Chapter 13 #2
He lets go and I continue clawing at the rock.
It’s then that I notice my hands: covered in blood, nails cracked and jagged and even altogether gone in two cases.
The pain is behind some kind of wall, thank the Makers, so I keep digging, screaming in frustration and fear and exhaustion until finally, finally, someone shouts that they’ve made a hole.
I sprint over, Soren at my heels to clear a path of anyone who would dare try to stop me.
The man who’d made the hole—W something.
Warren? Wadson? I make a quick promise to the Makers to find out later and thank him—steps aside quickly after a low growl from the frost cat beside me, and I peer into the darkness within.
“Mia! Mia!!” I wait, exhaustion trying desperately to pull me down, but I hold steady, ignoring its claws in my back.
I grip the rocks on either side of the hole so tightly they cut into my palms, more blood mingling with what’s already there.
“MIA!!” I scream, my heart falling. What if she’d been hurt more than she realized?
What if we’re too late? How long have they been down there?
Hours? Days? I have no idea. Surely they have enough air and provisions to last for a while if these rockslides are common, right?
But there were so many more people than usual, maybe too many.
My thoughts simply won’t stop spinning and my vision starts to blur, my head pounding and my chest aching.
Please let them be ok. Please…
“Tess!!” Her voice is far away, but tears burn my eyes and I thank every fucking Maker I can think of.
She’s ok. She’s alive. “Tess!” she calls again, closer now, and then I can see her pale face in the dim lantern light within the cave.
I reach my arm through the hole, and she latches onto my hand, squeezing for all that she’s worth.
“I told you,” I say, relief filling every inch of my soul. “I told you I wouldn’t stop. Are you ok? Is everyone alright?”
“Yes, we’re ok. A few people got hurt a little, but everyone is alright, I think. I’m not bleeding anymore.”
“Mia, we can get you all out of there in just a few more minutes, alright?” Blackheart says from just behind me. “We just need to move a few more stones. Can you step back for just a little while longer?”
“Yes, sir,” she says bravely, nodding. She meets my eyes again, hers red and puffy from tears, a streak of dried blood coating her temple and cheek. “Thank you,” she whispers.
I don’t think I can say anything without breaking down completely, so I simply nod, squeeze her hand, and force myself to let go and step away.
A few other men immediately swoop into my place and start maneuvering more stones out of the way.
Someone even makes some kind of harness to put around Soren, and the great cat starts pulling the large chunks of stone out of the way with his massive strength as the men put thick branches in to keep the remaining stones in place.
She’s safe. Mia is safe.
I smile even as my knees buckle and darkness speeds in from all directions.
The last thing I feel are arms catching me before I hit the ground.
The last thing I see are Blackheart’s worried, beautiful eyes.
The last thing I hear is his deep, rumbling voice saying my name over and over.
No, not my name, I think as the darkness pulls me under. Not my name.
The low rumbling of Soren’s what I call purring but he insists is nothing of the sort is the first thing to break through the darkness. It’s such a comforting sound that I savor it, letting myself lie there for a few more moments before prying my eyes open.
-Finally,- the cat mutters in my mind, though I can feel the relief in his thought. I wonder how long I’ve been asleep.
“Good to see you too,” I croak, my throat feeling as if I swallowed a bucket of sand. I push myself up on the bed. I frown. The bed? How did I get here? I don’t remember…
“You’re awake!” Mia cries from the doorway, running across the room and dropping the bowl of stew to the floor just before she throws herself at me.
I oof quietly but hug her back tightly when she wraps her arms around my neck and squeezes.
Everything comes crashing back into me now: the quake, the rockslide, digging and clawing and refusing to give up.
I close my eyes as tears burn and bury my face in her hair, thanking all the Makers again that she’s here and safe and whole.
Soren bumps the back of her head softly with his nose and chuffs, his breath ruffling her hair and making her giggle before he leaps lithely off of the bed.
