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“Better.” I forced a smile, still unsteady from the spark in my nerves.
“Thank you.” I cleared my throat. “For the night before last.” I touched the thin lacerations on my neck.
They were nearly healed, a testament to how little damage I’d done.
How little I was capable of doing. For now.
“I know it wasn’t real, nightmares never are, but… ”
“Does it matter, when you’re in the throes of them?
” He withdrew a sleek black flask from his pocket, unscrewed the top, and took a drink.
I fought the urge to ask him what was in it.
Probably not water. “Nightmares hunt you in the quiet and devour your peace. When you are silent, sleeping, nightmares cover the blank canvas of your resting mind like a fungus until you can’t discern what is light and what is feeding on the light.
So while they may not be real, Aryella, they’re felt as if they are. ”
I tightened my threadbare scarf around my neck, any lingering sweat from exertion now chilled on my skin. As was the case with many things he said, I struggled to formulate a worthy response. So I swallowed my pride and said, “Thank you.” Because I could at least show I was grateful.
“Eat some lunch.” He nodded toward the house and took another drink from his flask. “Then we’ll continue. ”
And we did continue until supper, during which Caz, Finn, and Ezra took bets on which one of them I could defeat in a fistfight now that I had learned to throw and dodge a punch.
“My money’s on you, Caz,” Finn said to his older brother. “If only because you’ll be the first one to piss her off with your smart-ass mouth.”
Caz didn’t deny it. He winked at me and grabbed a turkey leg—another delicacy he and Ezra had brought back from their trip.
“You’re all idiots,” muttered Gemma through a mouthful of potatoes. “Just wait until she finds her power. None of you will stand a chance.”
They laughed good-naturedly, but I stiffened. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Smyth did too. He had already eaten—standing up, might I add—and now stood in the doorway with a stoneware mug in one hand. Intense eyes on me, as usual.
“Do we know what my power is?” I folded my hands in my lap and resisted the urge to add, “ If I actually have any.” But …
I was tired of sounding like a pessimist. That was a choice, to think that way.
And while I was scared and frustrated and highly doubted my ability to take on any of them in a fistfight—much less liberate my people from Molochai—I made the choice to be hopeful. Or at least fake it.
“Christabel never specified,” Finn answered. “Only that it’s meant to be given by the Selvaren.”
“You will find it when you’re ready.” Smyth took a sip of his drink and gave me a single firm nod. Ever my teacher, stoic and sure.
As soon as supper finished, we retired early to rest up for our first day of travel. Caz and Finn shared the other bedroom while Ezra slept on the sofa. I wasn’t sure where Smyth slept.
Probably not on the floor.
** *
My nerves and nausea woke me before the sun.
Gemma slept soundly for another two hours, and I focused on the rise and fall of her breathing to keep me sane.
To her, this was nothing more than the next leg of our journey.
She was accustomed to traveling. Alone, even.
She had few emotional ties to this place. The Winterton Caves were her true home.
And despite the lingering sense of dread I resisted, I had to hope that they—those Caves and those people—could be my home too.
I quietly sat on the edge of the bed while Gemma fastened my silver-blonde hair into a braid long enough to touch my lower back.
“How do you feel?” Her voice was pointedly soft. Careful.
“I don’t remember ever leaving this place.” I fidgeted with my thumbs in my lap. “It feels as if I’ve been here forever. Was I here before the accident?”
“As far as I know, yes.” Gemma tightened the band at the bottom of my braid and scooted off the bed to stand beside me.
“Had it been my call, you would’ve been with us in the Caves from the beginning, not hidden up here like some prisoner.
Elowen is good, at her core. Phillip and Oliver, they were good, and I know you loved them, I just…
I don’t think you belonged here.” She sighed and shook her head. “But Simeon does as he does.”
I looked up into her warm caramel eyes and wondered if she’d felt that way while she’d been here. If she’d felt forced to keep her opinions to herself. If those opinions might have helped me.
“It will all work out,” she assured me, squeezing my hand before tossing her bag over her shoulder and leaving the room. “Simeon knows what he’s doing.”
I was irked by their faith in Simeon. But was I in a place to criticize? Their blind trust wasn’t too different from what I found in my teacher.
I brushed my fingers against the maroon-and-violet patchwork quilt beneath me, remembering how I used to tuck Oliver in and trace the floral designs over his back because it soothed him.
