Imperial (Insight #8)(38)
Silas glared at me as he crouched in a warrior’s stance and waited for me to make the first move.
I could not stop staring at the perfection of him. I had several strong boys in my line, but Silas had something more to him. Some kind of old pain deep in his essence, one that the emotion of wrath found comfort in. I wondered for a moment if before my mist found him he were an abused child, as I was in human form. I tended to attract more than a few of those to my line.
“Silas,” I said evenly.
Slowly, he stood from his crouched position as his honey eyes grew wide for an instant. His jaw rippled with obvious emotion.
This was normal. When we came to the ones that called us, when we spoke their name for the first time, their soul faced an awakening. It was harsh because it was so quick, because the ideas and thoughts in the mind were not discovered, but placed there. Their heritage, the basics of it, was placed there.
Right now his senses were opening, and he was recognizing my scent within his essence, the scents of the other kings; he was taking in those little hints the universe gives every day and seeing them in a new way.
Each that falls within a line knows from the first breath that they take, at least the soul does, each of the senses Silas was devouring now. Which is why the first sight of their sovereign is an epic moment for them. The veil over their eyes is lifted, and they feel the power that we are swell within them.
His stance remained still as his warrior body flexed. Slowly, I began to circle him, taking in all that he was.
If our paths had not been altered, I would see every mark on his soul, every path that led him here. It would allow me to understand him and ensure that as he rose into a petal, that he was cared for properly. I could ensure that his personal demons never haunted him, but that he learned to face them and use that emotion to endure the charge given to all Escorts.
It was different with him. Around his essence there was armor, the armor all Witnesses had. I could see cracks in this golden seal, but his essence, who he was before he became one of my Fated Escorts, was blind to me, making this all the more challenging.
“You are magnificent,” I finally stated as I stood before him.
Silas held his head straight forward. His eyes angled down to me. “If you leave me now, I will not kill you,” he said firmly.
“You have too much fight in your soul to seek death.” The certainty in my voice caused his firm stance to break for an instant as he evaluated me. I’m sure he was looking for a reason that I was so confident that I could hurt him. I was a third of his size, at best. “We are connected. My death brings yours. A blow against me is a blow to yourself.”
“It is not your death that brings mine,” he said under his breath as a smirk echoed across his addictive image.
That phrase caused me to push into his mind and find why he assumed such a thing. I could see her, the girl he adored. She was beautiful, a powerful light. She was utterly devoted to one of Vade’s Fated Escorts. Oddly, that was not my opinion, but Silas’. He knew this girl did not feel the same as he. So…why did we have this issue? Why would he fight for the rush of one girl if he knew she would never return to his arms? How could he almost want it to be that way? Want her to stay in his past? There was only one reason I could think of: one of the other sovereigns had toyed with him, managed to recognize that wrathful rage within him, his heritage to my line, and aimed him through circumstance right at Vade’s line.
What a mess. A pointless mess. Well, I guess its point was to end me, but it all seemed too complicated. Cowards. Using our children to do their bidding.
“She is not yours.”
Silas lunged forward, but without a thought my essence seized him. “You know that to be true. Otherwise, it would not offend you so.”
“I know that though I can smell warm honey around you that you are also saturated with that sickening aroma of mint. That you have every reason to say untruths to me,” he said all too coolly.
“Open your mind. When you do, you will see that harming you could never be my intent.”
He glared as he breathed in deeply. Before this moment, he had never noticed the scent of anyone’s essence. It was so new to him that his emotions were evaluating them before clear thought could place them in his mind correctly.
No doubt mint was not appeasing to him. No doubt he now knew that was the scent of the boy that stood between him and the girl he cared for, yet wanted at a distance. I knew that his time with her would not even qualify as a fraction of his existence. Something told me he recognized this, too.
“You belong with us.”
“I am not evil,” he said with a murderous glare.
“Neither am I. I exist so those emotions cannot form.”
He glanced around him, remembering not only the fight I’d halted so that I could speak to him, but also all those before this time. Now boastfully smirking, he said, “Then, sovereign, you have perished.”
“More than once.” I let my words linger as I shelved the wrath that was swelling in my soul. “Which is why your course was unnaturally altered. You have been played. A pawn in a war that started long ago.”
“Am I? Or were you?”
“Oh, I was played. I’m aware.”
He held his head back as his now hooded eyes looked carefully down at me. “You are an illusion of this Realm. A reflection of my deepest fears.”