Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I t’s night-time, I think. I stare at the roof of a darkly lit room and take stock of my injuries without moving. It hurts to breathe in, but not as much as it did.
I’m not dead then.
A painful throb stings from my knee to ankle on one leg, and I assume this is my reward for skating along a rough cave floor on bare legs. There are various aches and bruises and a pounding headache, but nothing serious of note.
I have no idea where I am, but it’s not a cave, and I’m in a real bed. Despite my physical complaints, I am numb. Devoid of rage, empty of everything. A thin sheet covers me. Thankfully, I’m not naked, though I do wonder who changed my clothes.
A snore startles me. Someone else is in the room. The snore turns into the soft breathing of sleep. I wait, listening for other sounds, before turning my head slowly toward the sound of breathing. There, slumped awkwardly in a sofa seat next to my bed, is Riley. He’s asleep and likely has been for a while. The lantern next to him on the side table has burned out .
Behind him, there is another bed and side table, and presumably the exit. A table laden with jugs, bowls, and uneaten food is on the opposite wall. Turning the other way, a dark but star-filled night is visible through a giant window, and nothing else. Not even a tree or another building. Where am I? I can’t even tell what time of night it is.
Sitting up isn’t easy, but I refuse to make a sound and wake up Riley. I fail when panting with the effort wakes him.
I see him reach for me, but he must decide better of it and rubs his eyes instead. “You’re awake?”
“Apparently so,” I reply with a grimace. My throat is a little sore.
Riley refills and relights the lantern on the bedside table. A soft glow illuminates the room, its delicate flicker bouncing around the walls. I’ve stopped panting, but I haven’t moved from my seated position or even turned to look at Riley.
Riley stands and walks to the end of my bed in my line of vision, his arms crossed. Half of his hair has fallen out of the thong he must have tied it up with. He’s not wearing any weapons, though I saw his sword next to his seat.
“How long have I been out?” I rasp as he hands me a glass of water, and I nod a small thanks.
“Four days.”
I thought it would’ve been longer. “Were my injuries not so bad then?” I ask, surprised.
“They were bad. We brought in a black market Gifted healer. She wasn’t powerful, was only able to fix your ribs so they didn’t puncture your lungs, but it helped.”
That makes sense. Plenty of Junky healers can only heal cuts and bruises, or something specific like bones. There is an unspoken agreement to not report them for defecting. The general populace doesn’t have legal access to Gifted healers, who are usually reserved for royalty and the wealthy.
“You’re still badly bruised, and you have a concussion. Stitches in the back of your head. Your leg is very swollen.” Riley’s voice begins to sound like he’s reprimanding me.
I look up at him, angry he’s speaking to me this way. I don’t care that he is the fucking Prince Ofnemoris.
He looks furious. His face is red, his eyes bloodshot, and a frown creases his brow as his forearm muscles bulge from gripping the bed head so tightly. There is a sheen of sweat on his prickly-looking skin.
I’m about to ask what the fuck his problem is when Bitty crashes through the door. “You’re awake!” they cry. They stop short of jumping into the bed with me, but their beaming dimpled smile and glistening eyes say it all. “I couldn’t sleep, but when I heard your voice, I thought I was dreaming!”
“Good to see you in the land of the living, Mika,” comes Beans’ booming voice as he enters the room behind Bitty. “Wouldn’t have been able to handle Riley’s cooking in your absence.” Beans’ head is bandaged, his right eye and cheekbone a dark blue.
“He’s learned a thing or two,” I jest, smiling at the two people I realize I don’t mind I’ve come to care about. I chance a peek at Riley, but his mood is unchanged. Is he annoyed they had to rescue me, or that I woke up?
All that’s missing is…“Where’s Tovi?” I blurt. I need to confirm. If she’s here, then it was a lie. Right?
“She was just…” Bitty’s voice trails off as they frown toward the door. “Huh.”
“You need to get her. Bring her here, right now.” My voice is tight and screechy. I’m looking at all three of them, eyes darting between as they stare at me, puzzled and unmoving.
Beans backs toward the door. “What’s wrong?” he asks, leaning out and looking down the hall .
“She’s not…I can’t hear her,” Bitty announces, confused, as they move to look down the hall.
Shouting and a crash outside startles all of us. Beans and Bitty run down the hall while Riley lunges for his sword and stands between me and the exit.
“What’s happening?” I ask Riley, my voice hoarse and painful. He’s either ignoring me or too focused on the commotion to hear me.
Beans walks back in after a few minutes with a frown, Bitty right behind him with a confused and crestfallen look on their face. Beans closes the door and tells Riley he can stand down.
“Why did you want Tovi?” Beans demands.
“What happened, where is she?” Riley asks before I can answer.
Beans doesn’t reply, doesn’t even look at Riley, his full attention on me.
“They told me it was her. Everything. The rumor at Teorann. The kidnapping. But she was here, she helped save me!” I cry, pleading with Beans, begging to the Divine that he’ll tell me they lied.
“She took off on a horse. Her pack is gone.”
“Get out,” I breathe, not looking at anyone in particular. When no one moves, I shout it over and over until Beans and Bitty leave. Riley gets to the door and closes it behind them, not leaving. The pain in my ribs is a radiating agony.
