Chapter 66
Chapter Sixty-Six
Adull, throbbing ache pulls me from the depths of slumber. My eyes flutter open. Nausea churns in my gut. I’m moving—and my hands are bound. Sunlight glints sharply off the iron encasing my wrists and mocks me.
Tides drown me, how many times can I wake this way?
My other senses trickle in—the hard press of a firm chest against my back, muscled thighs bracketing my own, a thickly veined arm securing my waist. We’re on a horse.
Each hoofbeat drums through my tailbone and into my skull. My wrists sting beneath the iron. There’s an ache in my shoulders from being held upright.
A deep inhale—Tides freeze my veins—smoke and pine.
I whirl in the saddle and glare at Zev. His face is a mess of yellowing and purple bruises, but both his eyes are open.
“Oh, good,” he drawls. “You’re awake.”
“You hit me,” I accuse, baring my teeth. “Hard.”
“I did.” He smirks, cruel and sharp. “Want me to kiss the pain away?”
Well, he’s certainly feeling better.
Flooding water.
Rumbling thunder.
Blinding lightning.
I swallow thickly. “W-were all the men … dead?”
Zev’s gaze is sharper than his blade. “Yes.”
A hollow, broken laugh wrenches from my chest. I killed my own people.
“It was you or them,” Zev says, his voice rough. “And since when has killing bothered you? You were plotting to murder hundreds in Arbinj.”
Right.
He still hates me.
We may have massacred an entire Tundrayni camp together, but that apparently doesn’t change anything between us.
“Where are we going?” I huff, turning in the saddle. Blistering guilt sears my heart, bitter ash coating my tongue. My arms tremble, and I try to fold them over my chest before remembering my wrists are bound.
Zev doesn’t respond.
“Were we followed?”
“No.” The word is forced through gritted teeth. “Everyone was dead, remember?”
Another excruciating pang of guilt.
“Where are we?”
When he doesn’t answer, I shift just enough to “accidentally” jab my elbow into his ribs. He sucks in a sharp breath, and I remember—some of them might still be broken. I only feel slightly bad about it.
“In Rebellion territory.” His teeth clack together violently.
“I’m hungry.”
“You’ll have to wait until we stop.”
“Tell me where we’re going.”
He doesn’t answer, like I’m not worth his breath.
“Did the Tides take your tongue, or have you taken a vow of silence?” I snap.
His grip around my waist becomes punishing, and my breath stutters.
I hate the way my body responds to him, knows him, craves him.
He struck me across the head, tied me up again, and is taking me Tides-knows-where.
I should be quaking with fear, demanding he release me.
Instead, the hair prickles along the back of my neck where his breath fans against my skin.
I have no idea where we stand—it was my father I was supposed to hate all along.
My heart twists painfully in my chest.
Father. It had been him.
And all those men I helped murder—they had been innocent.
And still, I killed them. We killed them.
My throat tightens, and I take a shaky, weak breath.
I don’t have the desire to annoy Zev anymore.
We ride in stiff, painful silence for nearly two hours before Zev brings the horse to a halt in a shady clearing, framed with tall, leafy trees.
He dismounts, then hoists me off the mare before I can protest. I follow him wordlessly as he lowers himself to the ground and retrieves food from a satchel he likely stole from the camp.
With a sharp jerk of his chin, he gestures to the patch of grass beside him. It’s a practice in all my patience not to roll my eyes. At least his silence is an improvement over ordering me around like a dog.
I plop onto the ground and hold up my bound wrists. He stares at them, mouth twisted with displeasure. Then, with a heavy sigh, he slices the rope with his dagger.
He doesn’t remove the iron cuffs.
I eat in silence, barely tasting the food, intrusive thoughts crushing my lungs like a massive boulder. Breathing becomes a luxury.
I have no home.
No family.
No people.
My father lied. Manipulated. Murdered.
I did the same.
It’s strange when a person loses everything in a single day. Everything I worked toward was a lie. Everything I believed was a lie. A sense of numbness envelops me, a slow expanding hollow inside my chest. In the span of hours, I went from princess of my people to murderer of my people.
When I glance at Zev, he’s already watching me, brows drawn together. When our eyes meet, he schools his expression into impassivity, turning his face away.
“If you keep blaming yourself, you’ll never move forward,” he says without looking at me. His jaw clenches tight. “You helped me kill them. To save yourself. Make your peace with it.”
I blink away the tears burning my eyes.
“Where do we go from here?” I whisper, tracing idle patterns in the grass.
Zev doesn’t respond immediately.
“I’m not going back to Arbinj,” he says at last. His back is ramrod straight. “My father will assume either Tormik or the rebels killed me.”
“Where will you go?”
He shrugs. “Volca, maybe. Or beyond.”
What about me? I don’t say the words, but he hears them anyway.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” he admits, his fingers tapping a pattern on his knee. “But I’ll figure it out.”
“So I’m your prisoner again?” I scoff. “What about what I want?”
He doesn’t answer, so I barrel on. “Why did you knock me out? We worked together. We—” I cut off. I can’t bring myself to voice what we did aloud.
“I didn’t trust you not to attack me when I was weakened.” He gestures to my iron cuffs. “I still don’t.”
“I healed you every night,” I protest.
“I still don’t know why.” His voice grows hard. His eyes become stone. “And I don’t care.”
I grit my teeth. He does care. I know he does.
“It’s stupid to leave me cuffed. What if rebels attack us?”
He eyes me closely, likely remembering the last time I tricked him into uncuffing me.
Mouth twisted into a grimace, Zev scoots closer. His scent hits me like a warm, welcoming wave. Safe, safe, safe, some idiot voice in my mind croons. I am anything but safe with my husband whose eyes glitter with hatred.
He proves it to me when his hand fists in my hair, wrenching my head back, forcing a small gasp from my lips.
“If you attack me,” he murmurs, his voice a silky threat, “I will kill you. If you betray me, I will kill you. And if you try to run…” His gaze drops to my lips before he drags it back up. He reaches for my cheek—then grabs my jaw instead.
“I’ll let you go.”