Chapter 56
don’t think about the blood on my gown or the grazes on my skin as Kyor and I return to the ballroom to retrieve Llin’s body. I’m sickened,I but unsurprised, to find the party is back in full swing. Korvane and his sycophants continue to drink and laugh while music floats through the air, as if one of the kindest people I’ve ever met hasn’t just returned her powers to Mortidem.
Three balls. Two deaths. Two people lost that I respected and cared for greatly. These soirees are proving as deadly as the trials themselves.
My gaze sweeps the room, and I find that Benny has carried Llinos over to a corner and placed her down on a couch with her head resting on Caroline’s lap. Neither of them look up at us as we approach. ‘Benny, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.’ ‘Is he dead?’ Benny asks, still focused on Llin. ‘Very,’ I reply.
He closes his eyes and lets out a shuddering breath. ‘Then that’ll have to do.’ A moment later, he finally shifts his gaze from Llinos and looks at Kyor instead. ‘On the island, we burn our people at sea,’ he says. ‘Is that something you can make happen here? I know she was a Rettling but—’ ‘This wasn’t a Retterheld death,’ Kyor interrupts. ‘She was a noble of the Eastern Isles and deserves a proper burial. I will see to it now.’ As Kyor leaves, I try to think of something to say to Caroline. She mutters quietly as her tears fall in an endless torrent. ‘I should have found you sooner, my love,’ she whispers as she strokes Llin’s tresses. ‘I should have found you the moment this all began, but I was a coward.’
‘You found each other,’ I say, not even sure if she can hear me. ‘You found each other and found your second chance. That’s what matters.’ Caroline doesn’t even glance at me as she continues to comb her fingers through Llinos’s hair.
This wasn’t the way this night was supposed to end. Llinos wanted to stay in the dorm. She didn’t want to even come. If she hadn’t … if Kyor hadn’t fixed it so Caroline could come … Llin would still be alive. If I hadn’t passed the glass to her, Llin would still be alive, and I would likely be dead.
Jonas and Kay are standing off to one side of the room with Hew and William. For a second, I consider going to her. Explaining myself. Telling her that this is what court life really is. Backstabbing and heartbreak and petty personal vendettas stretching through generations.
The only reason Holden wanted me dead was because of the absurd jealousy he had towards my father. This night should be a lesson for us both.
But I can’t tell her that. I can’t even face her. She deserves to cling to her naïveté for as long as she can.
So instead, I turn back to Benny. I can’t imagine the pain that fills him.
Of the six Rettlings who arrived from the Eastern Isles, he is the only one who remains. ‘What can I do? What do you need?’ I ask him.
He shakes his head. ‘I’m not sure I even know anymore. She was so mad at me. I thought I’d have time, you know, to put it right.’ ‘You did, Benny.’ I place my hand on his shoulder. ‘You know you did.
I saw you two. Whatever happened between you, she was moving past it.
I’m sure of it.’ He scoffs. ‘I guess we’ll never know.’ My heart throbs. How many times can it get broken and keep beating?
How much suffering can one person endure before a heart simply decides it can no longer keep going? I don’t have the answer, but right now I feel closer to that moment of defeat than ever before.
Kay approaches in a similar manner to the way I approached the dire wolf in Afaven Forest. ‘Rose, I’m going to head back home now,’ she says, still visibly trembling. ‘William and Hew are going to walk me.’ I nod dully, a tiny sting piercing my heart that she isn’t willing to stay for me. ‘Goodnight. ’
‘Goodnight, Rose.’ She pauses before pressing her lips together and glancing at Jonas. ‘Think over what I said about Jonas. You could make a far worse match than a Lorathin.’ It’s hard not to laugh. I’m mourning the death of one of my closest friends, and Kay is thinking about matchmaking me.
Kay turns away, not even bothering to wish me luck with the next trial or tell me to stay alive. Maybe it’s too hard for her to think of it like that, to face how deadly this all is. Or maybe, like Holden, she also thinks I’m a cockroach who is destined to fall right back into the gutter I came from.
The ball carries on around us, with music and dancing and people skirting around our little group, but we remain in silence until Kyor returns. ‘I have permission from the High Priestess for us to leave the Rettling grounds, and I have two carriages ready. One to take us to the water,’ he says, ‘and the other full of wood to build a raft. That’s right, isn’t it?’
Benny nods. ‘Then we should leave now.’ No one speaks on the carriage ride to the sea. Llin is cradled by Caroline on one seat, with Benny next to her, while Jonas, Kyor, and I cram together on the other.
I am in shock, I realise. My limbs feel weak, detached almost, and I can’t stop trembling. Can’t stop seeing the moment of Llin’s death, her smile fixed forever. You’d think, as a healer’s daughter and then an orphan – and a slum rat – I’d be used to death, but it’s different when it’s a friend.
