The Silver Siren (Iron Butterfly, #3)(80)

I must not have, because Scar Lip carried Cammie, my former cell mate, away from me, out of the room. Ten minutes later, he returned and with more Septori and a drugged Kael. Hours later they deposited us both back to our cells. I was laid unconscious, back on the cell floor, and Scar Lip locked the door.

Half a day later, I awoke to a tin plate being shoved under my door through a flap and demanded to know where Cammie was.





Chapter 33



“Gah!” I screamed and opened my eyes. My heart beat incredibly fast, but my body felt alive and on fire. Sevril stood back from me and looked at me warily through the bars.

“Thalia?” he asked carefully.

“Yes?” I licked my lips, which felt swollen and cracked.

“Are you okay?”

“No. Yes! I’m sore but I feel alive. I’m alive right?”

Sevril’s eyes were red and swollen from crying, but he nodded yes. He began to pull out the needles carefully and cover each of the large red wounds with a bandage. When he was done, he lifted up the metal bands and helped me out of the machine. His gaze kept shifting to my hair and then looking back to my face.

“What is it?”

“It’s turned white. Your hair I mean. Completely white.”

I groaned but pushed my vanity aside. My feet gingerly touched the ground and I asked him about Xiven. Sevril refused to make eye contact with me and I had to ask again.

“Where’s Xiven?” I demanded.

Prince Sevril’s eyes filled with tears again, but he took a deep breath and answered. “It was his choice from the beginning. It was his way to make amends. You mustn’t blame him or me. If I had a choice I would have been the one to make the ultimate sacrifice, but I wasn’t the right type. You needed a Denai.”

My voice started to crack and rise in alarm. “Sevril, what did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” he whispered. “You did. You needed a Denai to balance the Siren. You are now fully both. He knew the risks; he knew that you would need every ounce after being turned to Siren. It’s okay. He understood.”

I couldn’t turn around. Every fiber of my being said Don’t look. Don’t look. But I had too. I had to see if it was the same as my dream.

I did look. Just like my dream, Xiven was on the small cot next to me. The extra tubes from my arm connected to him. When the Siren side had been about to overtake me, he sacrificed his gifts. The love and peace natural to a Denai helped balance the anger and fury of a Siren. He was the ice to my fire.

Fresh tears poured anew down my face and my eyes burned like sandpaper. Xiven lay curled up on his side, his head nestled on his free hand, while the other was on his hip. He rested peacefully as if he were asleep. But I knew better. Power was a balance. To try and be a donor to me was too much for him. It drained him. Xiven could have chosen to stop at any time, but he pushed through. He fought until he knew I had made the transformation.

“Xiven…not you.” I sniffed. The emotions I felt were so raw, so powerful. And the vivid image of Talbot beating Xiven made me furious. He was as much a victim as me in the whole twisted plan.

But he had found redemption.

“I will not forget you.” I stood up and my wiped my tears on my arms. Sevril came forward and watched me, a question in his eyes. No words can express the sorrow we felt, and when he opened his arms, I didn’t hesitate. I leaned over for a hug and cried my heart out. Sevril cried as well, and we took comfort in each other’s pain.

A loud crash startled us, and we looked up in terror. They had found the hidden door. The enemy was coming for us.

“Thalia, how…are you…can you?” Sevril took a few hesitant steps back and watched me expectantly.

My head hurt. It was hard to concentrate. My body ached all over and I just wanted to close my eyes and sleep. I was weak, like a newborn child. I was in no condition to save anyone. I tried to step forward to meet him but I couldn’t. I crashed into the wooden table bruising my hip.

“Oh no! We have to get you out of here until you have time to recover,” Sevril grabbed for my arm and pulled it around his shoulders. Footsteps sounded on the stairs, so much closer than before. He hurried and dragged me across the room toward another smaller door hidden in the floor under a rug. I stood propped against the wall while Sevril struggled, pulling on the ring in the stone block.

There was yelling and screaming. I looked up in alarm as Tomac ran down the stairs into the room. He was bleeding from numerous wounds and had a murderous look in his eye. I cringed. I was not expecting to be cut down by the prince’s own brother.

Tomac began to babble nonsense. “Death, death. No one can outrun death. And destiny does not play favorites.”

I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the sword that Tomac held in his hand. The tip was covered in blood, and I couldn’t help but wonder whose blood it was.

A black form slid silently out of the shadowed stairwell and flew into the room. The pain in my mind was so intense, I cried out, but I was overjoyed, because I knew who it was—Kael.

Kael entered like hurricane, a sword in one hand and a smaller knife in the other, spinning and dancing. His face was a mask of unreadable expressions as he gave Tomac a wide berth. Even with the distance between them, his eyes never left Tomac. He stalked his prey, looking for an opening in which to try and kill him.