Chương 39: I Got Exposed

POV: The Dark Lord, Milo Miles I couldn't make out much of what passed between Evelisse and Ywain; not with one eardrum still ringing dead, but I could guess the shape of it. Ywain running me down, probably, working to take her back to his side. I had caught her shaking her head a moment ago, so whatever he'd tried, it did not work. Eat that, douche. And I was getting my balance back, which surprised me. I had braced to be knocked out cold, the way the holy troll had put me under, but the lights hadn't gone out.

I didn't know why. What I did know was that I needed to get up, fast, and help her. She was trading blows with Ywain, and she was good, slipping his palm-strikes, turning his kicks off her gauntlets, answering each opening with a counter of her own. I had no idea whether his holy-charged fists hit her harder, given she wasn't a Dark Lord like me. But it didn't matter. There was no version of this where I lay in the dirt and let the person who'd just saved my life fight my battle alone.

They broke apart after a hard exchange, both giving ground, resetting a few paces off with the wary stillness of two fighters who had taken each other's measure, and in that gap I felt it come back; strength flooding into my limbs, my ribs still screaming but my legs finally answering me. I forced myself up and summoned the Hell's Sword, the blazing orange blade flaring back into my grip. The instant it appeared, Ywain's head snapped toward me.

In the same heartbeat he casted an ice blast at Evelisse; no eye contact, just fired it blind off to the side, and charged straight at me. I got the sword up and deflected his strike, and when I glanced over, Evelisse was shaking shards of ice off her gauntlets. She hadn't fully cleared the blast in time. Ywain kicked off the ground and climbed, and from up there he started spraying ice across the whole clearing.

We both scrambled, dodging what we could, but the ground was glazing over fast, frost sheeting across everything and turning the footing treacherous. Mid-dodge my boot came down on an already-frozen patch and shot out from under me, and I went down flat on my back. Of course I would slip and look pathetic for god knows how many times today. When I looked up, Evelisse was already airborne closing on Ywain, likely using the same short flight buff she had used at Eremiah.

But as she wound up to strike, Ywain beat those glittering wings once and threw a wall of wind that knocked her off balance, then followed it with a massive ice blast that swallowed her whole. It froze around her, encasing her solid, and then the whole block of ice tipped and began to fall. I didn't know what would happen if it hit the ground. Maybe just the ice shattered, maybe she went with it. I couldn't gamble on finding out.

I threw myself into flight, shot beneath the falling ice, and caught it with Telekinesis, arresting it mid-air. Ywain saw exactly what I was doing, and drove a rider kick straight down at the frozen Evelisse. I wrenched the ice sideways out of his path, but he didn't stop; his line carried right on through, aimed now at me. Oh, great. Should've thought that one through. The kick landed square and sent me tumbling across the ground.

It hurt, a deep, jarring ache that bloomed out through my ribs, the kind that steals your breath and takes a second to give it back, but I stayed conscious, so it hadn't been a clean holy hit. I rolled over to find Evelisse already back on Ywain, trading blows again. She'd broken free of the ice on her own, in time. And now she turned it around.

She slipped inside his guard and cracked a gauntleted fist across his jaw; he reeled, stunned, and she spun straight into a roundhouse that caught him across the temple and flung him off his feet. Before he could recover she was on him, driving him back into the trunk of a big tree hard enough to crack the bark. Ywain still didn't go down. He threw a blind ice blast on instinct; she ducked under it clean and buried another punch to the side of his face, and that one dropped him to the dirt. Did that do it?

The dust and frost settled, and Ywain was climbing back to his feet, his wings gone now, guttered out. I flew over and set myself beside Evelisse, sword up.

"Evelisse. You're wasting your time." Ywain's voice came ragged but steady.

"Everything you're doing right now, you're doing to help the world end." I couldn't tell if he meant it or was just stalling for breath. Evelisse didn't drop her stance.

"Then you owe me an explanation." I fell in beside her, settling into what I hoped passed for a proper fighting stance.

"You wouldn't understand it. All you need to know is that I'm different. I'm Lord Luminaryn's true envoy, and what you're doing is standing against Him." I saw something flicker across Evelisse's face, a small hitch, a shadow of doubt, but her guard didn't drop an inch.

"And I'm not lying," Ywain went on.

"You've seen the holy attacks. The Lumiere Wings. You've seen how little the Dark Lord can even scratch me. We can keep at this all night, and maybe you find a way to put me down. But even if I fall, you'll answer for it. And you won't answer alone." His eyes glinted.

"Your sister and everyone who is affiliated with you might find herself pulled into it too." This time, I saw Evelisse's jaw tighten. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Think it through, Evelisse. I'll say it plainly." He wiped blood from his lip.

"The Dark Lord did something to you. He made you feel things for him, cheated his way into your head, the way a creature like him does. That's all this is. And he's exactly the kind of thing that ought to be purged." Something in me went cold, because it wasn't entirely wrong. Evelisse launched at him, and they crashed back into it, faster now, furious. Ywain kept talking through it, his mouth moving between exchanges, but I couldn't catch a word over the ringing in my ear.

I wanted to cut in, to help, but they were too tangled, moving too fast; I couldn't find a gap that didn't risk hitting her. She was winning. I could see it, she was pushing him, landing more than she took. Then Ywain said something, and Evelisse faltered. Just a half-beat, her rhythm stuttering. That half-beat was all he needed. His fist drove into her stomach and folded her onto her knees.

