Was something wrong?
He caught sight of his arms again. Blood. That’s what was wrong.
He dropped to his knees, clawing at the blood. “Get it off.” Why wasn’t it coming off? “Get it off!”
Iria ran away from him, and for a moment he thought she was running in fear. No. She closed the front door.
He tugged at his shirt, ripping at it with such force that one of the sleeves split open.
“Here.” Iria helped him pull it over his head and tossed it away. He unbuttoned his pants and leaned back, kicking them off.
“Right. Those too.” Iria’s voice was a little strange. “Sure.”
“Get it off,” he muttered, to no one in particular. He smeared the blood on one arm as he swiped at it.
Iria grabbed the bucket of water from the corner. She had a rag in her hand as she dropped to her knees in front of him.
She touched two fingers under his chin, nudging his face in her direction. She swiped the rag down one cheek and then the other. It was red when she dunked it back in the water.
He shivered as she cleaned his arms, the cold water trickling down his skin.
“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” she asked.
He didn’t reply. Did he have words to tell her what was wrong?
She swiped the rag down his chest, then got to her feet and deposited the bucket and rag near the door. He looked down at himself. The blood was gone.
“Hands,” she said.
He didn’t know why she wanted them, but he gave them to her anyway. She wrapped a bandage around his wrist, where the Weakling had hit him. Then she hauled him to his feet and guided him to the bed. That was a good idea. He curled up in a ball and there were blankets over him suddenly.
Iria knelt down next to the bed. She slipped one of her hands into his. He took in a sharp breath, the feeling of her skin against his snapping something into place in his brain. He met her gaze.
“Do you want me to go get someone?” she asked. “Em?”
“No,” he said quickly. “Please don’t.” What would Em think of him? She would certainly judge him for being a pathetic mess after a simple battle.
“All right,” she said quietly.
He pulled her hand a little closer to his chest, bending his head close to it. He didn’t know why he had her hand, but he liked it.
“I didn’t want to kill those people,” he whispered. “My mom used to say that my power was—my power was …” He ducked his head into his chest, the rest of that sentence lost as his throat closed up. Tears trickled down his cheeks.
“I’m so sorry Aren,” Iria whispered, putting her hand on top of his head. She held his hand a little tighter. “I’m so sorry.”
TWENTY-ONE
OLIVIA SIGHED DEEPLY as she looked down at the dark spots of blood on her jacket. No wonder her mother was always going through so many clothes.
Olivia didn’t sleep. She helped dispose of the bodies of the Vallos soldiers, then scouted the area for any lingering soldiers. She’d mostly been trying to avoid her sister.
Olivia pushed open the door to her apartment. Em sat at the kitchen table. The dark circles under her eyes suggested she also hadn’t slept.
“Where have you been?” Em asked.
Olivia shrugged out of her coat and walked to the living room to stand in front of the fire. This apartment was better than the cabins, at least. The furniture was clean and modern, the shelves lining the walls filled with books, the artwork professional. There was a painting of every ancestor in this room, and Olivia looked over her shoulder at Boda. Her mother’s favorite ancestor stared back at her from her seat in a garden.
Em looked at her expectantly, waiting for an answer to her question.
“I went to the surrounding areas to make sure there weren’t more soldiers,” Olivia said.
“And?”
“There were a few. I took care of them.”
“Aren said the soldiers came because you killed them. What did he mean?”
Olivia scrunched up her face. “Aren’s different than I remember him.” She remembered a boy who barely acknowledged the warriors when they came through. Now he followed that Iria girl everywhere she went.
“He’s been through a lot.”
“And I haven’t?” Anger seared up her body, but it came out in the form of tears. She quickly blinked them back. “I know you and Aren spent a year running for your lives, but what do you think I was doing during that time? I wasn’t living a cozy life in that cell.” A tear slipped down her cheek and she closed her eyes against the unwelcome images that surfaced. Being covered in Weakling. Being ordered to heal injured humans. The beatings that followed when she refused.
These were the people Em wanted to protect?
“I know,” Em said softly.
Olivia opened her eyes. “Yes, I killed some of the people who fled this place.”
“Unprovoked?” Em asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Olivia had expected Em to chastise her, not ask why. Aren wasn’t the only one who had changed. Em may have wanted to protect Cas and his followers, but she was still the girl who’d killed the Vallos princess in cold blood.
“Because I don’t trust them,” Olivia said quietly. “Because I don’t want any of my fellow Ruined to go through what I went through. I’m going to keep us safe, even if I have to kill every human to do it.”
“I understand,” Em said. “I know you think I don’t, but I do. I’ve seen how dangerous they can be.”
“Then why are you mad?”
“I’m not mad. I’m … scared.”
Olivia pressed her lips together. Maybe she was scared too, but she refused to admit it. Fear was weak. She refused to be weak again.
“I’m scared I can’t reason with you, Liv. I’m scared that your hatred is going to make you do something stupid that’s going to get you killed.” Em leaned forward, her words soft. “We need the warriors. We need to be smart. What if the Vallos army had been twice the size? What if they’d gotten past you and Aren? All of this could have ended before it started.”
“But that’s not the only reason, is it?” Olivia asked. “You think it was wrong for me to kill those people.”
“I do think it was wrong. But more important, I don’t think it was smart. I don’t think it was the action of a queen. We need to be thinking strategically. We need to plan and communicate. We won’t secure the safety of the Ruined by randomly attacking small camps of people.”
Olivia let out a long breath, annoyed by that logic. She couldn’t argue with it. “You’re right.”
“Yeah?” she asked, clearly surprised.
“Yes,” Olivia said with a laugh. “You’re right, and you’re also a hypocrite.”
“How so?”
“Is keeping Cas here what a queen would do? When you know it makes me and August uncomfortable? Is that smart?”
Em dropped her eyes from Olivia’s. “No,” she said softly.
“Let’s both be smart, then. Deal?”
Cas waited for Em all night. When she finally walked into his room after dawn, he jumped to his feet.