Chapter 11 Losing by Your Side #2
It makes me feel guilty—drawing him in, knowing I can’t give him everything. I can’t give him me. He will only ever get pieces, crumbs of a meal, and it doesn’t seem fair.
With a single shrug, I try to give him all I can from my half-empty cup. “You don’t have to be alone in feeling it.”
Azaire looks away, back into that blue oblivion. “I don’t mind it, really. People have their problems, and you have yours. Sometimes you meet someone who has a chance of understanding, but most people don’t.” Then he adds, “I think I prefer it alone.”
His words sound like my own. I could almost get used to him speaking my mind. If there’s anyone in this universe who has the chance of understanding me, I think it would be Azaire.
Selfishly, I hope he feels the same.
Selflessly, I hope he finds someone else.
Alone is the one place I could sit without the burden of others. The one place I could reside without the added weight of someone else’s pain.
It’s the only place I can be myself, where I can feel my grief without someone telling me it’s wrong. I never wanted to open myself to the criticism—I’ve always known I was wrong. That I’m a burden.
I don’t need someone’s words to tell me so, nor their emotions.
Meeting Azaire’s gaze—heightening his emotion within me—I decide to give him all of me, even if only for a fleeting moment.
“Feel it,” I tell him as I reach for his hand. “I’ll be right there with you.”
?
“I want to try,” I whisper to the boy as I enter my room.
Seeing Desdemona and Lucian, being with Azaire today, it stirred something within me—the aching emptiness I can never forget. A gap that is always growing, no matter how much I try to ignore it.
The boy is the safest way to fill it—to quiet the emptiness that lingers beneath my surface, if only for a moment.
He sits before me, cross-legged on my bed, his posture unbothered, but his gaze is intent. He watches me with the kind of attention that makes me feel like I’m the only thing in the world.
I suppose in his world, I am.
“I don’t know I can do it, but—”
“Don’t you dare underestimate yourself, Wendy Estridon.” His voice may be low, but it still carries conviction. He rises to his feet and takes my hands in his.
My gloveless hands.
His skin is the only warmth I’ve felt in years. His thumb grazes over my knuckles, tracing circles, as if he’s grounding me.
“You are power incarnate. You are everything.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, looking down. The boy knows exactly why I disdain such a title. My power was revered my entire life—but it was never useful.
“Tell me why you want this,” he says. “What is it that’s changed?”
I meet his gaze at last, his dark green eyes piercing through me as if he’s searching for something I haven’t said yet. It’s a charade; he already knows.
“You know what happened.” The words are thick in my throat.
“Yet I ache to hear it, spoken from your lips.”
“Being close to people… it only reminds me of what I can’t have. And for the first time ever, there’s a way to have it.”
“To have me?” His voice is barely a breath, teasing, but there’s something more beneath it. Something raw, something vulnerable.
“Yes.”
“You can always have me, my love,” the boy murmurs. “Morning, noon, or night. In life or in death… I am yours for the taking.”
“Yes, well”—I pull my hands away from his—“I need power to do that.”
The boy’s plump lips turn up at the corners, as if he knew it would come to this and was simply waiting for me to say the words.
“Go to the garden, and I’ll be there waiting.”
I open my eyes, the boy disappearing from my room, the ground now steady beneath my feet. Real—exactly as the boy will be, if I succeed.
It seems insane, but the more I think about it, the less wrong it feels. I’m different from the others—my power is stronger, deadlier, more self-destructive. The best path for me might be him.
I rise, walking to the academy garden with a silent determination. When I stand by the bushes and beneath the sparse trees, I close my eyes once more.
At first, I don’t see the boy. Then, my back meets his chest, and I gasp. Deftly, his fingers settle under my wrist, drawing my arm upward. His fingers glide up my arm, stopping at my shoulder where he wraps my hair behind my ear.
His lips brush my skin as he whispers, “All the power you need… is already within you. Find it.”
I shiver, followed by a deep breath as his fingers brush against my shoulder.
I can do this—for him.
“No,” he mutters. “Not for me. All I do is for you.”
“Then for me.” I revise my thoughts.
“For you,” he agrees, guiding my arm out before me, my hand reaching for a tree just to my left.
I can feel the tree, the budding life within it. It’s steady, solid.
“Life,” the boy murmurs, “is everywhere, in everything. It is in abundance all around you, and it is your power. You can never run out.”
A single finger glides down my bare neck, over my spine, and rests at the small of my back. He holds me roughly, propping me up.
“Once you tap into it, nothing can stop you.” His lips graze the shell of my ear. “You could save anyone.”
I take the tree’s steady, unwavering strength, and I shape it. I bend it, and as I do, I feel the tree gives way to my will. Its branches stretch downward, pressing into the world like outstretched arms, until the roots break through the soil.
It is mine.
But I might also be its.
A single thorn emerges from my wrist—from the inside out—and blood drips to the floor. I inhale sharply. It’s a pain I should be used to. My magic has always ricocheted, hurting me in the most unexpected ways: tearing my skin apart, killing my friends.
I turn to the boy, and he holds the back of my head. “It’s all right, my love.” He turns my gaze back to the tree. “Your magic will soothe with time and power. Continue.”
With every movement of the tree, another thorn breaks through my skin. A strangled cry escapes me until eventually, I have to open my eyes and return to the real world.
When I do, the boy disappears from behind me. But even in reality, the tree is alive, walking where I order it.
The thorns continue to grow, ripping me open from the inside out. A pit expands in my stomach, tearing through like a black hole, swallowing all it can find until, finally, I release the tree, clutching my torso.
The tree stills, its roots growing back.
But I don’t still.
I weaken.
My legs give out. I crash against the floor. Then I puke.
Words drift from a distance, echoing as though we’re on opposite ends of the same tunnel. “Tap into the life,” the boy says.
I pass out.