Page 133 of With Wing And Claw

‘You never bargained to not betray me,’ Thysandra said hoarsely, barely feeling her own lips move. ‘Just not to willingly harm me. And aren’t you the one who told me it would be for my own benefit to get out of here?’

The silence was all the answer sheneeded.

It was as good as a confession, that silence.

Naxi was trembling. Trembling so violently that the pink tips of her curls shook around her slim shoulders, bottom lip quivering, blue eyes filling up – genuine distress, the panic of a thief caught red-handed with nowhere left to run, and it was shameful how even now that fragile-looking misery made Thysandra’s arms itch to reach out for her. To apologise, to beg for forgiveness, to kiss those pink rosebud lips until they were smiling again …

Like every fucking time she’d thrown herself to the floor before that bone of thrones, grovelling over any imagined slight and mistake.

Like every fucking time she’d been so numbly desperate for even the most pathetic excuse for love that she’d happily betrayed her own heart to get it.

‘Make another bargain, then,’ she breathed. ‘For the truth. Then tell me it wasn’t you who did this.’

Naxi stiffened.

A moment of stalemate between the dismembered, beheaded statues, the rubble of centuries upon centuries of history … and then the demon stepped back.

Dropped her arm to her side.

And said, brittle voice choked, ‘No.’

There it was.

Thysandra should have expected it, and still –still– her traitorous heart had the gall to feel disappointment at the confirmation. ‘So you admit it?’

‘I don’t admit any fucking thing!’ Another step back. Tears were welling in those blue eyes again, spilling over now. ‘I’m telling you I didn’t betray you. I’ve never spoken a word with gods-damned Bereas in my life. But if you can’t trust me on that—’

‘How am I supposed to trust you on that!’ Thysandra burst out, swinging an unrestrained hand at Bereas’s bleeding corpse. ‘Do you know what hesaid? Do you know—’

‘I don’t give a damn what he said! And neither should you!’ She’d never heard Naxi’s voice break this way before, raw and thin and utterly wretched. ‘I have given you every fucking reason to trust me, Thysandra,and he has given you absolutely none – I’ve supported you and protected you and comforted you, and I’m utterlysickof having to defend myself over and over again just because you can’t comprehend that I might be speaking the truth, do you understand?’

Bullshit.

Sly, manipulativebullshit.

‘Oh, so now I’m the one to blame?’ she snapped back, struggling to her feet. Pain only made her anger flare higher, hotter, burning like fire in her veins. ‘NowI’mthe one who’s too distrustful? Every other creature in the world is rightfully frightened of you, no one’s even given you theoptionto defend yourself – butImust have it all wrong even if I’ve put more faith in you than anyone else ever has?’

Naxi’s face had gone ashen.

‘Tell me I’m missing something.’ Thysandra’s voice grew louder. ‘You gave the Alliance every reason to trust you, too, didn’t you? You stuck to their rules. You won them their war. And still they’re wary around you – are they all wrong, then?’

‘Don’t you dare.’ Those pink lips twitched up into a feral, sharp-toothed snarl. ‘Don’t youdaretell me—’

‘You gave your family every reason to trust you, didn’t you?’ Thysandra spat.

Naxi went still.

Still like the statues on either side of her … and something broke in that silence. Fractured like the heads, the hands, the wings that lay scattered between the pedestals.

‘So tell me to believe you all you want.’ It didn’t feel good, allowing the words to spill from her lips. It felt like driving home a stake already wedged between those frail demon ribs. ‘But you ran from the ones who relied on you before, and you’vetoldme over and over that you wanted to do it again – to hell with the humans, to hell with the court. So if I know damn well that you don’t care about hearth and home or any sort of family at all, then—'

‘Shut up.’ Naxi’s hands twitched like claws by her side. ‘Shut.Up.’

‘But am Iwrong? Am I—’

‘I saidshut up, Thysandra!’ A shrill sob wormed its way out with the words. ‘You have no damn clue what you’re talking about! And you … you …’

She faltered.