-I’m going to hunt now that you’ve found your way back from the dead.-
-Thank you. For helping. For staying with me afterward.-
-I will always stay.-
Soren slips from the room as Mia pulls back and I brush wayward strands of hair from her temples, smoothing them back against her plaits and scanning her face, looking for the injuries that I know were there.
“You’re alright?”
She nods and smiles. “Copeland healed me. It was just a small cut here,” she touches just above her temple, “but he said head wounds like that bleed a lot, even when they aren’t bad, and my arm was barely a scratch, really.
” I exhale in relief. “He healed your hands too,” she adds quietly.
I blink and look down to find my hands looking perfectly ordinary, but I remember how bad they’d been, bloody and mangled.
But it didn’t matter. All I cared about was getting to Mia.
To everyone trapped, of course, but mostly her. I didn’t break my promise to Odessa.
Blackheart clears his throat from the doorway.
Mia glances at him and then turns back to me, whispering, “He’s been worried and waiting for you to wake up.
He’s been pretending he hasn’t, but I know he has.
” I try to suppress my smile and she grins before hugging me again and hopping off of the bed.
Blackheart smiles at her as she walks back, patting her braids affectionately as she passes.
Once she’s gone, he watches me from the doorway, arms crossed.
I worry for a moment what I must look like after everything that happened and then apparently sleeping for Makers knows how long like the dead, but he isn’t looking at me as if I look like a horrific mess.
He’s looking at me like…he’s never seen me before. I swallow hard.
“You refused to stop digging,” he finally says quietly.
I hike a shoulder, not sure what to say to that.
“You kept digging, despite your fingers bleeding, your nails splintered or gone, one bone actually broken for fuck’s sake.
” I wince at that, not having realized it had been that bad.
He continues on, “Despite being so exhausted you could barely stand. You kept digging to save those people, to save that girl.”
“Of course I did,” I say, my voice coming out smaller than I intend.
“And yet, you claim that you aren’t to be trusted, that if I stopped blocking your Gift, that you would use it to hurt anyone in your path.”
My heart starts to beat loudly in my ears. No, no, no. Don’t start pulling at this thread, please...I stare back, trying to make my eyes cold and hard, but I don’t think I succeed, because…fuck me, when I look at him, I don’t want to be anything like Tesni. I want to be me. I want him to see me.
“I believe that I can trust you, Tess.” I can feel it the moment he stops blocking my Gift. It’s like a soft pressure against my chest disappears, my power surging forward now that it senses its freedom. My palms go cold, the icy feeling flowing down to my fingertips, ready to be used. “Show me.”
“I…” I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do.
What would happen if he found out the truth now?
Something between us has shifted, I know that much, but is it enough for him to overlook the fact that I’m not Tesni?
That I’m not useful to him and his King?
At least not in the way they initially intended.
“What did they do to you?” he says when I can’t respond, a strange anger in his voice that I don’t quite understand. I know the anger isn’t directed at me, it’s directed at whatever they he means. But what the hells is he talking about?
“What do you mean? Who?” I ask honestly, more confused than I’ve been in weeks. He studies me, seeming to search to the depths of my soul for…something, though I don’t know what. He finally shakes his head and exhales.
“Copeland healed you?” he asks, though I know he already knows perfectly well the old man fixed all of my injuries. Changing the subject. I want to push, needing to know what he was talking about, but I don’t, not now. Instead, I glance down at my hands once more, moving and flexing my fingers.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Good. King Ryker has requested that you accompany me to his palace for dinner this evening.” I blink at that.
“Me? Why?” I ask, incredulous. Blackheart’s lips curl into that crooked smile that I’m finding myself becoming addicted to.
Instead of answering he says, “At least you have cause to wear one of your fancy dresses again, Red.”
Tithmoore’s palace is stunning, though completely different than the only other castle I’ve ever been in.
Where Castle Lyanna is all white and gold, Tithmoore is decorated with deep, rich woods, gemstones, and understated finery.
It feels more regal to me, more refined somehow, like King Barony needed to prove his wealth and position, whereas King Ryker knows he doesn’t need to go to such lengths.