58. Kira
Chapter 58
Kira
SOMEONE WHO MATTERS
I close my eyes. I can’t stop the tears that slip down my cheek and onto Reznyk’s fingers. His hand pulls away. My cheek is still warm where he touched me, and I have to stop myself before I bring my own hand to my face and press it there, trying to capture the warmth of his body.
Of course Reznyk surrendered to the Towers. He was ready to spend the rest of his life alone, in the middle of nowhere, to protect a bunch of wolves and an old god who were clearly getting on just fine by themselves. Of course he sacrificed himself for humans.
“Then it’s a good thing I released you,” I say, in a voice that sounds like it’s being pinched tight in a vise. “I saved you. You saved me. I guess we’re even now.”
“No,” Reznyk whispers. “We’re not even close.”
I open my mouth to tell him to stop being so stupidly heroic, but he speaks first.
“Why did you rescue me?” he asks again.
Because I love you, you idiot.
The words simmer in my throat; I step away from the door, then grab my glass and take another gulp of wine to drown them.
“No,” I say.
Reznyk glances up at me, surprise widening those gorgeous, dark eyes. “No?” he echoes.
“No,” I say. “It’s my turn to ask a question. That’s how the game works.”
He gives me a very weak smile, and my heart cracks in a dozen new places. Why didn’t anyone ever tell me how painful it was to be in love? I never would have wished for it.
“Ask away,” Reznyk says, waving his hand across the table like he’s granting me something.
I swallow hard. My mouth tastes like wine and unanswered questions. Some part of me is screaming to leave this room, to leave Silver City and to never even think about Reznyk again. But I still need his help, don’t I?
“Where should I go?” I ask.
Reznyk stares at me in a way that makes the shattered remains of my heart grind up against one another inside my chest. Gods, is this ever going to stop hurting?
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“Zayne thought you could help, and I can’t stay here,” I say, waving my hand at the window with its delicate swirls of frost. “Sooner or later, the Towers are going to figure out what I did. And, even if they don’t?—”
My throat feels tight. I stare at the fire until I can breathe again.
“I can’t serve the Towers,” I say. “Not anymore. Not after what they did to you.”
Reznyk stares at me for so long that I take a step back, even though it puts me further from the door.
“Kira,” he finally says. “I am so sorry.”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
He runs his hand through his hair, then collapses onto his chair and drains his wineglass. He still looks pale and exhausted, not at all like the fearsome Godkiller we were sent to hunt in the Daggers. Hells, he doesn’t even look that much like the confident stranger who wandered into the Golden Peaks Hunting Lodge during an autumn storm. He stares at the window, as if the next words he’s about to speak are out there somewhere, getting tossed around by the wind and snow.
I stand up a bit straighter. Try to relax when you’re about to take a hit, Mitrik told me when he was training me how to fight. Tensing up just makes it worse.
Yeah. That never once worked for me. I clench my jaw and try to force my shoulders to relax as Reznyk looks at everything but me. Until finally, his dark eyes find mine.
“The Towers lied to you,” Reznyk says, softly. “I don’t think your parents were Exemplars. And I don’t think you have any magical potential. That’s not why they wanted you, and I should have told you much earlier.”
“Oh,” I say. My voice sounds like wind over ice.
Reznyk’s expression looks like something’s hurting him. I have to strangle the part of me that wants to reach for him.
“They wanted you because of me, I think,” he continues. “And what I felt for Lenore.”
“Oh.”
“You know I said you look like her?” Reznyk continues. “You must have seen that for yourself, right?”
I nod.
“The Towers must have thought they could use you,” he says, “to, well, to make me behave. To make me do what they wanted.”
I look down at the wineglass in my hand, which is almost empty a second time. What he’s saying makes sense, in a sick sort of way. Why else would the Towers want the bastard daughter of Lord Castinac? Why send someone with no magical ability into the Daggers to hunt for the Godkiller? Why offer me as a trade for the amulet?
Gods. My gut lurches around the stew I had for dinner. I don’t know what’s worse, that I was sent to the Daggers to be some sort of knock-off replacement for Lady Castinac, or that it worked.
“I see,” I say, in a whisper.
Reznyk tugs his hand through his hair again. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier,” he says. “I’m sorry they lied to you. And—” He pauses. His neck bobs as he swallows. “I’m so sorry I’m the reason the Towers took you,” he finishes.
“Ugh, gods,” I groan as I collapse into the chair across from him. “Reznyk, do you blame yourself for every single thing that goes wrong in this world?”
He stares at me.
“Did you give them my name?” I snap. “Or say, hey, there’s this girl who looks like The One living in the orphanage next door?”
“Stop calling her that,” Reznyk says.
I ignore him. “Were you the one who decided I should go to the Daggers? Or who said they should offer me up as a trade for some stupid piece of jewelry?"
My voice fades. Shame curdles inside my gut, hot and bitter. I turn away from Reznyk’s face and stare at my hands as they clench into fists.
“If anyone should be sorry, it’s me,” I admit. “I never should have taken your amulet. I never should have even touched the damn thing.”
I risk a glance in his direction. He’s staring at the table. I feel like I’m about to choke, but gods, if this is my last chance to tell him the truth, I’d better fucking take it.
