جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 54

~ SYLARI ~I didn't sleep that night.The scroll sat on my bedside table, its words burned into my memory even with my eyes closed. One hour. That was all the vaelth wanted, one hour of my time in exchange for information and two brothers who had spent eighteen years making my life miserable.The smart choice was obvious. Let them keep Riko and Daren, let the Vaelth send whatever message they wanted. My brothers meant nothing to me, had never meant anything to me except pain and humiliation. Saving them would be a waste of energy and risk.But the vaelth had information Seraphine hadn't shared. Secrets about my bloodline, about what I was becoming. That was harder to dismiss.I sat up in bed and pressed my hand against my chest, feeling the hunger pulse slow and steady beneath my ribs. It had been restless since we returned from the ruins, stirring every time I thought about Seraphine or the vaelth or the truth I still didn't have.What are you hiding? I asked it silently. What don't

~ SYLARI ~The silence after Thalia left was suffocating.I stood in the center of the ruins, my mind racing through everything she had said. Seraphine wasn't trying to help me, she was trying to steal the Primordial. The seal wasn't just weakening from overuse, someone was actively breaking it from the outside. My aunt, my only living family, wanted me dead so she could take what I carried.The hunger pulsed in my chest, slow and heavy, almost like it was confirming what I already suspected."Sylari." Eron's voice pulled me back to the present. "We need to leave. The vaelth could return with reinforcements.""In a minute."I turned toward Riko and Daren, still standing near the altar like they didn't know what to do with themselves. They looked smaller than I remembered, diminished by whatever the vaelth had done to them during their captivity.Riko finally lifted his head, his one good eye finding mine. His lips parted like he wanted to say something, but no words came out."You loo