Read Online Edge of Pathos (The Conjurors Series Book 4) by Kristen Pham - Free Book Online

hung in its sheath at her side.
    “It binds us. Even
if you wanted to lie to me, you couldn’t,” he said.
    “But I haven’t lied
to you. And I never will,” Valerie said.
    Cyrus’s face
softened by a fraction. “I know. And I know you’re too honorable to cheat on
me. That’s not what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid that you’re going to stay with me
for the rest of your life, even though I’m your second choice.”
    “Cyrus, I love you.
I want to be with you,” she said, but a mounting fear was growing in her heart.
    “Tell me you love me
more than you love Thai,” Cyrus said. “That I’m your soul mate.”
    If Valerie could
have lied then, she might have. Cyrus had been the only constant in her life,
and if she broke his heart and he left her, she might die. But even as she
tried to form the words, they turned to ashes in her mouth. She didn’t know if
it was the spell or her own conscience, but she couldn’t mislead him.
    “I don’t know if I
could survive without you,” she said, her hands clenched into fists. “I love
you. Believe that.”
    “I do,” he said
softly. “But you love Thai even more, don’t you?”
    Valerie stared at
him, tears pooling in her eyes. She didn’t answer.
    “Don’t you?” Cyrus
said. “Say it!”
    “Yes,” Valerie
whispered.
    Cyrus seemed to deflate,
to shrink before her eyes.
    “We’re over,” he
said. “You’re free. Go be with who you really want.”
    Cyrus
turned and left, and Valerie didn’t try to follow him.
    Henry’s soft knock
roused Valerie from a restless sleep. She shuffled to her door like a zombie
and opened it.
    “You’re getting
better at shutting me out. I didn’t know what happened until I found Cyrus,”
Henry said.
    “I learned from the
master,” she said, and regretted her words when she saw Henry’s mouth turn
down.
    “You have no idea
how much I wish I didn’t have to do that,” he said.
    Valerie relented.
“Maybe what Cyrus did is for the best. I’m only going to end up hurting
everyone I love when my magic destroys my mind. The sooner he distances himself
from me the better.”
    “It doesn’t have to
be that way. If you hold back from using your vivicus power—”
    Valerie shook her
head. “I won’t watch people die if I can help it. Every battle I’m in, I think
about if I can save more lives by fighting or by using my vivicus power. In the
end, after the fighting is over, it always makes sense to save someone. I
couldn’t live with anything else. By the end of this war, I might be no better
than Darling. Cyrus deserves more.”
    “That’s his choice
to make,” Henry argued.
    “Maybe it’s for a different
reason, but he already made it. I’m not going to stop him,” Valerie said.
    “Just know that you
can never send me away. So don’t try.”
    “I think it’s the
other way around. You’re the one pushing me away,” Valerie said. “Cyrus made me
tell him how I felt about Thai by using the truth spell on Pathos that binds
us. I thought about asking you some questions that you wouldn’t be able to lie
about, too.”
    “Part of me wishes
you would,” he said, his voice ragged. “But a bigger part of me might lose it
if you did.”
    She nodded. “I’m not
going to force you to tell me anything. I don’t like being cornered, and I’m
not going to do it to you.”
    Henry hugged her
then, holding on to her like a lifeline.
    “Everything sucks so
much, you know?” he asked.
    “Yeah, I do,”
Valerie said. “I keep thinking we’ve hit the bottom, and then it drops out from
under us again.”
    The
early morning light stole through her room then, turning everything pink as
Henry quickly wiped a tear from his eye. “This night is finally over.”
    For the next few
days, Valerie threw herself into planning her battle strategy with more energy
than ever. Azra and Gideon spent as much time as they could helping her refine
her ideas.
    Inevitably, Valerie
was thrown together with Cyrus as they planned