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Chapter thirty-two

ATALIIA

Cyloe curled against my neck as I counted the stones above me for the umpteenth time. The melodic purr and rise and fall of her body, the only thing currently keeping me calm.

I needed out of this fucking bed.

Asrai had come to see me shortly after Cin left.

She didn’t speak when she’d stepped into the room, didn’t ask any questions as she climbed into the bed next to me and held me against her chest. And I was thankful for that.

I could only remember one other time she’d held me like a mother would—when I was six and had tried to cut my magic out of me.

I’d fallen asleep in her arms, but when I woke, she was gone. The only evidence that she had ever been there was a worn journal on the bedside table with a note telling me that I was not alone and when I was ready, her story was inside.

I hadn’t been able to touch it. Not yet.

Boots shuffling sounded from outside my cracked door and a wave of emotion flowed over me as Andrues’s voice slipped through the small opening.

One of the healers was explaining all my injuries, listing off the ones they were able to heal and the ones they weren’t.

Shame prickled over my skin as I listened to the list as if somehow it was my fault, my fault for allowing myself to be wounded.

But it was, wasn’t it?

If I had never started drinking at the Blackthorn, if I had never spent my nights on Drathbain Street, if I had never helped their wives escape, I would still be whole.

I could feel when Andrues stepped into the room, could feel his presence already pressing against my skin as he strode over to my bedside.

My heart clenched in my chest as he gripped my hand in his.

The warmth of his skin against mine, to have him close again, to have him here , was everything I didn’t know I needed.

“I’ll have you know,” I snapped before he could speak. “I didn’t go looking for trouble, it found me all on its own.”

The corner of his lips tilted up gently as he pulled his hand from mine, leaving it with a soft squeeze, and began conjuring his healing tools on the bedside table. He didn’t speak as he worked to create his salves and tonics and I watched as his jaw flexed as if he wanted to, but was holding back.

“May I?” he finally asked, turning and gesturing to the blanket covering my limbs.

I nodded, the movement waking Cyloe. She stood, stretching before pushing her body against Andrues and jumping from the bed.

Slowly, he peeled back the thin blanket and I watched as emotion flooded his features, rage quickly hardening the edges of his face.

“Who did this to you?” The question was a strained growl, failing to keep the anger that was boiling in him at bay.

“It doesn’t matter, they’re already dead,” I answered.

“I did not ask if they were dead, Ataliia. I asked who did this to you.” Andrues’s eyes locked on mine and I froze for only a moment as I stared back into a gaze that could have been a reflection of my own with the anguish and rage swimming there.

My throat tightened as I swallowed, my eyes finding their way back to the ceiling.

And for the next hour, I told him everything.

I told him of the men that I’d killed, their names, every detail of how I killed them and where I had scattered their bodies as if I were finally confessing all of my sins.

I told him of the women I’d hidden and the money I’d won from my fights that I made sure got to them every month, of the poison and the beatings and the assault.

He listened silently to every word as he packed my wounds, occasionally nodding as some scars wholly disappeared from my skin. He never recoiled from me, never pulled away as the story—the truth of what I had become—was laid before him.

Silence fell between us and I waited for Andrues to say something, anything. To tell me that he was disgusted with me, that I was a disgrace, but it didn’t come.

“I am finished,” he said softly, pulling his hands away from my skin and wiping the excess balm on a wet cloth. “You will be sore for some time where the brand punctured between your ribs and I will need to reexamine you in a few days, but you should be well enough to leave here.”

“That’s all you have to say?” I snapped, watching as a soft smile slid onto his mouth.

My eyes lingered on his lips. The breath I tried to inhale caught in my throat as that beautiful smile widened and I pulled my eyes away from it.

I couldn’t even remember why I was scolding him.

“You are looking for discipline—think you deserve some kind of punishment for the things you have done.” He leaned back in his chair as he said the words, his thumb catching on the necklaces hanging from his scarred neck as he continued.

