But before I could go on that rampage, someone stepped in front of me.
I see it now, flashes of fragments, like torn bits of paper held briefly under the candlelight. The way he begged me to let the power go, the chokehold that terror had on me.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t, because without the beast to control the magic, I was incapable. I didn’t know how to stop it. All I could do was hold onto the reins, hoping Slade could get out before it snapped. But of course, he didn’t. Of course he refused to leave me.
The ashen kiss he placed against my gilded lips was all I felt before an invasive breeze slipped down my throat. And then a whisper, echoing in my ear, Forgive me.
My eyes flick back to Slade, and he must sense that I’m remembering, because he nods.
“You rotted me?”
Images spring up in my head, none of them pleasant. Rotten corpses of soldiers left at Sixth Kingdom’s border, their bodies puffed up and reeking in the snow. Then, Midas’s guards barring me from getting out of the room, Slade coming in and rotting them where they stood until their faces went sunken and hearts decayed. And another, of him walking toward Ranhold, leaving roots of rot in every step’s wake, poisoning the snowy ground.
Was I like one of those sunken-in corpses? Lips peeling back, organs decayed into husks? I look down at my skin, as if I’m going to see evidence, but everything looks normal.
“The rot wasn’t visible like that,” he tells me, once again so in tune with my train of thought that he seems to always anticipate what I’m thinking.
His expression turns agonized. “You were…dying.” The words choke out, his shoulders bent with blame. “I didn’t fucking know what to do, but I couldn’t just stand there and let you drain yourself. So I used my power against you.”
I let his words settle in, slowly shaking my head. “No. You used your power on me, not against me. Because you’re right, I was dying.”
He flinches—so subtly that I barely catch it. “I… You’re not angry?”
A frown plants itself between my brows. “Why would I be angry?”
Now he looks positively bewildered. “I fucking rotted you, Auren. Stole into your body and shut it down, putting you in a stasis of spoiled decay.”
My nose wrinkles. “Well, I could do without the visual of stasis of spoiled decay,” I mutter.
“I risked your life,” he goes on, and I realize these are the words that have been running through his head since the moment he used his magic on me, that he’s been tormenting himself with self-proclaimed blame. “I used my power against you, and then I kept you like that when I took you and got you as far away from your gold as I could, risking your life again with every minute that I waited.” He pulls at his hair in frustration, glancing around the darkness like he’s looking into the crevices of his own guilt. “What if I’d waited too long? What if I hadn’t been able to reverse it?”
“You’ve been hating yourself this whole time.” It’s not a question—I can see the truth plainly, can hear it in the way he’s talking. Gently, I take his hand in mine, squeezing his fingers. “You saved me,” I say quietly, and he looks at me like he’s desperate to see me, like he can’t bear to look away or else be swallowed by those shadows of fault.
He slumps slightly, head tilted up at the ceiling as he lets out a breath. “There’s something else.”
My stomach tightens. “What is it?”
He tips his head back down to look at me. “When I reversed the effects of the rot and removed my power from your body...a piece of it stayed behind.”
A piece of it stayed behind.
My eyes widen, and my stomach gives an involuntary roll. “What do you mean it stayed?” I press a hand against my chest like I’m trying to feel it. “Are you sure?”
He gives a terse nod. “Positive. Even now, I can sense it, but it’s rooted into you. No matter how many times I’ve tried, it won’t come out.”
Uneasiness shuffles down my spine, and I swallow hard. “Should I be worried?”
“No,” he says with such decisive confidence that I’m not sure if it’s actually true or if he’s just willing it to be so. “I’ve checked you countless times, sometimes for hours on end, but the rot isn’t doing anything harmful. It’s just...there.”
“Has this ever happened before?”
“Never.”
I’m still pressing a hand to my sternum, so I let my hand drop. “You’ll keep checking?” I ask, unable to keep the worry from my tone. “You’ll tell me if anything changes?”
“I promise.”
I nod slowly, trying to acclimate to this new fact, though I have a feeling I won’t be able to for a while. “I want to go inside now.”
Slade looks like he wants to say something else, but he stops himself. “Okay, Goldfinch.”
On near silent steps, I follow him back through the cave to the Grotto, passing by its stone walls, all the more appreciative of its shadowed haven. Of all its secret splits and nooks, because I feel like I have just as many crannies hidden in myself.
But even a haven stops being a refuge at some point.
So when we walk back inside and the door closes behind me, I shouldn’t be surprised at the sudden chill that spreads over my skin. It’s a warning that the first knot in the string I’ve been trying to ignore has been pulled out, and now, everything in me feels looser. Unsteady.
And I have a feeling that no matter how much I try to bunch it back up, all of me is going to come unbound anyway.
CHAPTER 17
AUREN
That chilled premonition doesn’t take long to come into effect.
I barely have time to slip off the boots next to the fireplace when I hear someone come up behind me, and I automatically tense.
“Lady Auren.”
I spin around, surprise making my eyebrows jump. “Hojat?”
The army mender is wearing borrowed clothes that are a bit too big on him, his brown hair longer than the last time I saw him. The dragged-down scarring of his eye seems more pronounced from the lighting of the fire, his skin mottled with red and white.
“It’s good to see you awake,” the mender says, wearing a soft, crooked smile. “How are you feeling?”
The answer is automatic. “I’m fine.”
Hojat tuts as he comes over to me, giving Slade a nod in passing. “Come into the bedroom, please, so I can look you over.”
Every muscle from my toes to my neck goes tense.
“No, thank you, really.”
His burned mouth creases into a frown. “My lady, I understand it is sensitive, but this is for your health, and I must—”
“I said I’m fine.” My hands go to the coat I’m wearing, pulling it tighter around me like a wraparound shield. Even to me, the I’m fine sounds like a collection of lies. A platitude of denial made up of heated stalling and forced ignoring.
Hojat’s eyes flick over to Slade, and they seem to communicate something silently between them. A thick hesitation fills up the room, pushing up against me like a turbulent wave come to knock me under.
“It’s imperative, Lady Auren,” Hojat says carefully, and I hate the pity I see in his eyes, because it certainly doesn’t bode well for me. “You do not want infection to set in.” His accent pulls at his t’s like his tongue wants to drag them under, but the only thing dragging me under is this descending panic.
I can’t have him look at me.
I just can’t.
Because if he does, then I won’t be able to keep ignoring...that.
As if it knows my conscious thoughts are skating around it, my back suddenly twinges with a sharp, prodding pain. I suck in a breath, my very inhale braced against the barbs in my chest.
“Auren, Hojat will be gentle,” Slade tells me, but he doesn’t get it. There is nothing gentle about this. What he’s asking me to face is rough hate and slashed violence. What he’s asking me for is to take on a soul-deep trauma that I want to keep ignoring.