He leaned down, said something low against her ear, and then his boot cracked into the side of her head and flung her sprawling. She hit the ground on her stomach and lay there, arms shaking, fighting to push herself back up. I could not just stand here like an idiot and watch. I flew at Ywain, sword leading, to put myself between him and Evelisse before he could do worse. He wrapped his hand in that white holy light and simply caught the blade, stopping it in his grip.

"It's over, Milo. You can't do a thing to me." His mouth curled.

"Tell you what, why don't you make yourself useful and just die?" Did this guy actually think I was that stupid?

"Besides. You're finished either way." His eyes held mine.

"I know what you did. Lord Luminaryn told me. You had used the Eye of Love on Evelisse." What the— His knee drove into my gut before I could finish the thought, and he flung himself forward into an uppercut that snapped my head back and put me on the ground. The Hell's Sword slipped from my hand and winked out of existence. Evelisse was on him before I had stopped rolling.

But her strikes came slower than before, a fraction off, half a beat behind, whether from the blow he had landed earlier or from something else, I couldn't tell. Ywain read the gap in her rhythm and turned it against her. He caught her wrist mid-swing, cracked a fist across her ribs, then seized a fistful of her ponytail and hurled her down beside me in the dirt.

"If you don't believe me, Evelisse," he said, "why not ask him yourself? Ask whether he knows about the Eye of Love." So that was it. That was what he'd said during their clash, the thing that made her falter. Still on the ground, Evelisse turned her head and looked at me. She didn't say anything. Her expression was careful, held very still, like she was afraid of what my face might tell her before I'd said a word.

"Go on, Milo." Ywain's voice came easy, almost gentle, which made it worse.

"Tell her about the Eye of Love. Be honest, for once in your miserable existence. Don't you feel even a little sorry for her? Chasing after something she thinks is real, when it's nothing but your trick?" How does he know that? The question spun uselessly in my head. I had never told anyone but Nyx. There was no way—unless what he had said was true, unless something really had been watching, whispering in his ear before he came. Greg's nemesis must have leaked the info to him.

"It—it was a petrification artifact," I heard myself say.

"It didn't work. It was a dud." The same lie I had fed Evelisse once before. Except this time I heard how thin it came out, how little conviction was behind it, and I knew she heard it too. Ywain laughed.

"A petrification artifact. Please. Your demon girl throws immobilization spells around like confetti, what would you need a separate trinket for?" He shook his head.

"You're embarrassing yourself. The least you owe her is the truth." I pushed myself up on one arm. As I did, I glanced at Evelisse again. She still hadn't spoken. But there was something in the set of her jaw, in the way she was looking at me and not looking away, that told me she wanted the truth more than anything. And I couldn't keep lying to her. Not now. It was my doing; pretending otherwise wouldn't unmake it. All I could do was be honest and hope that honesty was enough to keep us on the same side of this.

"So?" Ywain spread his hands.

"Or shall I answer for you?"

"It didn't work," I said. Ywain blinked.

"What?"

"The Eye of Love. It didn't work." I met Evelisse's eyes when I said it.

"You have to look into the center of the eye for it to do anything. Evelisse never did. So it didn't take effect."

"You hear that, Evelisse?" Ywain turned to her, triumphant.

"You see what he is? He tried to reach into your heart and rearrange how you feel, and now that he's cornered, he wants credit for failing at it."

"You have to look into the center," I said again, to her, only to her.

"She didn't. Whatever you feel, it isn't from that. It was never from that."

"But does that change anything?" Ywain's voice hardened.

"It doesn't matter whether it worked. You meant to use it. You wanted to exploit her from the very first day you laid eyes on her." I couldn't answer that one. Because he was right.

"I'm sorry to be so harsh with you, Evelisse." Ywain's tone gentled again, that awful practiced softness.

"But after you threw yourself in on his side, I had no choice. Come back to Lord Luminaryn. Come back to where no one is playing games with your feelings." You absolute hypocrite, I thought. You're the one playing her. Though the ugly part of it was that he wasn't wrong about me either. I hadn't been any better. Maybe I had been worse, since at least Ywain did not plan to use a mind-altering artifact or something along those lines. Evelisse got to her feet; s he walked forward, and as she passed me, she stopped.

She turned, just slightly, enough to catch my eye. I tried to hold it and couldn't, like exactly what I was, a guy caught red-handed with nothing left to hide behind. I managed a fraction of a second before my gaze slid away. I was too ashamed to look at her. Honestly, I wouldn't have blamed her if she'd walked over to Ywain's side and helped him beat me into the dirt. I had earned it. After everything, I couldn't exactly call myself the wronged party.

But, I couldn't let Nyx lose everything over how badly I kept screwing up. Not after all she'd done for me, not after she was lying broken somewhere because of me. So whatever Evelisse decided, I would still— Then it landed. A slap across the face. Not hard. Just enough.

"You'd better explain everything to me," Evelisse said, low, close, so only I could hear.

"Later." Then she stepped past me, turned to face Ywain, and dropped back into her fighting stance. Ywain stared at her." Really? After everything he's lied to you about?"

"Lies or not," Evelisse said, "you don't get to be the one who decides what they mean for me."