Someone you love. Maybe not loving is the answer.
No one speaks, but at some point the air turns cool and salty as the sound of the gentle lapping of waves drifts into the carriage. I only wish the waves could wash away the memories I can’t stop from flooding through my mind.
As the carriage draws to a halt, the men and I climb out. Caroline stays with Llin, still stroking her hair, and she begins to hum softly, like she would to comfort a small child. My eyes sting and my chest is tight, but I help Kyor and Jonas carry wood from the second carriage to where Benny is lashing each board together expertly. This clearly isn’t the first funereal raft he’s built.
It gives me purpose and a much-needed distraction to do something, to help in some small way, and I move methodically, lifting one plank, then
another. I don’t stop – I can’t stop – because if I do, the absence of motion will allow the thoughts to creep in, and the pain will follow.
On the occasions I do look up, I find Kyor or Jonas staring at me, concern etched across their features. But they keep their distance. ‘It’s ready,’ Benny says gently to Caroline, when the raft is finally built. ‘Let me carry her for you,’ he offers.
Caroline nods dully and he sweeps Llin’s frame up into his arms like she weighs nothing.
Wordlessly, Benny carries Llin down to the water and lays her down on the wooden raft before stepping back and allowing Caroline a few last private moments with the love of her life. ‘It’s time,’ he says a minute later, pressing his hand against the small of her back. ‘It’s time.’ Still trying to stifle her shuddering breaths, Caroline moves to one side of the raft while Benny takes his place on the other. Together, they push the raft out, wading into the soft waves of the sea, which break and foam around their calves, the green ballgown swirling around Caroline. Before they get too deep, Kyor hands them each a burning torch and then returns to my side.
I don’t want to watch. I don’t want to see Llin’s body, which only hours ago was so full of hope and laughter and life, be turned into nothing more than ash and memories. But I won’t draw my eyes away. Watching on and honouring her passage is the least Llinos deserves.
The water is halfway up their thighs when, as one, Benny and Caroline lower their torches. The flames catch slowly at first, licking around Llin’s body until they rise up, higher and higher. Before they have consumed her entirely, Benny and Caroline offer the raft one final push, and the current of the sea takes her, slowly drawing Llinos away from the shore.
Kyor’s hand slips into mine, his fingers intertwining with my own, as we stand there watching the flames float into the distance, carrying with them the most loyal friend I have ever known. ‘I didn’t know how to pronounce her name the first time we met,’ I whisper. ‘I didn’t know how to pronounce it, and now I’m never going to say it to her again.’ As we watch Benny and Caroline return to the shore, dripping with water and tears, I know that Kyor won’t bother to offer me some trite words of comfort. Like me, he has already suffered too much in his life, and he
knows there is nothing he can say. But the truth is that he doesn’t need to say anything. Right now, his presence is enough.
BY THE TIME we arrive back at the High Hold, it can only be a few hours until breakfast. I don’t know where Caroline goes or where she lives when she isn’t with us or scribing in the library, but I don’t offer to go with her, knowing she needs to be alone. So I simply hug her tightly before she disappears. Looking weary beyond tiredness, heartsore, and exhausted, Benny trudges upstairs to our dorm. And Jonas doesn’t even look back as he climbs the steps to his room.
I don’t hesitate when Kyor tugs my hand. I follow him down the stairs towards the kitchens and into his bedroom. He steps inside and closes the door behind me.
As he slips off his jacket, I reach up onto my tiptoes and press my mouth to his. Yet my tongue has barely savoured a hint of his vanilla taste when he breaks away. Pulls away from me.
I frown. ‘I trust you,’ I say impatiently. ‘I trust you with my life. That’s what you needed to hear, right? Well, there you go. Now you know. I trust you and I want you.’ I move to kiss him again, but rather than reciprocating my action, he cups my cheeks and draws my face away from him. ‘I believe you,’ he replies softly, ‘but you’re forgetting the only rule of this relationship.’ Another day, another moment, and my mind would have spun at the word. Now, my mind is strangely numb. I shake my head. ‘What rule?’ I say. ‘There are no rules.’ ‘Not as a distraction. That’s the one you gave me, remember? Not as a distraction.’ I open my mouth, desperate to object, to say that’s not the reason I want him, that it’s more than desire. It’s a need, a yearning, an absolute desperation.
The pain of his rejection burns through me. A pain that quickly shifts into anger. ‘You’re choosing now to be a gentleman? Seriously? When I actually need you to fuck me, that’s when you find some morals?’
