22
HARLOW
hock freezes me in place. Those two small words echo through my mind:S Henry died.
I have so many questions, but my chest seizes with a shocking grief.
“How?” I rasp.
He pats the claw marks on his chest. “The blood loss from these almost killed me.” He closes his eyes for a moment. “It’s been almost ten years. It feels like both a lifetime ago and like it happened yesterday.”
“I’m sorry.” Though I actually mean it, I’m so shocked it sounds like a reflexive response.
“You’ve seen the way the fort is set up—it’s like the city. Fallback plans and safe zones. The Drained had never done more than climb the walls a few at a time. We’d never even had a breach beyond the wall before that day.” He shudders. “The first five levels of the fort fell that day. Holly and I—” His voice is hoarse, and he takes another slow breath. “You’ve seen how strength is the most prized currency here and you know how it is being a ruling family. If you don’t protect your people, you have no value. We had to be on the front lines. My parents stayed back, trying to keep our people calm and help as many as possible to safety and to hold a final line to help the wounded. Holly and I and the last of our hunters—Bryce, Carter, and one hundred others—held the level six wall.”
He shudders and rubs a hand over his face. “I grew up venturing into the woods. I know how the Drained act. You can’t hunt for game beyond the
walls without a deep understanding of how the Drained operate. You learn what’s normal and how they sometimes work in groups. But this was like nothing I have ever seen. A horde of them. Thousands. You have to understand. Every man and woman who stands on that wall has faced down terror many times. We have plans and contingencies—things that are drilled into us from the time we are children so they run on reflexes when something goes wrong. But the front wall was overwhelmed in minutes. There was a blast and the wall broke and it was madness.”
I am torn between wanting to hear the rest and the desire to run from this.
Kellan thinks our family was somehow responsible, and though I have no idea how that could possibly be true, I trust my brother. My stomach turns over. I feel guilty by association. As if I wouldn’t choose to be in any other family.
“We lost so many of our best fighters in the lowest level of the fort,” he continues. “We were on our heels and barely able to hold off the onslaught enough to evacuate our people. So Holly, Bryce, Carter, me, and one hundred of the best men fell all the way back. We knew if we didn’t shore up the level six wall, we wouldn’t be able to stop them. With every level, the Drained fed on the warriors who fell. You know how it is if they get blood in general, but the more vital the blood, the stronger the Drained become. They were faster and more terrifying. So we held the line and it brought all of us to the limits of our magic. I was healing people between fighting. Holly was laying down holy fire to cover the parts of the wall where we were thin. But it wasn’t enough.”
I think of the sheer size of the fort, of the levels that lead up to the manor, of the number of people I saw in the streets on my way into town.
Henry runs his hands over the crisscross of scars. “We were down to the last big surge of Drained, but all of us were flagging. Bryce took a bad hit from one of them, and I was distracted for a split second, and one of them got me. I went down and I knew right away it was bad. But I’d healed so many people, I had nothing left for myself. It was too slow and I couldn’t breathe, because one of the claws had punctured my lungs. I felt myself fading, and Holly lost it. She basically turned herself into a human fireball and jumped into the crowd of them and took out all of the remaining Drained at once. But it cost her. She channeled too much magic at once and she burned herself up from the inside out. There was nothing left of her but ash.”
Henry looks down at the clear blue water. “The last thing I remember was
watching over the crumbled edge of the wall as my sister burned away to dust and took the rest of the beasts with her.” He swallows thickly. “Then I closed my eyes, and I don’t remember this part, but my mother got to me right after I died. She brought me back. I was lucky, I suppose. If a soul has strayed too far, she can’t draw them back.”
I’m speechless. The ethos of the fort has always been about strength, so I had assumed Henry’s scars were a way to show off his courage, but this is so much worse.
“She called back as many of us as she could—Bryce, Carter, Stefan, and about fifteen other hunters who stood on that wall with us—but Holly was gone. That day broke my mother. She had always been devout, but she couldn’t live with Holly’s loss. She prayed to Asher for days, and he answered her. He gifted her a way to ensure she would never lose another child.” His eyes meet mine, and I can’t look away from the agony in them.
“Divine Asher gave her the method and the will to answer her plea. Whatever end I have met once, I cannot meet again.”
It takes a full minute for me to understand what he’s saying.
