Chapter 39 #3
At the words, whatever foolish marvel had taken hold of me shattered. My father's face rose unbidden in my mind, and the warmth of the moment receded as quickly as it had come.
The familiar ache returned with brutal swiftness. “Not when it mattered.” My gaze fell.
His grin vanished immediately. For a moment he seemed to search for words. Then: “Mistakes happen.”
My surprise jolted me for a moment. I'd expected him to tell me it wasn't my fault, to offer one of the countless platitudes people recited in the face of grief too large to mend.
But he hadn't done that. He didn’t try to blunt the edge of my guilt with a convenient lie, and somehow the honesty of it eased something inside me, loosening the knot lodged deep inside my heart.
Still, I turned a disbelieving look on him. “That's not very comforting.”
For a moment he looked genuinely bothered by that, as though I'd presented him with a problem he didn't know how to solve. He opened his mouth to respond, then thought better of it.
I huffed a laugh at his hesitation. His scowl deepened immediately.
“I learned something about you too,” I pointed out.
He cast me a wary look. “Oh?”
“You’re lethal with a dagger.” I mimed throwing one.
Some of the tension left him at once. He reached for a twig lying near his boot and stripped the bark from it with what looked suspiciously like satisfaction.
“Although,” I lifted a finger, “you didn't hit the Spinner in the heart.” I tapped my shoulder where the dagger had struck.
His face hardened all at once. “I wasn't aiming for its heart.”
Something in his tone made my smile waver.
“I saw the nest of blood midges in the trees.” He tossed the twig onto the coals. “I hit it exactly where I intended.”
His eyes finally lifted to mine, and the feral rage I found there made my blood run cold. It was the kind of fury that lay beneath thought and reason, straining against the chains that normally kept it at bay. “It needed to suffer before it died.”
I gaped at him. The concussion I was fairly certain hadn't healed properly was scrambling my wits. Because by the way he'd said it, by the anger plain on his face, it was almost as though he'd done it… for me.
Completely absurd.
He plucked the second rabbit from the spit and tore off a piece of meat, shoving it into his mouth.
“Why?” I asked tersely. “Why do you even care?”
The hand I'd healed slowly curled into a fist. A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Pain deserves to be returned in kind.”
I chill slid through me. I knew exactly what he was implying—who he was implying. Immediately, my guard slammed back into place, whatever lapse of judgment that had allowed me to relax around Rìan evaporating beneath the stark reminder of who—and what—he truly was. Aedric’s enemy.
I wondered what he would do if he ever discovered what I knew about Dannis. The truth behind Levinica's death.
The thought turned my stomach. I pushed the rabbit aside, my hand drifting unconsciously to my abdomen as my meal threatened to make a second appearance.
Rising abruptly, I put several paces between myself and the fire, fighting the urge to double over and bury my head between my knees until the feeling passed.
“The Spinner sealed its own fate,” he grumbled, returning to the subject as though he hadn't just promised violence against Aedric. “Though it was impressively stupid of you to offer it what you did.”
I scoffed. “It worked, didn’t it? Far better than your plan.
Threatening it with my life—and yours—didn't exactly work, in case you hadn't noticed.” I leaned against a tree, refusing to look at him.
“I don't see why you’d care, anyway. I offered it something it wanted.
Now you're free, and we can continue this quest.” I shrugged. “You're welcome.”
The bitterness tasted foul in my mouth. The place where that memory had once been was now a gaping void. Since losing it, something inside me felt diminished, as though part of my heart had been scooped away. I couldn't explain it. Only that a light inside me had gone dim.
He pushed himself to his feet. “I need to fill the waterskin,” he said coolly. “Half an hour, we leave.”
He bent briefly, placing something atop the fallen log before straightening once more.
“You found out what it does after all,” he said stiffly. “And I'm a male of my word.”
A frown pulled at my brow, but before I could ask what he meant, he’d already turned away, striding into the trees and out of sight.
I remained where I was for several moments, listening to the steady crunch of his footsteps as they receded into the forest, waiting until the sound had vanished entirely before allowing my attention to turn toward whatever he’d left behind.
My breath caught.
I was moving before I consciously decided to, crossing to the log and dropping to my knees beside it.
With trembling fingers, I reached out and wrapped my hand around the hilt, the familiar carving of the eight-pointed star pressing into my palm.
It hummed against my skin, as though my touch had awakened it.
My bone knife.
Rìan had given it back.