to Release you? Isn’t that what you said?”
“I questioned what you’d do if I asked you to do that,” Niyx corrected. “But you’ve managed to convince me about your high stakes and the need for secrecy rather well.”
“Are you saying…?”
“Keep the Claim on me, for now,” Niyx said, to her surprise. “I presume when you mentioned leaving here, you were referring to going back to the future once your draekon is up to the return trip through the abrassa?”
Alex was impressed with his deductive reasoning skills. “That’s right.”
“And you’ll still do what you promised and Release me before you take off?”
“Of course,” she said. “But… Not that I’m not grateful that you’re no longer attacking me over it, but why the sudden change of heart?”
Niyx took a moment to respond, choosing his words carefully. “The future I just saw, I don’t know how far away it is, but forever isn’t considered long for a race of eternal beings,” he said. “If you’re the only one who can stop that destruction befalling this world, then I’m going to do what I can to help you, even if that means I must relinquish my free will for the time being.”