“But you will not find it from me. You will only find gratitude for caring about the women who could not protect themselves. For caring enough to shoulder the weight of choices they could not bring themselves to make.”

I stared at him, my brows furrowing as I clutched the sheets between my fingers and tried to quell whatever emotion he had just stirred in me. He was my friend, maybe even my best friend at the moment, so this urge, this overwhelming need to kiss him— needed to be suffocated .

I was just confusing longing with gratitude.

“Everything okay?” Andrues asked, the chuckle vibrating from his throat snapping me out of the trance he had me in and sending an army of butterflies down my spine. My body shivered against them.

That was not fucking helping.

“I’m fine,” I clipped, clearing my throat as I pushed from the bed and turned away from him, pulling at the sheet and blanket to busy myself. “I would like to be at the next council meeting, when is it?”

“Tonight.” I could feel as he stood and stepped up behind me, the air that pulsed between us bringing his scent flowing over my shoulder.

He smelled of cedar and sage and maybe even—somewhere between notes of herbs I couldn’t quite place—a little bit like home.

He took another step, closing the distance between my back and his chest as his hands began to drift down my arms. The touch was so light, so gentle it could have been the ghost of him.

His fingers trailed over my hands, intertwining with mine before wrapping our arms together around my middle, coiling me into his warmth.

We had never been this close, he had never held me like this.

“This was not your fault, Ataliia,” he whispered, his head dipping as his lips brushed against my ear.

“I know inside that beautifully twisted mind of yours, you are telling yourself that it is.” His arms tightened, his body flexing as he said the words.

“Your scars are your trophies, your medals of honor from the battles you have faced and won.”

In the next breath he twisted me to face him, one hand sliding to my waist, the other catching on my chin and pulling it to meet the fire in his gaze. His lips were achingly close to mine.

“Wear them with pride, so when the men of these five realms face you, they will understand that the day of their reckoning is upon them.”

My chest heaved as silence fell between us and I looked back into eyes that fiercely believed in me, that saw me as the lethal creature I was.

A fire ignited in my veins. But this flame was not born of shame or hate like it so often kindled from.

It was birthed from the knowledge that I was power and I was fury—that I was pure, unbridled wrath.

I would polish my anger, my pain, into a weapon so sharp, that even the winds would bleed as I wielded it.

There was a stale odor clinging to the damp air inside the mines of Nethkar.

This seemed like the last place I should be with wounds that were still healing, but I needed to be here.

Not only did I need to start making an effort to help in whatever way I could, I needed my friends, my family, to know that I was trying.

Trying to fix whatever was still salvageable.

I pulled my daggers from my belt, dropping them into the chest placed outside the first set of doors down the mines corridor as I lifted a brow toward Wren.

“Have these meetings become so violent we are no longer trusted with our weapons?” I asked as he stepped beside me and removed his sword, a smirk sliding over his lips.

“That would be a much easier problem to fix than the one at hand I assure you.” Wren sighed as he opened the wooden doors before us, their panels splintered and flaking with age.

He slid an arm around my shoulders as we stepped through and I wrapped my fingers around his forearm.

“I’m glad you’re here, sister, you’ve been missed. ”

I glanced at him from the corner of my eye as we approached the second door leading to the mine shafts, but I stayed quiet.

He knew about the attack, I could tell in the gentle way he let his arm rest over my shoulder, careful not to put too much weight on me.

But I appreciated that he didn’t bring it up, that he didn’t look at me like I was wounded.

Wren reached to open the second set of doors.

“Wait—” I blurted, stopping him as my hand fell over his, pulling it into mine.

“Wren, I-I’m sorry.” I swallowed back the shame.

I had to do this. “There are so many things I need to apologize for, too many. But I am sorry, for abandoning you when you needed us most, for forgetting that your pain mattered—that it is important.”

Wren squeezed my hand as a sad smile crept onto his lips. “Thank you for saying that. We all heal differently, grieve differently, and you never really know what that looks like until you are in it, and my Gods have you been in it, Ata. But you have my forgiveness and my love, you always will.”