Page 42 of Lore of the Tides

Syrelle clenched his jaw. A vein began to throb on his forehead. “No,” he said vehemently. “You mustn’t.” He gripped her shoulders. “Look at me, Lore. It is important that you hear this.” He shook her, his grip painful. “What matters more than my feelings, more than how you feel about me, is that no matter how much magic you acquire, even if you findAuroradel, it won’t be enough; my uncle’s source of magic is too powerful.” His voice cracked. “Promise me, Lore. Promise me that no matter what happens, you will never confront him.”

Lore made no such promise. Of course he would do or say whatever he had to dissuade her from taking power from him. She seethed with fury.

He loosened his grip on her. “Just know, I wouldneveruse my feelings for you as a ploy, a trick. You may not believe me, but deep down, you must know it to be true.” He swallowed thickly. “I can live with you not believing me for a while longer. Soon, I will prove it to you.”

His grasp on her shoulders felt like shackles. She was confined.A prisoner. This was torture, and he, her tormentor. Lore shivered. Her chest felt constricted; she couldn’t pull in breath. It was as though a fist were strangling her heart and it was about to burst.

“Leave!” she screamed, the word a guttural sob tearing from her throat. “Get out! I can’t breathe with you here.” Her eyes blazed with a cold fire, reflecting the wreckage of their affection. “I need you out.”

The weight of her words hung heavy in the air, erecting a tangible barrier between them.

In that moment, they were ships passing in a typhoon, each locked in their own tempestuous voyage. His heart was an unknowable vessel, one without a flag or standard; no insight to articulate, with certainty, the veracity of where he stood.

Her own heart ached for the storm to subside, for safe harbor.

But the storm raged on, the waves of his betrayal colliding against her ability to ever trust him again.

If this persisted, it would kill her.

Syrelle stood there, a silent witness to the chaos within her, his own emotions seeming a tangled mess that mirrored her own. Lore needed him to honor her request for space, this desperate push for solitude to navigate the treacherous waters of her pain, even though he honored nothing else when it came to her.

More than at any other time in the last two weeks, she yearned for Finndryl’s presence.

Finndryl was a lighthouse in her storm, a beacon of hope guiding her through a darkness that was close to swallowing her whole.

“Keep the medicinal case. I’ll send Cecil with hot water to wash with. When you’re done, change your dressings...”

“I know how to fucking heal myself when the fae cut me, Syrelle.” She closed her eyes against the sight of him. “Go.”

The sound of the lock sliding into place behind him was louder than the thundering in her ears.

Chapter 14

Lore slept for three days, only waking to change her bandages, eat, and use the chamber pot.

This room had become her prison and her sanctuary.

All she could do was watch out her window as theLavender Lark, manned by a skeleton crew, headed farther away from Duskmere. She whipped the curtain closed. She was sick of the endless ocean. Galjien was long gone. Alytheria was two weeks behind them. Ma Serach was one week’s sail away, and Lore wasn’t any closer to finding out where the book was on the continent.

Lore knew she should scry again. Not for the book—right now, she couldn’t bring herself to comb through that sentient darkness. Not so soon after the razorfins. No, sheshouldscry so that she could see Finn. There wasn’t anything she wanted to do more than to see him. But she couldn’t bear the thought of only “seeing” him in that way. She didn’t want to be a ghost to him.

Invisible.

She had no doubt that, just from the sound of her voice, he would know that something had happened to her. She wouldn’t be able to hide it. And when he learned what had almost been done to her, she wanted to bewithhim. Really with him. To reassure him that she had made it out... alive.

Not whole. But not fractured either.Transformed.

Lore trailed a fingernail along the deepest gash on her arm that, thanks to the salve, was already healing into a jagged, lumpy scar. She did not wish the scars away. They were proof that she had overcome an entire boatload of fae intent on killing her.

And more importantly, she didn’t need the grimoire within reach to channel power.

She just neededSource.

Like her godsdamned grimoire. Deeping Lunewas honed fromSourceitself. And Lore could access it. As long as it was nighttime... especially if the moon was full. And it seemed to have an amplifying quality.

She rolled onto her back, imagining how much stronger she would be with access toAuroradel. She didn’t believe Syrelle. About her findingAuroradelbeing futile. If she had control of both books, shewoulddefeat anyone who came between her people and freedom. And if that meant the king, then it meant the king.

There was a reason the king wanted the books, wasn’t there? Maybe his power was waning.