Chapter Twelve – Altair
Chapter Twelve
Altair
I hear the servants whispering in the corridor outside my chambers, their voices low and cautious. I catch only fragments of their conversation before they scurry away. Something about the north wing and about the young bride visiting Lady Helena.
My vision goes red.
I told Tressa the north wing isn’t necessarily off limits, but I never expected her to actually go there.
If she hates me, then I can only imagine how much she must hate my father and my mother.
They are the ones who destroyed her life.
I was only a child back then, but they were supposed to be responsible adults.
And I brought her back here, under their roof.
I don’t know what they talked about, and that makes me feel frustrated and untethered.
I don’t have control over the situation anymore.
In fact, it feels like since I brought Tressa to the palace, I have lost control over everything.
Myself, my family, the servants, even my affairs. It’s all slipping through my fingers.
I tear through the palace looking for her, my wings spread wide and my tail lashing behind me. For a moment, I consider summoning her with the gold cuff. But that’s over now. I’ll never use it again.
I find her in the rose garden, sitting on a blanket under one of the old trees, with a book in her lap. She looks peaceful and at ease, while I am boiling inside. The contrast makes my fury burn hotter.
My tail whips from side to side, slashing away at the roses in my path. Petals scatter across the ground, and thorny stems fall broken at my feet.
She looks up when she hears me coming. Her expression shifts from calm to wary.
“Why did you go to see my parents?” I demand. “Did you see my father?”
She sets her book down and stands, brushing off her skirt.
“Yes, I saw him. I’m sorry for the state that he’s in. How long has he been ill?”
“That is none of your business,” I snap, stepping closer. My wings flare wide, casting shadows across her face. “In fact, nothing that’s happening at the palace concerns you. I made a mistake when I bought you. You should go back to where you came from.”
The words are out before I can stop them. I watch her face change. Her eyes narrow, and her jaw tightens.
She slaps me hard across the face.
I stumble back, not because she hit me hard enough to make me, but because the anger and hurt I see in her eyes make me feel so deliciously ashamed of myself.
It’s like every time she slaps me or assaults me in any way, I fall in love with her more.
I am already hard just watching her shake with fury.
I can’t stop pushing her and punishing myself. I can’t. I want her here, yet I send her away. I tell her that I am sorry, then I behave like a brute again, and again.
I want her to be my wife…
I want her to leave…
I want her to hurt me…
I want this nightmare to end.
“You’re unbelievable,” she says. “You torture me, then tell me you want me as your wife. The moment I try to understand you and your family, you tell me to leave? You’re a coward, Altair. A pathetic coward.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” I snarl, but my voice lacks conviction.
“I know,” she says, stepping even closer. “I know about the wounds on your back. I know you’re doing it to yourself. I know about you crying yourself to sleep on the floor of my family’s old room.”
“No,” I say, my throat tightening. “No…”
“Yes!” Her green eyes are blazing. “I saw all of it. I saw you last night, Altair. I saw you curled up on that floor, bleeding and broken, and crying like a child.”
My chest constricts. I can’t breathe.
She saw me.
She saw me in my most pathetic state, when I was so destroyed and wretched that I could barely live with myself. The idea that she witnessed that shreds me.
“Is this why you didn’t leave?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Of course,” she says, and her voice cracks. “How could I leave when I saw you… When I saw you…”
She can’t finish her sentence. She looks away from me, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.
I think back to last night, to the cold stone floor and the whip in my hand, the blood running down my back. I think about kneeling before the mirror and counting each strike aloud, forcing myself to watch my own degradation. And she saw the result of it.
“How long have you been doing this to yourself?” she asks, her voice softer. “How long have you been hurting yourself?”
I pale and take a few steps back, my wings trembling and my shoulders slouching.
I can’t answer her. I can’t tell her that I’ve been doing this since I was ten years old, since the day Brandon died. I can’t tell her that I sleep on the floor of her family’s old room because I don’t deserve the comfort of a bed.
I shift into my wyvern form. My body expands, my bones reshape, and my golden scales burst through my skin.
I launch myself into the air before she can say anything else, my massive wings beating hard against the wind.
I fly away from the palace, circling around the mountains in wide, desperate arcs. The late afternoon sun catches on my scales and turns them to molten gold, but I feel nothing but cold inside.
I never thought she’d discover my deepest secrets, and now that she has, I don’t know how to be anymore. I don’t know how to face her. I don’t know how to exist in a world where someone knows the truth of who I am.
I feel so pathetic and ashamed of myself that I could just disappear. I could fly away and never come back. I could leave her the palace and all my wealth, and just vanish into the sky.
But even as I think it, I know I won’t do it. I can’t leave her. I bought her and made her mine, and even though I’m the worst thing that has ever happened to her, I can’t let her go.
I circle higher, the mountains rising beneath me like jagged teeth. The wind tears at my wings, and the air grows thin and cold, but I keep climbing. I want to fly until I can’t feel anything anymore, until the shame, the guilt, and the desperate, aching need for her all fade away into nothing.
But they don’t fade. They never do.
I see Tressa’s face when she told me she saw me crying. There was no disgust written on her features, no satisfaction at seeing me brought low. There was something else, something I can’t name. It looked almost like pain.
Like it hurt her to see me hurting.
I don’t understand why she stayed after seeing me like that. I don’t understand why she didn’t run as far and as fast as she could. I don’t understand why she went to see my mother, why she asked about my father, and why she cares at all about what happens in this cursed place.
I let out a roar that echoes across the mountains, raw and anguished, and full of everything I can’t say.
The sound reverberates back to me, mocking and empty.
I am alone up here in the sky, with my shame and my secrets, and the knowledge that the one person I want most in the world knows exactly what kind of monster I am.
And the worst part is that she stayed anyway. She saw me at my lowest and most pathetic, and she still decided to stay. I don’t know what to do with that.
I fly until the sun starts to set, the sky bleeds orange and pink, and my shadow grows long across the mountains.
Tressa knows everything. I will have to go back and face her eventually, even though the thought of it makes me want to tear myself apart all over again.