Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
I refuse to let history repeat itself.
- King Richard
I glance at one of the Echos as I step into the hall.
“You okay?” I ask her. I don’t know how much of a toll visiting Purgatory has on her, but we outlawed this practice for a reason.
Her soul is fractured into too many pieces already.
How many more times can it splinter before she goes as mad as her sisters did all those years ago?
Ignoring me, the eight of them walk into the room with Evangeline and close the door.
A few minutes later, it opens again. There’s only one of them now, and my ex is gone. She starts walking down the hall, and I follow.
“There was an issue at dinner,” she says, “but your wife handled it well.”
“What happened?”
“Arienna made herself the face of the coup.”
I stop. “What?”
“I have already informed Evangeline.”
My pace quickens, each step a growing urge to get to my wife. “No, what do you mean she’s the face of the coup?”
“She sat Prince Nicholas Morningstar on her left. Then she laughed while she butchered Warress Stephanie Goav Orliaina Du Staabmai, asserted her dominance by vomiting directly into her mouth, then ripped out her intestines and shook them in the air. Afterwards, she looked at the prince, slid her finger across her throat, and said, ‘You’re next.’”
My blood runs cold at the thought of her finally breaking. “Where is she?”
“Your chambers.”
Spreading my wings, I take to the air. Within a minute, I’m outside my door. Marabel opens it right before I reach her, so I don’t even have to break stride. Echo disappears as the door closes behind me.
“You were supposed to protect her,” I snap at Jace. I toss him Evangeline’s leg as he rises from the sofa. My eyes flick to the bathroom at the sound of the shower running full blast. I start to move towards it, my pace quick and verging on frantic.
“She’s fine,” he says. “She doesn’t have a scratch on her.”
“You saw how she was after Lief! She isn’t fine.
” My heart hammering, I slip into the bathroom and shut the door behind me.
The stall looks empty at first glance, but then I see her crouching down rather than standing tall.
Stripping as I make my way to her, I try desperately to think of what to say.
But nothing I said to my sister made a difference to her mental health.
Each death she meted out killed her bit by bit.
Until she begged me to end her misery.
I wasn’t enough for her to want to carry on living.
“Arienna?” I rasp as I open the glass door, bracing myself for the dead look in her eyes when she lifts her head.
But she doesn’t raise her head as I enter. She flings her entire body at me instead. I wrap my arms around her and lift her up. Her chastity belt presses into my stomach as her legs go around my waist. At the feel of it, I crumble.
She still wants me.
Closing my eyes, I sag to the ground with her on my lap, the hot spray cocooning us from the rest of the world. “Talk to me,” I whisper against her hair.
“What?”
“Talk to me.”
“Taco…?” She lifts her head to look at me. “You want tacos?” Her eyes widen. “Of course! You haven’t eaten.”
“No. What? No.” Realising she can’t hear me well over the spray, I say a bit louder, “Arienna, talk to me.”
“But I am talking.”
Despite myself, I feel relief. She might be trembling and on the verge of panic, but she’s not broken. Yet.
But how long until my world kills her?
“Tell me why you stabbed Stephanie,” I press.
Trembling, she pushes her head into my shoulder.
“She kink-shamed Nicholas. In public. He looked so sad, and Jace couldn’t stab her even though he wanted to.
And I knew you would’ve done it if you were there, but you weren’t there.
And I wasn’t there for Fabia, so I wanted to be there for Nicholas. ” She looks up at me.
“But I didn’t mean to stab her so much. I swear.
I only meant to do it once, like you did with Lief, but she kept moving.
She moved so much. I couldn’t get her to stay still so I could line the knife back up with the original hole.
She was bleeding out. I was trying to help her.
But she wouldn’t stop moving. Or screaming. ”
My heart twists at the pain on her face. The horror in her eyes. “She’s still screaming,” she whispers.
I press her head back to my shoulder. She clings to me, her body feeling so soft and breakable against mine.