“You can’t be killed the same way twice,” I whisper. There’s no way to claw back my composure because this is much worse than him simply being immune to my magic. I might not be able to kill him at all. I point to the pale scar on his neck. “She did that?”
Henry chews his lip. “Technically, my father did that part. She just brought me back. He does the violence. Naima does the healing, and my mother calls my soul back.”
He points to the scar on his left ribs. “Blade to the heart.” He brushes the hair on his left temple aside so I can see the bare line where his head is scarred. “Cracked skull.”
He leans an arm against the lip of the well, looking alarmingly casual for a man describing his many painful deaths. I want to ask what was the worst. I want to ask what happened after he died, but I won’t.
“And then there are all the invisible ones: crushed to death, broken neck, drowned, fever, and hypothermia.” He says them all so casually, but his aura flares violently. “And, as you noticed the night we met —”
“Poison,” I finish.
He nods.
“That’s why I can kiss you.” I look up and blow out the breath that’s been trapped in my chest. “There’s nothing wrong with my magic.”
I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but my relief is so profound, I can’t help it.
Henry arches a brow. “You thought you were moving miles of vampire- infested forest from home, with a man who hates you, while your magic
wasn’t working?”
“Yes.”
He whistles low. “You’re braver than I thought.”
I shrug a shoulder. “Or more reckless.”
He smirks. “Or just a complete idiot.”
I’m too shocked he’s making a joke right now not to laugh. “Did you think that’s what I would be? A pretty idiot?”
He smiles sheepishly.
“You must be pretty Divine-damned disappointed.”
He laughs, and it’s a real laugh. He looks relieved for the lightness, but my skin itches. I can’t get out of this room and away from the uncomfortable intimacy soon enough. He probably thinks I’ll feel indebted by the secrets he’s shared, but I just want to run.
There’s a knot in my throat threatening to choke me. “I’m sorry about your sister,” I rasp.
I’m surprised by how much I mean it. I know what it’s like to watch someone dear to you slip away. I think of Aidia’s face in bed beside me the night before I left the city. I can’t imagine what I would do if I lost her. Just like I can’t imagine that he would let it go if he blames my family for what happened. He lost the sister he loved—and he died.
Then, there’s the matter of all the different ways he’s been killed. I may have finally trapped myself in the one mess I can’t kiss my way out of—an indestructible husband.
If I marry him tomorrow, I won’t have any escape.
An involuntary shudder ripples through me.
This sham marriage is so much more than I bargained for. I need to send a message to Kellan. I need Gaven to help me find a way out of here. I need at least three more creative ways to kill a man.
“Well, I appreciate you telling me, and I won’t share that with anyone. I feel quite refreshed and I’d like to go back to my room now,” I say as I turn away from him and press up to stand.
Henry’s gasp startles me. I freeze, standing on the ledge. I know what he’s seen, and I can’t believe my stupidity. My desire to escape left me
exposed. I entered into this nude game of daring with him without considering that he might see the thing I’ve managed to keep hidden from everyone for years through carefully selected dresses and clothing that covers it up.
I meet his gaze over my shoulder. His eyes are narrowed and his jaw
clenched.
“A gentleman would avert his eyes.”
His gaze lingers on my scars. “You’re to be my wife.”
“So you have a right to my body?” I ask, venom creeping into the words.
I’m mortified by the fury and pity in his eyes.
“Of course not. I thought—” He swallows. “I’m sorry. You were so comfortable in the library that I assumed and I shouldn’t have. I can leave and you can pull the string over there when you’re done and I will come lead you back to your room.”
We stand there, staring at each other over the water. The candlelight reflects off the surface. It casts an eerie glow on his face and stretches his shadow tall and strange on the wall behind him.
“Who did that to you?” he asks.
“Did what?”
His jaw ticks and his hands fist at his sides. “Who scarred your back?
Who burned you, Harlow?”
The question leaves me breathless, my rage a great wave that never seems to crest. It just rises and rises until it’s too big for words. All at once, I’ve slipped out of the present and into the past.
The memory skips and jumps. The pain is too bright for it to connect.
Aidia’s hand cool on my neck. “I’m sorry, Low. My heart…my heart…my heart—” Broken agony in her voice until I say, “My bones,” and she descends into sobs so intense I can barely make it out when she says, “Our blood.”
Aidia’s hushed voice in my ear. “This is the true beginning of your tale, Harlow. The hurt is not a dying ember—it’s the spark that helps you set this world on fire. The same place where the hurt seeps out is where the hope shines in.”