My knapsack was packed light—I had grown attached to very little in this house.
Caz would carry the larger bag with the food.
Finn would carry any extra weapons. That left me with clothing, my canteen of water, and toiletries.
Without much thought, I dragged the quilt off the already-made bed and folded it tightly into my knapsack.
It was the one item from this house I would allow myself to bring. Practical, to keep me warm.
The thin layer of snow from days before had melted. For once, the dead grass of the clearing was almost dry save for a light layer of frost, and the sky was clear of harrowing clouds. I wanted to take it as a sign. Perhaps the gods were on our side.
We ate a large and quiet breakfast because all but Smyth seemed too preoccupied with staring and silently assessing my state of mind instead of partaking in their normal banter.
They meant well, but I felt like a child whose dog just died, and every family member was waiting for me to burst into tears.
My stomach churned when we left the house and made our way through the clearing. I stopped at the edge of the forest with my back to the others, who walked on. Only Smyth stopped when I stopped.
My limited memories were all in that house: joyful, terrible, everything in between. As long as that house stood, I had the ability to return to it. To hide. But I was so damn tired of hiding, of starving my body and soul. Even if that meant walking right into the unknown world before me.
“I want to burn it down,” I told him. “All of it.”
He said nothing, only nodded in silent understanding before removing the knapsack from his shoulder and digging around inside, eventually withdrawing two full bottles of clear liquor.
It took effort not to ask why he carried all of it with him. Didn’t seem necessary, but neither was prying.
He uncorked one of the bottles, strode over to the house, opened the door, and disappeared inside. Moments later, the sound of shattering glass echoed through the clearing. Even the frigid, whipping wind wasn’t powerful enough to drown out the noise.
He burst through the back door of the house and entered the barn, where he stuffed a rag into a half-empty bottle, held a lit match to the end, and tossed it inside.
The glass shattered, and the flames rose.
There was enough hay and dried wood in that barn that it wouldn’t take long to burn to ashes.
From behind us, I heard Gemma gasp. Ezra cursed, Caz and Finn remained silent, and that was all we heard out of them. Maybe they recognized I needed this. Anyone trying to move on from being completely trapped would need this. It had been a home, but it had also been a prison.
I watched as Smyth prepared another bottle and rag on his way over to me.
I recognized both from the kitchen and Phillip’s old liquor stash, respectively.
I expected him to light and throw it himself like he had with the barn.
But this time, he placed the tools in my hand, gave me the lit match, and said in a deep, steady voice, “Then burn, it shall.”
My eyes widened at the flame dancing dangerously on the tip of the match in my fingers. Heat and flame and light. I lit the rag and, before it could burn me, tossed it inside the threshold of the house where Smyth had poured the rest of his liquor.
The moment I let go, Smyth took my shoulders in his strong, commanding grip and backed me away from the flames. I felt the heat rise up, drawing out tears from my eyes that burned with relief, not sorrow.
I didn’t want to be the numb, fragile girl that house had belonged to. With it gone, I didn’t have to be.
Still, when we reached the edge of the clearing, back to the flames, I found myself pausing at the edge, terrified of all that lay before me. The others had gone ahead without realizing I’d stopped, but again, Smyth noticed .
“I don’t know if I can do this.” I shuddered, gulping.
This: walking into those woods. Facing my mother, meeting Simeon, marrying Elias Winterton, and being whatever idyllic queen Alistair Winterton and his people expected me to be.
Confronting Molochai after learning to fight in the first place.
I was not a leader. I was not a fighter. I didn’t know what I was.
“You can.” He offered me his hand. And a smile, unexpectedly soft and encouraging, tugged at the corners of his mouth. I sucked in a breath. The first warm and true smile he’d shown me. It was breathtaking. “I’ll help you.”
His promise tore the breath from my lungs. This scarred man with his unflappable, coarse exterior was here to guide me, show me. His unexpected comfort filled the cracks of my spirit with molten silver. Shaped by him, I’d be much harder to break.
“Ella.”
My heart leapt once at that name, and again when I matched his gaze. No one had called me Ella before, but… I liked it—a name that was mine and his. Separate from all this.
He nodded toward his hand, his next words a promise. “Whatever it takes.”
I let him take my hand in his unwavering grasp, and I believed him.
Table of Contents
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