A muscle twitches along his jaw. ‘I was a kid, Thorn —’ ‘I’m not talking about my family. I’m talking about Estel’s sister.’ Even as the words leave my lips, I’m not sure why I’m bringing this up. What am I hoping to achieve? I know that causing other people hurt does nothing to minimise my own. And yet I can’t stop myself. ‘Estel’s sister, Thea?’ ‘Yeah, the one you got pregnant, although you denied it was yours. The one who was stripped like my family was stripped. Sound familiar? ’ ‘Rose—’ ‘What? You want me to trust you, but you don’t want me to know anything about you. Is that it?’ That muscle ticks again. ‘I don’t know what you’ve heard …’ I scoff. My voice is so bitter I barely recognise it. ‘I told you exactly what I heard. You knew what would happen to her, and you still denied the kid was yours.’ ‘Because I wasn’t the father!’ It’s the first time he’s raised his voice, and it’s exactly what I need. I don’t care how much I want whatever this is between us; all I know right now is that he’s the only person in this arc with the power to truly hurt me, and I need him to do that. I need him to do that because I deserve it. I’m the reason Llinos is dead. I deserve to suffer. And I know Kyor’s never one to back away from a fight. Yet rather than continuing to battle with me, he lets out a sigh. ‘I knew Thea. Just like I knew Estel. Through balls, through parties, through growing up in the High Hold. But I didn’t get her pregnant. I don’t think I even fucked her.’ ‘You don’t think? Wow, Kyor, there’s so many you can’t even recall the names of all the women you’ve bedded? What a gentleman.’ ‘That’s not what I meant.’ He rubs his temples as he walks the short distance over to his desk and pulls out the chair, though he doesn’t sit down.
My irritation rises. I need him to either fuck me or tell me to fuck off, and I’ll push him as hard as I have to, to make sure one of those things happens. ‘When I was made commander and first went out to fight, I would get pretty messed up. Drinks, other stuff … whatever the hell I could find. I just wanted to forget what I saw … the blood, the death. So yeah, I screwed around then. And I don’t remember a lot of it. Am I proud of it? No, but it was years before Thea was stripped of her powers.’ He moves away from
the chair and steps towards me, taking my hands. ‘Look, I get you’re in pain right now. And I know what it’s like to be in pain and want to lash out, so we can go outside and we can beat the shit out of each other if that’s what you want. Or I can find us something that will get us blind drunk so you can try to forget the fucking nightmare that you’ve just been through, though I’m going to tell you from experience that it’ll just come back and bite you even fucking harder.’ He sighs. ‘I will do whatever you ask of me, except sleep with you. Not now. Not like this. I don’t want you to regret our first
time together. ’ ‘You don’t know what I’ll feel.’ ‘No, but I can take a guess.’ He moves his hands to my waist. I want it to be the same as before – full static sparks that make us rip each other’s clothes off without a second thought – and there’s definitely something there, but it’s different. Deeper. I need him. I need him so fully it hurts. ‘If you wanna keep saying things to try to hurt me, Thorn, then you do that. I can take it. I can take anything apart from being responsible for causing you any more pain. I’ve caused too much already.’ He lifts his finger and grazes my cheek as he pushes a strand of hair behind my ear. My body yearns for his touch in any way it can get it. ‘You haven’t,’ I whisper, only for a single tear to slip down my cheek. ‘I’m not going anywhere, Thorn. I promise you. We have time.’ A lump lodges hard in my throat, bringing on more tears. I don’t want to let them fall. ‘Will you hold me?’ The words crack from my throat, coming from a place so deep inside of me I didn’t even know it was there. ‘Always,’ he replies.
There is no shame, no embarrassment, and no doubt or second-guessing as I remove my gown and let it fall to the floor.
The slightest gasp catches in his throat as his eyes run over my body, but then he moves over to the chest of drawers, pulls out a shirt, and throws it to me.
I catch it in my hands but don’t immediately put it on. Instead, I take a step towards him. ‘What if tonight is all we get?’ I wonder aloud, my voice a cracking whisper. ‘What if tomorrow is the trial, and—’ He silences me with a kiss, stealing the words from my lips and the air from my lungs. When we break away, his hand brushes through my hair
then strokes the small patch of soft skin behind my ear. ‘I will die before I let anything happen to you,’ he says. ‘You have my word.’ I believe him because I can feel it in my bones that he means it. But that still doesn’t answer my question. ‘What if tonight is all we get?’ I ask again. ‘Then I shall spend it holding you,’ he replies. ‘And that will be enough.’ I close my eyes, hearing Llinos’s voice in my ear telling me that this thing between Kyor and me is more than just physical attraction. And damn it, she’s right. She was fucking right .
He lifts my hand to his lips and gently kisses each of my fingertips. ‘Come on, Thorn,’ he says. ‘Lie down. You need sleep.’ I do as he bids and slip under the covers, and a small sigh escapes my lips as he climbs in beside me and wraps his arms around my waist. With his warmth and scent around me, I curl into him. And sleep finally takes me.
