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I hate how much I understand his point of view. How it must have felt to watch me self-destruct to the point you can barely breathe around me. I didn’t know I was causing him pain with my actions. And now with all this new information, my ability to see my goal of dying clearly is beginning to waver. Somehow the uncertainty of everything feels like a giant clusterfuck of a failure on my part. Here I am, trying desperately to not harm innocents, and Rowan doesn’t even believe I won’t use them for my end game.

Letting out a deep sigh, Rowan’s eyes flicker back to a deep mossy green. “I don’t know how much longer I can have you here. The safety of my people comes first.”

Flinching, I step backwards right as my shoulder slams into the wall.

“You understand that, Keres. You made it perfectly clear that your loyalty lies to yourself first.”

“I’m not going to hurt anyone.”

“I don’t believe you.” He’s not being cruel. Rowan’s voice is so tired and full of sorrow, it’s clear to see it pains him to say this to me. To believe the words he’s uttering.

Still, the blow hurts and I feel the sting at the back of my eyes. The only warning my body gives before my vision suddenly disappears as tears track down my cheeks. Fuck. No, I don’t want to cry anymore today. Shoving the heels of my palms into my eyes, I duck my head down and try to mentally talk myself out of breaking down all over again. “Sorry,” I gasp as my lungs stutter to pull in air.

“Are you crying?”

Well he doesn’t have to sound so bewildered by it. “No,” I sniffle. “Clearly I’m not capable of having emotions, so why would I be crying?” The pain and anger swirl higher and higher, choking in my throat until there’s nothing left to do but explode.

“I–”

“You don’t get it,” I hiccup, lifting my head to glare at him even though he’s nothing more than a blurry mess of colors. “I want to die, Rowan! It shouldn’t be this hard. And then you come along,” I fling out my hand towards where I think he’s standing, “and suddenly I have all these feelings again. And then I get to the Cliff of Embers and I can’t go through. I was standing right there, and I hesitated. And then Micah came and told me all of this shit about me being born here and Lady Gwenyth or someone she knows stealing me and about the war you’re pretending to know nothing about–”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Rowan interrupts, his blurry body moving towards me until his hands clamp down on my shoulders. “Breathe. You’re rambling.”

“You’re not listening,” I practically screech.

“You need to slow down. Let’s start with one thing at a time, okay? You couldn’t go through the gateway? Is that what you said?”

“I was standing there with my fingers on the other side of the portal and I didn’t walk through. I wanted to,” I say with an air of desperation. “I thought I would just run in there and everything would be over. But I couldn’t do it and then Micah appeared.” My hands are shaking. What the hell is happening to me?

Rowan mimics pulling in a deep breath, holding it, and then blowing it out slowly. He does it several times, prompting me to follow his lead until the shaking becomes far less erratic. “What happened next?”

“He said I have the soul of a monster.” I lift the bottom of my shirt to wipe my face, trying desperately to calm down. “He said I’m feeling again because my soul recognizes being in Aïdes.”

Rowan tightly nods, his jaw clenched tight. “You weren’t feeling in Tellus?”

Did I ever feel there? Strong emotions like anger towards Lady Gwenyth, yes, but nothing like the swarm of emotions that batter my body being here. “I thought I was. But this is a lot.” Traumatizing to say the least. Who enjoys feeling this much all the time?

“You’re overloading,” Rowan murmurs more to himself than to me. “Fuck.”

Right, well overloading on emotions or not, I can barely breathe through it. “Do you feel this all the time?”

He tilts his head to the side, slowly raking his eyes over my puffy face. Sharply inhaling, his eyes suddenly turn black once more and then pressure unlike anything I’ve ever felt assaults my mind. “Relax,” Rowan says. “Let me in.”

Let him in? I barely register what he’s saying, the pressure growing insurmountably.

“Keres, if you want me to stop being a fucking dick, then let me in.”

“To where?” I demand, my fingers curling into my hair on my temples.

“You’re overwhelmed, I get it.” He taps his finger into the center of my forehead like it’s a button. “Drop your guard for a second, let me in. You won’t have to say anything.” Softly, he adds, “I’ll know.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about. Then again, some days I feel like I’ve known him for centuries instead of weeks. He wants me to drop my guard? Suddenly it hits me what he’s asking for. I didn’t realize it was a power he possessed. “You want in my mind,” I whisper. Like Lady Gwenyth used to forcibly do whenever I wasn’t interested in conversing with her.

But Rowan isn’t Lady Gwenyth.

Some days I wish he was. I wanted to believe he was the same as her when we first met; that they were the same kind of monster. But Rowan isn’t. And I’m tired of fighting it. Tired of the world turning while I feel out of control. If he wants a front row seat to my own inner turmoil, to know how plagued I am by everything evil and vicious I’ve done in my life, fine. Hope he knows the kind of darkness the Wraithlands breed is also inside of me.

I drop the shield of my mind.