“Get out, Riley!” I scream into a gasp, unable to suck air into my lungs.
She betrayed me.
I was kidnapped, beaten, starved, and almost raped because of her. Beans almost died. Sweet Girl did die. Because. Of. Her!
My hands fist into the sheets, tensing so hard my ribs scream along with my rage. I’m holding my breath. I can’t cry. I won’t cry.
I might have been able to talk myself away from the ledge if Riley hadn’t crawled into the bed behind me, his legs on either side of me. One arm circles under mine, gently crossing my ribs as the other wraps over the top. His massive hand rests across my heart, almost spanning my chest and shoulder, too.
He gently pulls me back into him, and I can’t fight him. I have nothing left. No rage. No fight. I am a crushed vessel.
Hugging me gently, his breath gently tickles my neck. I’m gasping, as he tightens his grip and cuddles into me. Still gentle enough that it’s only my erratic breathing causing me pain.
“I’ve got you now,” Riley whispers.
I unravel.
Two decades of trauma come flooding out in ragged, heaving wails. I scream instead of breathing out. I whimper instead of breathing in.
I cry for the Mika who was told she should never cry again after having to murder the snowolf pup Jaena had given her in some sick empathy lesson.
I cry for the Mika cruelly bullied by her once best friends about the way she looked and her lack of Gift.
I cry for 13-rev-old Mika who was repeatedly raped for being too much and deserved to be taken down a peg. I cry because she didn’t cry each time he broke her and took a piece of her soul. I cry because she couldn’t cry when she brutally murdered him, her rage not allowing her to feel anything else.
I cry for the Mika who became the Silent Assassin instead of being executed, owing her life to a woman all too eager to have a beast on a leash.
I cry for the Mika who was tricked by a boy at sixteen and forced into something she didn’t understand because she thought he liked her. Spitting his ejaculate in his face and breaking his nose was not enough.
I cry for the Mika with fake friendships turned fake lovers, who had the sick fetish of saying they fucked the Silent Assassin and lived.
I cry for the Mika who so desperately craved touch and affection but only received burning agony. For the revs and revs of killing and isolation. The wall of stone and ice that’s been built brick by brick around her heart to suffocate it, allowing herself to be controlled by rage instead.
And I cry for the last few moons with these people I’d deluded myself into thinking were my friends, and that I could be deserving of their love.Sweet Girl. Riley. Bitty. Beans. Tovi. I cry in bitter grief for the loss of them all. For everything that was and could have been.
Every single ugly sob, every single burning hot tear, every single shuddering breath makes whatever was left of my suffocated heart burst into a million pieces. I vow to build the wall higher. Tighter. Colder.
I will give no more— can give no more—of myself. I am done.
Nothing is left.
A soft knock on the door wakes me. I’m still in Riley’s embrace. Bitty and Beans come in with trays of food, my stomach announcing itself loudly.
They clear the table and drag it over to us with the food. With a start, I realize the warm golden glow in the room isn’t from the lantern—it’s early morning. Riley held me the rest of the night.
No words are spoken as Beans serves me a bowl of stewed fruits in syrup, topped with a crunchy and crispy mix of fried oats and nuts. Riley lets go of the embrace but also makes no move to leave the bed. I sit up straighter as Beans wordlessly hands me the bowl, and I whisper my thanks. It’s fucking delicious. Maybe it’s because it’s the first proper food I’ve had in…over ten days.
“I think we should wait a few days before we leave. We can travel on horses from here, but your bruised ribs need to be ready for that,” Beans advises me through mouthfuls of breakfast. “That’s if you still want to continue…”
“Where are we?” I ask, choosing to ignore Beans. As if what I wanted would make any difference.
“A settlement outside of Forsto,” Beans says as he shares a look with Riley.
Bitty clearly notices, and they raise their eyebrows at their bowl and shake their head. “Tell her. She should know.”
“Tell me what?”
Riley sighs, and the hot air ruffles the back of my hair. “Do you know what they had intended to do with you? The Erdu mercenaries?”
“No. They weren’t really the sharing types.”
“They had intended to sell you to skin traders in Forsto,” Beans says, loading up a second helping of breakfast. “We don’t know much more than that because people got spooked when we started poking around. But people know you are—were—the Silent Assassin. We need to keep watch, we don’t know who is going to sell that information now.”
I’d assumed as much. Either that or something equally depraved, after Arpi had gotten what he wanted from me first. I shudder at the memory of him touching me. I hate that he’s the last person to have touched me like that. It’s like he replaced Riley’s touch with his poison.
“Is all my gear here?”
“Of course.” Beans angrily breathes out of his nose, scratching his beard. “Tovi insisted on carrying most of it herself.”
“She was the one who would wake us long before dawn to keep on your trail, sleeping only a few hours at a time,” Bitty adds, staring at their empty bowl.
“And she was the first one to start the fight so Beans could rescue you,” Riley says quietly, his hand resting on the small of my back.
I shake my head, still unable to reconcile everything. “Why? How?”
No one answers because no one knows. The betrayal further rips open the void within me.