The brush of my fingers to the bumpy skin on my lower back returns me to the present. Those wounds never felt like a place where hope could live.
Those beatings were meant to break me. Surviving them didn’t make me feel hopeful so much as transform me into a weapon to wound the world instead
of a tool someone else could use.
I can’t remember the actual violence. But I remember the creeping horror —the awful inevitability of pain—the crushing, claustrophobic terror of having no way out.
Most of all, I remember the helplessness, and I will not be helpless again.
I let him look. I’ve spent so much time trying to keep anyone from seeing it, wearing carefully cut clothing, never being fully naked with lovers. I feel like I’m leaking vulnerability—like I’ve shown him where I’m tender and now I’m braced for a blow.
But Henry doesn’t move. He’s so still, I’m not certain he’s breathing.
Some part of me wants him to look—wants someone, anyone to bear witness to this secret burden I’ve carried for so long.
The desire to show my strength could work in my favor. Henry has already seen it. I may as well let him look his fill and see that I’m not so easily daunted.
“Harlow—who did this to you?” His voice is tight with anger.
Maybe he’s mad his bride isn’t pristine. Maybe he just wants to know my past so he can try to understand how to frighten me. He’ll be disappointed to learn that he can’t.
Henry waits for me to speak, his eyes drinking in the topography of my back.
I lick my lips. “How did you put it? To use your own words: This is what survival looks like.”
He swallows hard, his gaze tracing over the starry pattern at the very bottom of my spine, like he’ll be able to find the truth written there on my skin. I suppose that’s exactly what it is, but it’s impossible to read if you don’t know the language of this kind of violence.
“You are entitled to my future, Henry. Not my past.”
He holds my gaze, but I refuse to give him an inch. I know what he’s thinking—that he’s owed something because he shared with me. That’s the trap he tried to set. He can’t be mad at me for not stepping into it. I keep my chin up, my arms crossed over my chest, and turn to face him.
“Share if you want, but don’t expect me to feel obliged to do the same.”
Giving him this now might make him feel like we’re even, but it could also make him suspicious. I think it’s too soon for him to believe this is a realistic win. Just like how I don’t believe he was being magnanimous when he told me his secret. He wants sympathy.
“We all have our secrets, Harlow. But here, the difference in living and dying is knowing which ones keep you alive and which ones will cost you.
Those marks are not…” His voice trails off, his face torn between anger and confusion. “Natural,” he says finally. “I’m not judging you, but as my wife, people will always be looking for your weakness because you will be my weakness. If someone here sees those scars, you need to be steadier. If they see a place to hurt you, they will use it.”
“Sounds like I’ll be right at home.”
In all our time together, Henry has been at ease, but now he shifts uncomfortably, water stirring around him as he crosses his arms, then lowers them back to his sides. It’s as if he can’t decide how to rebuild the wall that this unwanted intimacy tore down.
I know the feeling. It’s not as if I didn’t expect this to come up. In a few days, he’ll see me naked, but I had hoped to reveal my secrets at a moment of my choosing, when they could be used to strategically disarm him, instead of leaving me feeling exposed.
He looks down at the rippling water and then back up at my eyes, and I know at once that—even if this started as a way to test me—whatever he’s feeling now is real.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I whisper.
He frowns. “Like what?”
“Like you’re forgetting to hate me.” I arch a brow, glancing down at his body shimmering in the water. “Don’t go soft on me now, Henry.”
His lips tip into a wicked grin as his gaze dips to my breasts. “I think you’ll find that no matter how I look at you the next few days, there’s no risk of that.”
Well, at least I have that going for me. Sex is one of the more effective motivations I’ve used.
Henry sighs. “Fine. If you won’t tell me about the scars, will you at least tell me about why you locked yourself in your room for three days and Kyrin wouldn’t leave you alone?”
I stare at him. I can’t tell if he orchestrated this whole thing with his oversharing, or if I’ve tragically developed a conscience that makes me feel uncomfortable that he shared so openly while I held everything back.
“If I tell you this, I need you to swear you won’t immediately back out of the wedding.”
He holds perfectly still, as if afraid any sudden movements will scare me
off. “Harlow, whatever it is, your secret is safe with me. Consider it mutually assured destruction. You know mine and now I’ll know yours.”
“I prefer just knowing yours,” I say.