“I don’t like stabbing people,” she rasps. “I don’t want to do it again. The knife… When it went in… I didn’t think it would feel like that. There was only a little bit of resistance. And when it caught in her ribs…”
She chuckles. “I pulled out her intestines.” She flexes her hand as if she can still feel it.
I hold her tighter, wordless, choking on all my past faults and failures.
Nothing I said helped Aurelia. But did I make it worse for her?
Was I the reason she ended up killing herself by my hand?
I’m terrified of making the same mistake with my queen, of saying the wrong thing.
Of breaking her when she’s not yet there. Maybe she can come back from this.
She’s still wearing the chastity belt.
She’s still in my arms.
If I just stay silent, maybe I won’t make things worse.
But it’s killing me that I can’t fix this.
“I feel so bad for slugs,” she says. Her laugh is full of panic and pain and tears she doesn’t know how to shed. “I don’t want to do that ever again.”
I stroke her hair. “You won’t,” I promise her.
“But that’s what you’re supposed to do here, right? I did the right thing?”
I close my eyes briefly. “Yes,” I say, the lump in my throat making it hard to breathe.
Am I doing the right thing by lying to her?
Nicholas always stopped me from punishing his ex; how is he fairing, having seen the woman he still loves stabbed in front of him?
Has Arienna traumatised him more than she helped?
And Stephanie’s from a very rich and powerful line of nobles.
There will be consequences to her assault.
My allies might wonder if I can protect them, decide I can’t, then turn on me.
My enemies will grow emboldened if they see my wife as the face of their coup.
If they think she’ll be strong enough to lead without me.
Although I know she isn’t the monster she must’ve looked like tonight, they will not care about that truth when the illusion works for them so well.
So I lie, saving her from any additional guilt.
“You did the right thing,” I say. “But you’ll never have to do it again. I’ll do the punishing. You just stay how you are.”
There’s a weight to her silence, and I tense. My skin feels too taut beneath the hot spray, like each droplet is capable of breaking it. “Talk to me, Arienna,” I beg. “What are you thinking?”
“I…” She pauses for a long moment. I don’t push, just wait in terrifying anticipation of her wanting to leave.
“I don’t want to stay how I am,” she says in a rush.
“The old me wasn’t there for Fabia, and she suffered all alone after Lief raped her.
And I almost got raped because I didn’t know that you could say no.
And I don’t really understand what rape means, but I want to know.
I want to understand. I don’t want to be an ignorant brownie anymore.
I want…” She sucks in a deep, shaking breath. “I want to be like you.”
I cup her face as I stare into her wide eyes. “No, you don’t,” I say softly.
“I do! I want to be strong and protective and good.”
“I’ve killed people, Arienna. Men and children. Babies. I’m not good. I slaughtered an entire village on my own, after I got my people to round them up and force them on their knees. But I swung the blade that decapitated each and every one of them, from elder to suckling babe.”
She flinches, but she doesn’t look away from me.
“Raza doesn’t need another person like me. That’s why I want to abolish the monarchy. It’s time for change. We need someone like you, and you don’t have to stab people to be good, protective, or strong.”
She swallows. “Really?”
My face softens as I stare at my entire world. “It isn’t easy going against the grain; that’s strength. And you’ve protected Fabia all this time without stabbing anyone. You can learn our customs without embracing our mistakes.”
Sagging against me, she buries her face against my chest. “Oh, thank gods,” she rasps. After a beat of silence, she asks, “But then why do you do it?”
“Because sometimes the world needs its monsters.”
She lapses into silence, but it isn’t loaded this time. It’s calm and inquisitive as she gives my words thought. I just pray that the conclusions she comes to don’t break her.
Even though I know it’s only a matter of time before they do. Because tomorrow, the Vylian king returns to Raza, along with the families of those who were attacked at the market.
Then a few days after, I’ll be marching the bombers into the public square and torturing them for all to see.
For my wife to see.
“I can still hear their screams.”
“Make it stop, Dickie. Kill me so I can rest in peace.”