Chapter 12 The Burden of Unspoken Truths
The Burden of
Unspoken Truths
Now
“W
endy? Wendy!” a voice calls from the distance.
Or is it beside me?
A body picks me up, holds me. It is flesh. It is real. The skin is warm, the blood pumping.
But in my mind, all I see is the boy.
“Oh gods, Wendy, wake up!” the boy screams—but it isn’t his voice.
It’s Azaire’s.
Blood flows from the wounds along my arms. All the thorns breaking through. The boy rests his hands atop them.
I jerk up, eyes opening, breath ragged. I scan the world, searching for a bit of reality to hold onto.
All I can feel is the panic coursing through my chest. Like an intoxicating warmth, and it hurts.
It burns.
“Wendy,” the person with me says. He holds me. “Wendy, you’re okay.”
My head is cradled against a chest. Hands wrap around my hair. A chin settles there, pressing softly. Breath brushes through my scalp.
Gently, we rock back and forth together.
And slowly, in this person’s arms, the world comes back to me. I recognize the scent—the sweet edges of Azaire. The metallic essence of blood.
The thorns are pushing through the skin of my arms. I feel them beneath my clothes. There is no comfortable way to sit. No way to run from the excruciating nature of my power.
No way to bring the boy back without causing myself pain.
“No,” the boy replies to my thoughts, his words echoing in my mind. “Remember what I told you. Power is life, and life is all around.”
Azaire pulls back from me. He holds my cheeks in his hands, my hair scrunching beneath his grasp.
I realize I’m sitting between his legs—as close to a person as I’ve been in years.
“I’m fine,” I whisper.
But I don’t move.
“You weren’t—” Azaire takes a breath. “I thought you weren’t breathing.”
I raise an eyebrow, but I stare at him in awe. In awe at his relief that I’m alive. In awe of his caring.
Of his being.
Of his beauty.
“I suppose I’m stronger than I look,” I say.
“And aren’t I glad about it.”
He pulls me back into him without warning.
It feels good in his arms. Like a cold night at home, when Pa would build a fire and the whole family would sit around its warmth.
His heart hammers against me. It’s the small residue of his fear for my potential death.
I never thought anyone would care if I were to go.
There’s no one else around. No other group with Azaire, worried about the girl lying on the ground, possibly dead. There’s no other person who cares.
“I don’t understand.” I lean into him more. “How did you notice me?”
No one else did.
Azaire leans back slowly, staring at me in disbelief. He feels that way too, as if I’ve asked an outrageous question.
“Wendy,” he sighs. “I always notice you.”
I shake my head, my gaze falling, unwilling to meet his.
If he’s always noticed, then he must know that I feel the same. That it terrifies me.
“I don’t deserve it,” I say.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Be strong. You don’t have to carry it all alone. You’re allowed to give in.”
My heart falters as I meet his gaze, slow and searching, my bottom lip caught between my teeth. My mind caught between uncertainty and longing. “You don’t understand what giving in means for me.”
“The only way I’ll know,” he mutters, picking up my hand, holding my arm that’s riddled with thorns, “is if you show me.”
His fingers curl around mine, lifting my hand to his chest, where I feel his heart beating steadily beneath his skin.
I think he’s going to pull me close, and this time instead of holding me, he’ll kiss me. A kiss that feels long delayed.
That doesn’t happen.
His brows furrow, his gaze lingering at my wrist—at the thorns peeking out where my sleeve cuts off. Then, he murmurs, “What is this?”
I jerk my arm back, panic rising.
“Did someone do this to you?” The question slips from his lips, laced with horror.
“No,” I say, my eyes avoiding his. “Of course not.”
But his gaze sharpens, the gentleness replaced by something darker. He thinks I’m lying. Quite perceptive, because I am hiding.
“Who?” The word lands between us, and I have no answer. At first, I can’t read him, can’t place the shift in his demeanor. But when he asks again, voice trembling—“Who did this to you?”—I realize what I couldn’t place is anger.
I’ve never felt Azaire angry.
And it reminds me of Lucian, standing vigil over an unconscious Desdemona, transfixed upon her. At that moment, I knew Lucian would do anything to keep Desdemona safe.
In this moment, I realize that Azaire feels the same about me. It’s the same fierce devotion.
Without thinking, I move closer, my gloved hand gently cupping his cheek. He sucks in a deep, uneven breath as I lift his face to mine.
But he still won’t meet my gaze.
“Azaire,” I whisper, “look at me.” His eyes finally lift, the gray in them crashing like tumultuous tides. Roaring like relentless thunder. Churning like swirling storms.