His lips twitch. “You would.”
I look away. I don’t want to see the disappointment on his face when I tell him. “My whole life, I have been plagued by these—episodes. I can always feel them coming on. Usually they’re preceded by light sensitivity and these glowing orbs that shine around light sources. Sometimes I get dizzy or nauseous. And from the time I get those first few warning signs, I can have anywhere from a few minutes to an hour to get somewhere private. They can last a few hours to a few days. I know strength is important here, but it’s also important for my family to always present a strong, united front. It wouldn’t do for our people to know that I have this kind of weakness.”
“That’s not weakness,” Henry says. “Do you know what causes them?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve seen every healer in Lunameade and none of them has any idea. Stress can make them worse, but truthfully, they seem to come entirely at random, and when they come on, it’s crippling. I can’t do more than lie on the washroom floor and vomit and try to survive. It’s all very pathetic.”
“Harlow—” His voice is pleading. I finally allow myself to meet his gaze.
The pity I find there is worse than disgust or anger. I hate it.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I snap. “This is the exact reason I don’t tell people. It’s just something I deal with. I don’t want to hear that I’m brave or strong. I have no choice but to bear it. I need this marriage to work to protect my family. So, if this changes things, please don’t be angry. I wasn’t trying to trick you and I have no reason to believe it will be passed down to our children.”
Henry frowns. “So the ice is for your head?”
I nod. “It helps sometimes.”
“They shouldn’t have put so much pressure on you. They should be finding you support to deal with it. Surely there must be an herbal treatment.
Maybe we have a healer here who would know something. Carter’s wife is an excellent herbalist. I could speak with her discreetly to see if —”
“Stop! I’m not a problem to be solved. I don’t need you to fix me.”
He has the sense to look chastened. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I know. You want to help. But sometimes
the idea that I could and should always be doing more to figure it out feels like a massive burden on me when I’m already embarrassed to need the help in the first place.”
The same pity from before is back. “I shouldn’t have —”
“Don’t do that. Don’t treat me differently now. It feels worse to be treated like I’m weak. You don’t know what it takes to endure that on a regular basis.
If they aren’t that bad, I force myself to go about my day.”
He rubs the back of his neck, and he truly looks like he’s on his heels for once. “I feel like shit for pressing you so much about appearing strong now that I know you do it all the time.”
I look away. This is too much. I want to crawl out of my skin. I’ve never spoken about this in depth with anyone except Aidia, and it was even hard to
explain it to her.
“What about your family well?”
I shake my head. “It helps afterward with the sore muscles and fatigue, but it’s never cured an episode, and I don’t think it’s improved anything for me.” I run my hand over the surface of the water. “I was afraid to get in, because if this doesn’t work, then it means I’m really broken.”
Saying it out loud feels like I’ve gone a step too far. The instinct to run returns.
“I don’t expect you to push through daily. I want you to tell me when you need a break. If you need to rest, Harlow, you will always be given that dignity here.”
I glare at him. “If I lay down every time I don’t feel well, I’d never leave my bed. I don’t have the luxury of pain-free weeks. I have to live, Henry. I
have to do something.”
“What happens if you hold still?”
The answer to that question is dangerously revealing. Is this my madness?
The inability to just hold still? The fear that everything tucked away in the back of my mind will finally catch up if I stop moving. My hand comes to my back reflexively—the mark there tied to every memory I’d rather not unpack right now.
“I think that’s enough soul-baring for one day. I’ve answered your questions and you haven’t rejected me—yet.”
He chuckles and looks away. “So prickly.”
“You would be too if you’d been vomiting and curled up in pain for three days.”
“How do you feel now?”
I cross my arms. “Like I’ve revealed enough of myself.”
His gaze drops to my breasts. “Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s just the right amount.” There’s a heated interest in his eyes. It would be unnerving if I weren’t relieved that he’s looking at me the same way.
Henry shakes his head and climbs out of the pool, grabbing a towel from the table on the edge of the room, and wraps it around his waist before he turns back to me. “All right. I think that was quite enough for both of us and the last thing I need right now is for my parents to find out I showed you that this was here. Harlow—” He waits for me to climb out and hands me a towel.
“I need you to understand that this is a very big secret. Not to my people, but —”
“To my people. I know,” I say, knowing very well that it will be the first thing I offer my parents.
“Let’s go, lovely. This was a good start, but you should rest up before this wedding.”
