He lifts his eyes to mine and the niggling abruptly thrusts up the dim recollection of his arms around me last night, dragging me away from the burning buildings.
“Then I met the girl from the Fendres Mountains whose home I helped my father destroy in an undercover training session at the age of ten,” he whispers. “And I could still remember her white Elemental hair and her screams.”
His admission snaps through my mental fog so fast, it draws a breath up my raw throat that sends my insides heaving, yelling.
My parents. My home. I realize too late a cluster of tears are sliding down my cheeks as a tremor surges inside, his words carving up my heart like a piece of meat.
He killed them. He destroyed my world.
Reluctant inhale. Hardened exhale. “You . . .”
I can’t even get the words out.
And he let me believe it was me.
“Nym, I swear to you—”
“Don’t.”
“You have to understand—”
“Understand what? That you killed them? That you let me believe it was me? This whole time, Eogan, you lied to me! While you trained me! You lied while you touched me!”
And I thought I was the monster.
I scoot as far against the wall as possible.
“Nym, if I’d told you the truth at first, you never would’ve let me help—”
“Are you insane? I don’t want your excuses! You had no right! You’ve not been helping me—you’ve been using me.”
“I saved you! And yes, maybe I have used you. But you’d be under Adora’s thumb right now if it weren’t for me. Or worse—in the favor houses. And I did help—I kept you from becoming one of Adora’s war machines.”
“Oh, cut the bolcrane—you just turned me into a more civilized monster! But the blood on your hands is still the same.” I fight to keep my voice steady as the tears thicken up my throat. “Is this what Isobel did to you? Turned you heartless? Taught you to make people desire you in order to use them?”
He rubs a hand across his jaw and stares. And says nothing. He doesn’t have to. His silence says that’s exactly what she did to him—removed his ability to truly care about anyone but himself.
Hunger yes. Callousness yes.
Self-serving . . . ultimately.
It’s a single, raw realization.
But it rocks through me like a hurricane tearing a hole in the fabric of my skin, exposing affections and cravings for him bound around heart-bones that, until weeks ago, had barely existed. I hate myself for it. For the feelings. For the aching my own desire brings. For the lies I let him use on me.
I turn to the wall and tuck my knees to my chin.
“Just leave,” my voice snarls before a mangled sob erupts, and the quaking sets in and expands until the rest of me is cracking into a hundred wretched little fragments. Each one smaller than the last. Each one stabbing every inch of my flesh as anything left that matters is, bit by bit, swallowed up in the agony and anger.
The bed shakes beneath my chest until the only thing left is a fundamental need to breathe.
Eventually, even the breathing slows.
And at some point, my tears stop.
When they do, I discover that somehow I’m still here. Still me.
Still the Elemental I’ve been all along.
Just better trained and broken. Like one of Adora’s warhorses.
I wipe my eyes. Clear the husk from my throat. And when I turn, Eogan’s still standing there, his jaw working to speak.
“You were right, you know?” My voice sounds dead. A curse uttered from the lips of a ghost. “About our little game? You warned me you’d win.”
Eogan’s body solidifies as aching flecks of apology splay in rapid progression across his face.
I swallow. “And you did. So you can tell Adora I’m ready to speak with her.”
When he doesn’t move, I lift my chin. “I suggest you hurry if you want us to win this war.”
The aching in his expression deepens. A millennia of seconds goes by before he squares his shoulders and nods. “In the future, when you aim for their airships, use wind instead of lightning. You might be able to force them down without frying the occupants or exploding the bombs along their hull.”
“Right, and you know that because you’re not a spy.”
“I know that because I designed them. Six years ago.”
Then he’s gone.
I sag back on the bed as the lock clicks into place.
My mind clicks out of place.
And abruptly I’m lunging in a panic for the door, like a broken bird in a caged room. Fluttering to find the latch. To find air.
To breathe beyond the grief wrapping its talons around me as it pulls me to the floor.
CHAPTER 27
WHEN ADORA LETS ME OUT OF THE STONE room, it’s into the hands of one of her fancy, perfume-doused men who clearly views walking a stumbling, puffy-eyed girl up five stairwells to be the worst form of torture. When we reach my bedroom door, he prods it open and grumbles about following me in.
My hand is on his chest so fast he can’t recoil before a thunderclap rattles the wood hallway.
His eyes bulge and narrow.