Chapter Eighteen – Korr
Chapter Eighteen
Korr
Her hands are shaking. I take hold of them, my fingers wrapped around hers, her knuckles pressing into my palms. She’s in the armchair where I set her down after carrying her from the council chamber, and I’m on my knees in front of her, the fire burning low behind me, the flames catching in the diamonds she’s covered in.
She’s perfect. Her blue eyes, red-rimmed and wet, looking at me like I’m supposed to know what to do. Her golden hair loose around her shoulders. Everything about her is right, and I don’t understand why she looks like she’s about to come apart.
Those despicable, horrible people. They had the audacity to walk into Steinheim, stand in front of the Council of Five, and point their fingers at my wife.
That vile man who put his hands on her before I met her.
That pitiful woman who watched her son hurt Sorina every day and never opened her mouth to defend her.
They came looking for Sorina as if they had any right to her.
Of course she’s shaking. Anyone in her position would be terrified.
I run my thumbs across her knuckles.
“It’s okay. I’m here for you. No one is going to hurt you ever again.”
“You don’t understand.” Tears run down her cheeks. “I did it.” She holds my gaze. “They weren’t false accusations. I did it. I killed Bran. I poisoned my ex-husband.”
I lift her hands to my mouth and press my lips to her knuckles, one hand and then the other.
She frowns. “Korr. I’m a murderer.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“I couldn’t take it anymore.” She pulls one hand free and wipes her face with the back of her wrist. “He was violent, and he got worse every day. His parents were the same. His father had a temper, and his mother pretended like nothing was wrong. Nobody was going to help me. Not my family, not the neighbors, and not the Peacekeepers. So, I helped myself.”
“How did you do it?”
“Dwale berries from deadly nightshade, dried and crushed to powder. Henbane seed, ground fine. Monkshood root, shaved thin and steeped overnight. I made a mixture and put it in a heavy stew with enough garlic and pepper to cover the taste. The nightshade and henbane caused a deep sleep, and the monkshood stopped his heart before morning. It looked like a young man who died in his bed. Nothing too weird about that.”
Her grandmother taught her which plants heal and which ones kill. She told me about it this past week, as we soaked in the bath, how the knowledge was passed down through the women in her family, how the port trade routes in Tessana brought her plants that didn’t grow anywhere near her house.
“And then I was free of him,” she says.
“I understand.” I take her hand again and press my thumb into her palm to massage and soothe her. “You did what you had to do.”
A man who beat her is dead because she was strong enough to end it. That is the right outcome. Golem women carry children of living stone and endure pain that would kill a male, so our respect for women runs so deep that I would never call what Sorina did wrong.
She shakes her head. “That’s not all.”
I wait for her to continue.
“In the months after, I did it again. And again. There were more women in Tessana living the same nightmare. Their husbands hurt them, and divorce was impossible. It’s badly regarded.
Shameful. There’s nowhere for a divorced woman to go.
” Her fingers tighten around mine. “So, I helped them. Six women who came to me quietly, through people I trusted. I gave them what they needed, and every death looked natural enough that nobody suspected anything. Not at first.”
Seven men. My wife killed seven men.
I let go of her hands. I push off my knees and stand, and my legs carry me across the room because I can’t hold still. I pace from the armchair to the window and back while the fire pops behind the grate.
My beautiful wife, who eats cake with her eyes closed and an expression of bliss on her face, who sleeps curled up on my chest and giggles at books about gemstones, killed seven men in cold blood.
I’m turning the information over, fitting it against what I already know about her.
The calm that follows her everywhere. The way she reads a room before she speaks.
How she carried herself in front of the council without flinching until the doors closed behind us.
This is who she is, and I’m seeing her from a new angle.
I don’t know yet whether this changes something between us, or whether it settles into the shape of the woman I already love.
But she risked her own life every single time.
Every mixture she prepared, every meal she laced, every death the Peacekeepers could have traced back to her.
She put herself in danger for women she barely knew, because nobody else would do it for them. There’s something noble in that.
“Say something,” she whispers. “Please.”
I turn to look at her.
“I thought you should know,” she continues. “I didn’t want to lie to you. You’re so good and kind. And I’m… I killed people.”
I cross the room and lower myself back to my knees. I take her face between my hands.
“You’re my wife, and I don’t care. You helped yourself, and you helped those women.
I’m glad you’re here, alive and unharmed, with me.
You did a good thing. You saved their lives.
They would have ended up dead or broken, the way Vicky would’ve ended up if you hadn't stepped in.” I press my thumbs against her cheekbones.
“You saved Vicky too. You’re the one who saw what was happening and refused to look away. ”
“The day you found me in my room after Noah hurt me… I was about to make the mixture again. I was going to poison him.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“It didn’t cross my mind. In Tessana, everyone knew those women were being hurt. Neighbors, friends, family. Nobody did anything. I’ve never seen a man stand up to another man. Not once in my life. Asking you for help wasn’t even an option.”
I lean forward and press my lips to her cheek, tasting salt. I kiss the other one, then press my mouth to her forehead, her temple, the bridge of her nose.
“Always come to me,” I whisper against her perfect skin. “No matter what it is. No matter who. I’ll protect you, and if something needs to be done, I’ll do it myself. You don’t carry that alone anymore.”
She pulls back, her brow creased.
“Don’t think I don’t regret it. I killed seven people, and it haunts me. I know every one of them deserved it, and I know those women had no other way out. But seven men are dead because of me.”
I smooth her hair back from her face.
“Give it to me. All of it. Your worries, your nightmares, everything you’ve been holding on to. Pass it from your hands into mine, right now. I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of everything.”
She lunges forward out of the chair and into my arms, and I catch her and pull her against my chest, her face pressed into my neck, her whole body shaking against mine.
I fold my arms around her and hold her tightly, my chin on top of her head, the floral scent of her hair filling my lungs.
I hold her until the shaking stops and her breathing slows down.
I pull back enough to see her eyes, which are red, but no longer filled with fear.
“If I ever hurt you,” I say, “poison me.”
Her eyes go wide.
“What?”
She pulls back.
“No. Don’t say that.”
“I’m serious. I would never hurt you intentionally. I promise you that. But I’m massive, and my hands are made of stone, and I’m clumsy. If I ever grab you too hard and bruise your skin, then poison me. The same way you poisoned them.”
She stares at me. Her lips part, close, and part again. She can’t find her words. She doesn’t need to, because I don’t need a reply to what I just said.
I pull her back against my chest, and she lets me, her fingers curling into my shirt. She married a man who would’ve killed her one day, and when nobody came to stop it, she stopped it herself.
People will call her a murderer. I know what she is. She is the strongest woman I’ve ever known, and I got lucky, because she’s here, alive and warm, pressed against my beating heart.
In the other version of this story, Bran kills her before she kills him, and I turn to stone and they move me in the Stillhalls. But she saved herself, found her way to me, and saved me as well.