“When I saw it,” I begin. “I— I thought maybe it could help me. Since nothing else had. Maybe the amulet you stole from the Towers could finally unlock my magical potential.”
I fall silent. It sounds so pathetic now that it’s out in the open. Outside, wind howls down the river, making the window rattle. It’s going to be a miserable walk along the docks, and there’s no way I’ll find a barge leaving tonight.
“I am sorry,” I admit. “I know you have no reason to believe me, but I am. I never wanted to take the amulet from you. I never wanted to hurt you.”
Reznyk meets my gaze. “I believe you,” he says.
He reaches across the table slowly. His fingers wrap around mine.
“Maybe I shouldn’t blame myself for what the Towers did,” he says. His dark eyes are watching me like I’m the only thing in the entire world worth watching. “But I do blame myself for what happened with the amulet.”
I try to breathe. My chest is tight; the room suddenly feels too small.
“I was an idiot and an ass,” Reznyk says. “I didn’t even give you a chance to explain. And I regret it. Deeply.”
“I understand,” I say. “I would have done the same thing.”
He laughs softly, then shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I very much doubt that.”
There’s an explosion of laughter from the pub on the other side of the door, that other world where people are going about their business as if my heart wasn’t collapsing in on itself.
I take a deep breath. I hate the questions that’s coming, but I need to ask it if I’m going to have any chance at all of moving on with my life. Otherwise, I’ll dream about those dark eyes for the rest of my stupid life.
“So, what now?” I ask, even though my voice trembles. “Are you going to win her back?”
He thinks Lenore doesn’t love him, that she won’t marry him. But, by all the many names of the gods, how could any woman refuse him? She’d have to be insane to let Reznyk go.
Reznyk smiles at me in a way that makes me feel like the room is spinning.
“I’d like that,” he says.
His thumb traces a circle on the back of my hand, and my gods, that does things to my insides that no man should be able to do with one finger. My eyes sting. I try to blink back the hot rush of tears, because I’m not going to humiliate myself any further in front of this man.
“What would it take to win you back?” Reznyk asks.
My mouth falls open. Feast day fireworks go off inside my skull, drowning out the sudden rush of blood from my exploding heart.
He could not possibly have said that.
He could not possibly have meant that.
“That counts as my question, by the way,” Reznyk finishes. “It is my turn.”
He takes his hand off mine to pick up the wine bottle and refill both of our glasses. He lifts mine and offers it to me.
“But I am going to be quite disappointed if you drink instead of answering me,” he adds.
He’s still smiling, although there’s a strange look in his dark eyes that I haven’t seen before. If I didn’t know better, if this wasn’t a completely ridiculous way to describe the Godkiller who bested the Towers of Silver City, I would say he looks afraid.
“But—” I stammer. “I’m not her.”
“Yes,” he says. “I am aware of that fact.”
My mouth falls open again. Reznyk watches me with that wary look, like we’re in the training courtyard and I’m circling him with one of the Guards’ wooden swords.
I want to laugh. I would laugh, if I could breathe.
“But,” I begin again. “You said it yourself. I don’t have any magical ability. I don’t?—”
He frowns, and my voice dies in my throat.
“Kira,” he says. “You are the strongest and bravest woman I’ve ever met, magic or not.”
This time I do laugh. It’s a panicky sort of noise, like an animal caught in a trap. Reznyk isn’t smiling anymore. Now he’s staring at me like?—
Like I’m someone who matters.
“None of the mercenaries came back after I chased Tholious away,” he says. “Only you were brave enough to stay.”
“Well, I had a broken ankle—” I begin.
“You just told me you came back to the Daggers, by yourself, to warn me about the Towers,” he continues. “The gods only know how you managed to get there, but you did. And then, not only did you make it out, you also rescued Lady Castinac and brought her back to Silver City.”
I grab my wineglass and shut my mouth. My heart is still beating like it’s trying to run away.
“You broke into my cell,” Reznyk continues. “I don’t know if you were pushed into it or if you felt somehow indebted to me, but you helped me when no one else would. And?—”
He hesitates. His eyes drop to the floor, then come back to me.
“We had something, I think,” he says in a voice that’s hardly more than a whisper. “The two of us. We had something real. Or the start of it, at least. And, if there’s any chance at all that you can forgive me for being such a stupid bastard, maybe we can try again. We could leave Silver City together, at least. As friends, or?—”
Reznyk’s voice fades. He stares at me with a wild, naked look on his face, something so raw and hungry it makes me feel like I’m coming apart in all the places I’ve tried so hard to hold myself together. It’s the way he looked at me in the meadow, I realize, with a shiver. When he was naked and between my legs, and tiny golden sparks of magic danced in the air between us.
When everything in my life felt right.
“I love you,” I blurt.
Tears spill down my cheeks, making the firelight wink as it fills the room.
“That’s why I rescued you,” I say. “Even if you don’t feel the same way, I couldn’t leave you. I couldn’t live with myself if I did.”
“Kira,” Reznyk whispers. “Beautiful, brave, brilliant Kira.”
He leans across the table slowly, giving me plenty of time to pull away. I don’t.
“I do love you,” he says.
And all the magic in the world couldn’t make the kiss he gives me any better.