“Who, Wendy?” he mutters, his voice deep, dark—dangerous.
Something I’ve never heard from him before.
“What would you do to them?” I ask, my heart pounding. “If I told you, what would you do?”
Azaire shakes his head, as if he’s warding off his own thoughts. “Something I’m not proud of…”
“I did it, Azaire.” My voice breaks. “I did it to myself.”
The anger in his gaze cracks like lightning. “Why?”
“Because I’m tired of being alone.” My words ache like a knife to the chest. “I thought I could change it. But I was wrong.”
His head still sways, lips parted slightly as he looks at me. His gaze is a painting, a paradox, blending concern and adoration in a way that feels impossibly tender.
“You have me,” he murmurs at last. “Whenever you want, whatever you need, I’m there.”
His hand rests gently over mine, the heat of his skin searing through my glove, a promise in the press of his touch. He traces the edge of the leather with his thumb, as if memorizing every detail of me, down to my fingertips.
“Nothing, Wendy,” he continues, “not your magic, not even a death sentence, will ever scare me away from you.”
For a heartbeat, I forget how to breathe. The world narrows to the warmth of his hand over mine, the conviction in his voice, the raw honesty in his eyes. Something in me unknots. And for the first time in forever, I let myself believe in someone.
?
In my room, I peel off my long sleeve and sit on the edge of the bed, breath shallow, heart pounding.
One by one, I pull the thorns from my skin—jagged little things, buried deep.
I wince with each tug, the pain sharp, precise, and awfully familiar.
Each thorn clinks softly against the floor before I toss it out the window, as if the night can swallow what I no longer want to carry.
Blood wells up in thin, stinging trails. I press an old shirt against the worst of it, the fabric already stained from past wounds.
It isn’t the first time I’ve done this.
It certainly won’t be the last.
When I’ve finished, and my skin is free of magic, I stand before Calista’s door, contemplating. My hands and their nefarious ways. My power. The boy knew it would come to this before I did.
I told him that wasn’t who I am.
It isn’t who I am. This is only a desperate time, a desperate measure. I stand at the door, tugging at the fingers of my glove as Calista appears.
“I told you I’d come to you when I finished,” she sighs.
First, I look past her shoulder, spotting the book on her desk. The glamour is still in place. She hasn’t succeeded.
Second, I set my hands on her shoulders, forcing her to meet my gaze.
“You’re not upset or confused that I’m touching you,” I instruct before she can retaliate.
Her pupils widen, her mind becoming pliant.
“You believe in your power.” My voice drops instinctually. “You know you can lift the glamour. I’m going to move my hand, and you are going to let me inside your room. Do you understand?”
Calista stills. A wave of dread washes over me. I’m terrified I’ve done something irreversible—overwritten her mind with emotion. Destroyed her brain.
Then, absently, she nods.
I jerk my hands back, relieved as Calista’s eyes refocus, her usual resolve slowly fading into a confidence. She opens her door, and I step inside. The first thing she does is step toward the desk, picking up the book.
I watch Calista carefully. She weighs the book in her hands, flipping it back and forth.
“You can do it.”
From across the room, she glances up at me, eyes sharp. “I know.”
She rests the book in her hands, palms open. Her face is an empty canvas—blank, serene, almost devoid of emotion. There’s no tension, no hint of anticipation or expectation. Calista knows she’s going to succeed—because I told her to.
As with every time before, a bright, golden light spills over the book, casting warm halos across the room.
Its edges flicker like a flame. Slowly, the book lifts from her hands, suspended in the air as it shimmers between solid and spectral—less an object, more an idea in motion, a blur of possibility.
This book could be anything. A map. A memory. A warning. I hold my breath on the precipice of revelation, my heart thudding with the weight of what I might learn—what Ma knew, what she carried, what she kept hidden.
Then, clarity. The image sharpens in an instant, as though I’ve put on glasses. And from the golden haze, a single sheet of paper flutters down, spiraling delicately through the air before coming to rest at my feet.
Someone went through all the trouble of a permanent glamour for a piece of parchment?
I reach for the paper, but Calista snatches it before I can. I sit back, allowing her to bring the page to her gaze. If this page came from Folkara, she has the best chance of knowing what it is.
Breath catches in my chest as I feel for every shift of her emotion. If this were the usual Calista, she would be excited to have completed the spell. With the borrowed confidence, she feels nothing.
This was the expected outcome, after all.
Yet, as her eyes peruse the page, the feeling of uneasy betrayal fills me.
The unshakable confidence I lent her has broken.