Page 119 of Eternal Ruin

“But it wasn’t him I wanted to save.” Her voice had changed, now reflective and slow. “I was swayed by your vision of our friendship. When you held that knife under my throat in that crypt, for a moment, I wanted to be your friend.”

The muscles in Kidan’s throat tightened. Slen stepped into the light, her black jacket out of place in this weather. Kidan couldn’t find the right words, her mind racing with a thousand thoughts and emotions.

“And now?” Kidan asked, half afraid of the answer.

“I realize being your friend will cost me more than I thought.”

There was nothing she could say to that. It was honest but cruel. They were being punished for what they did to GK. Suffering in hell because of their selfish choices.

When Slen retreated into the path of the outside corridor, Kidan braced herself by the ledge, shutting her eyes. Her emotions threatened to dissolve her, but she stepped toward Adane House. At least there she could get a fraction of peace.

Death is near you, Kidan. Don’t go home.

Kidan froze.

The command echoed loudly, with clinking echoes in her skull. She whipped her head around, expecting to find GK’s soft brown eyes behind her. Only a couple walked on the footpath.

She shook her head and kept walking.

Don’t go home.

Her whole body stiffened.

This wasn’t something she was imagining. It was real. GK was in her mind. She whirled on the footpath, nearly falling, searching for the crinkling sound in the swaying trees and the dark clouds.

Don’t go home, Kidan.

“Why?” she shouted into the air. “How are you doing this?”

Kidan’s head tilted toward the northeast, past Ahnd Cemetery, to the Mot Zebeya Monastery, waiting up a thousand stairs. She had an urge to follow the path. Maybe GK’s voice would be clearer up there. But she would only feel guilty there, seeing all that she had robbed from GK’s life.

Kidan shook her head and walked under the lamps to her front porch. She shook with her key.

Don’t enter!

Kidan burst inside, her boots sliding mud onto the hallway. All pain stopped. All flickers of sensation in her body, worming and gnawing, faded away. She inhaled deeply, thanking the house, walking into her safe haven. Her body becoming nothing but armor.

Her guilt was getting out of hand. Had she actually thought GK was warning her? Because there was no threat at Adane House. Aseracti had crafted a space of relief. If Kidan had her way, she’d never leave this—an absence of noise, of doubt and pain.

Voices echoing from the kitchen interrupted her thoughts.

Susenyos must be home.

Faintly, GK tried to reach her once more.

You’re not safe.

Aseracti snuffed out his voice the moment she willed it.

42.

KIDAN

Familiar laughter and the smell of warm bread drifted from the kitchen. Etete was cleaning up her workstation. Susenyos was eating a grapefruit, his bookThe Mad Loversopen. From the way they both stopped talking, it was clear their topic of conversation had been Kidan.

Perhaps if she hadn’t locked away her emotions, she’d feel jealous at their familiarity. But she felt absolutely nothing.

Kidan and Susenyos had not spoken since she’d given him her blood in his quarters but it was good he was here.