I shook my head. My skin was cold with shock.
“What do you think the soldiers look like?” he asked. “The ones you burned?”
My mouth opened, but no words came out. Surely that wasn’t what I had done.
“For all your talk of healing,” he said, his words relentless, “you are the most dangerous person I have ever met. If I didn’t need you so badly, I would have let you die in that prison.”
His eyes bored cold hatred into mine. I stumbled backward.
Without another word, he turned and strode to the abbey, leaving me sick and aching, aching, aching with remorse.
TWELVE
I TOSSED AND TURNED THAT NIGHT. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw the look on Arcus’s face when he’d pulled off his hood: a mixture of stark pain and seething hatred.
Now I knew why he always wore a hood. His face had been burned cruelly. His ear and cheek on the right side were disfigured, the skin taking a new shape like wax that had melted and congealed. A scar ran right into his scalp, his hair growing white around it. The scar that cleft his lip curved over to the left. No part of his face had completely escaped damage.
It suddenly made sense, his threats when we’d first met, his paralysis when he’d tried to enter the burning abbey. He was terrified of fire, and for good reason.
And I had burned him.
Yes, his words had been harsh, but he’d just been trying to force me to give rein to my temper and unleash my powers. It was my own weakness that had made me furious, my inability to meet him or the Frostbloods who were exterminating my people on equal terms. And I’d lashed out. I’d burned him right where he’d already been hurt.
It made me realize that my feelings for Arcus had changed during my time at the abbey. At first, he had been just another Frostblood. But he hadn’t used his gift to hurt me. He’d used it to help me master my own, to sculpt and mold me into someone stronger. Despite his cold demeanor, despite the fact that he’d baited me, I had grown to respect him, even to like him. And I felt more alive in his company than I’d ever felt with anyone.
I didn’t understand how that had happened. He had threatened to thrash me, called me weak, and shamed me for my lack of skill. But I kept seeing something beneath the surface, a part of him I wanted to connect with if only he would stop freezing me out.
“Foolish girl,” I cursed myself.
The worst part was the idea that he might think my mute shock at seeing his face had been disgust or horror.
I was horrified, but not for the reasons he probably thought. I was appalled that he’d endured so much and his face was forever disfigured, a constant reminder he could never escape. I was sickened at myself for forcing that reminder on him.
Dawn came. Orange rays of sunrise painted my eyelids and burnished my hand as it lay on the floor next to my pallet in the infirmary. I rubbed my aching eyes and went about my morning wash, far slower than usual.
I was weak from lack of sleep and my ankle throbbed. Brother Gamut offered me his special tea, but I refused. I didn’t feel I deserved relief just now. Instead, I trailed through the abbey like a ghost, silent and cold. Sister Pastel saw me pass by the library and waved a hand. I lifted mine in return but couldn’t manage a smile.
I stopped when I saw Brother Thistle in the church. He was kneeling with his head bowed, his lips moving in silent prayer. With a final, adoring look at the stained glass image of Tempus, he pushed himself up with the aid of his walking stick and tapped his way down the center aisle, preceded by a cloud of frost.
“Brother Thistle,” I said, making him start.
“Miss Otrera,” he said, the words clipped.
I knitted my hands together. “I know you must be furious with me. I’m furious with myself. But please believe that I didn’t mean to hurt him. I didn’t even know I could.”
He heaved a sigh. “I do not think it was intentional. However, it was—”
“It was uncontrolled and dangerous and… awful. I know. I’m sorry. I just want to tell Arcus that. And that I wasn’t upset by his scars but by his words. Please, Brother Thistle. Can you tell me where he is?”
“He rode off early this morning. There was another raid, this time in Trystwater.”
“That’s only a day or two east, isn’t it?” I asked in alarm.
He nodded. “Arcus wanted to see if he could find out more about why the soldiers were there.”
“Do they know I’m nearby?”
“We have no reason to believe that. Arcus will be back in a few days to tell us.”
My heart sank. “Oh.”
His shrewd blue eyes softened. “If it will ease your conscience, I don’t think you hurt him physically. Frostbloods with the gift are almost as hard to burn as Firebloods.”
“But he has been hurt,” I whispered.
“Yes. But not by you. He is powerful. His frost is strong. What you did was remind him of the worst moment of his life. That moment haunts his dreams.”