22. Trust is a fickle, fragile beast
TRUST IS A FICKLE, FRAGILE BEAST
ENORA
Solitude had a funny way of being unpredictable in its impact on my mental state. So often, I needed that peace more than anything. Even just an hour alone with my thoughts was such a formidable remedy to one’s woes.
But every once in a while, that alone time with my mind wreaked terrifying havoc. Unfortunately, last night was the latter.
I found my way back to the Keep and to my quarters with no interference from a mangy pack of rabid shifters, but the farther I traveled from the image of Kieran—no, Jasper—watching me leave, the more my anger festered.
Anger at him, mostly, for a list of things so large, it seemed utterly intangible, as if every bit of heartbreak and misery I’d felt in his fifteen-year absence came rushing back, furious I tried to suffocate it.
A little more irrationally, I grappled with anger toward just about everyone who was or wasn’t in my life anymore.
Maksym, for not daring to exert his divine power and send me back to my ever-miserable life in Odessa.
Eilir, for trying to make me feel at home in a place I did not belong.
I even thought about Theo, about how he’d let me go without ever putting up a fight, even though I’d spent years turning down his pursuit of settling down.
I thought about my father, too, the invincible king, and how he’d been there one minute and gone the next, and how pissed I was at him for that.
My multiple attempts to curl up on the sofa in front of the blue-flickering hearth proved to be worthless, and I found myself out on the terrace, wrapped in a blanket, before the first trickles of muted dawn lit up the horizon.
But no matter how tightly I bound myself or how closely I tucked my limbs to my body, I couldn’t stop shaking.
I wasn’t cold, or even hot, but my entire body had trembled so fiercely, my teeth were chattering, and my back ached from being bounced up against the stone exterior of the Keep. I wasn’t sure my anger had ever manifested in such a full-bodied way before.
It was beyond wanting to scream and cry, or to inflict violence on the closest inanimate object.
I didn’t have the energy to do that anymore.
But I had nausea in spades to go with my persistent shakes.
There was an acrid burn at the back of my throat and a churning in my stomach, which only worsened the longer I sat there, fighting my body.
In all my time in Grimmoria, I’d wished endlessly to be back home, but that ache for familiarity came on fiercely.
If I’d been back in the fortress, restless and on edge, I could have wandered to the servant halls, or even over to the garrison, to find someone who had a pinch, a sip, or a puff of something to settle my existence.
Hell, I could’ve raided whatever stash of half-empty wine and spirits or stale leaves I was bound to have tucked in the cupboards of my room.
But here, I didn’t have any of those options.
There were no friendly faces to—
Realization washed over me so suddenly, I scraped my shoulder on the rough exterior wall, trying to get upright and back into my room.
I did have an option, and I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten about it. Maksym had been so kind to torment me with the sight of it when he’d brought me to my room that first night, after all.
The vanity chair gave a petulant groan as I dropped into it, and the drawers I yanked open in a hurry weren’t much more pleased with me. One after the other, after the other.
I just couldn’t remember where I’d put it, and I was positive there hadn’t been this many things in the drawers the last time I’d rifled through them.
But finally, on the second-to-last drawer at the bottom, I found it.
My satchel of Frost—bless Theo and his departing gift.
I didn’t give it secondary consideration before I was fighting open the corded closure with my shaking fingers, taking a heaping pinch of the fine powder within, and depositing it underneath my tongue.
The heady sweetness of it had me fighting back a cough at first, but it dissipated quickly, like always, and my heart settled as a trace of my shakiness subsisted.
As I pushed up out of the chair, I definitely knocked a few pinches worth out of the pouch, but I’d clean that up after, likely with my tongue.
I wasn’t a prideful person with indulging.
Over by my bedside, I found a full pitcher of water, and I gulped down a mouthful straight from it, washing away the lingering trace of sweetness in my mouth.
The welcoming plushness of the duvet greeted my ass next, and I let out a bone-deep sigh. My limbs were a touch more lofty than I would have liked—I couldn’t remember the last time Frost had done that to me—but I wasn’t shaking anymore. Hell, maybe an hour or two of sleep was in my near future.
I flopped back on my bed, in my sandals and my dirt-dusted mourning dress, and splayed my limbs over the silky softness of the duvet, sweeping my arms across it like I did in fresh dustings of snow as a child.
My moment of peace didn’t last long, though.
Or, at least, I didn’t think it did.
Time had a way of passing strangely like that.
Bang, bang, bang, my door rattled.
“Enora?” came a muffled but warmly familiar masculine voice.
I sighed and propped myself up on my elbows, taking a glance around.
To my shock, my room was full of bright light pouring in through the windows. It had barely been dawn a minute ago, I was sure.
Bang, bang, bang, came the pounding again.
And again.
I finally pushed myself upright and trudged towards the door.
“I know you’re in there, Enora. Open the door.”
Another round of hinge-rattling knocks. The poor thing was going to end up on the floor at this rate.
“Oh, just fuck off with the knocking,” I called back. “I’m coming.” It took me a second longer than I would have liked to turn the lock. I cracked open the door, peering outside, and said, “What do you—”
My eyes settled on a mess of white hair, a single moss-green eye, and an eyepatch.
I stiffened.
There was no way in any of the hells I was making the same mistake as I had with Maksym, letting him strong-arm his way into my space. I slammed the door shut far harder than it deserved and flung the lock back in place.
“Oh, no. No. No. No.” My jaw was clenched so hard, my teeth ached. “You can fuck right off!”
To be safe, I trudged back across my room, picking up the vanity chair with every intent to wedge it under the handle and ensure there was no way he could interrupt my peace. I’d lock the windows next. Tie a scarf around the terrace door handles if I had to.
When I turned back, the chair clasped in my hands, Kieran was standing in the middle of my room.
No belts and pouches, no draping layers beneath a long jacket. No hood either. It was just him, wearing a dark shirt rolled up at the sleeves, plain pants to match. Like he’d just stepped out of his bedroom back at Caenleigh.
“What the fuck,” I breathed, blinking at him. “How did you…?”
He took a couple of cautious steps towards me, and the chair slipped from my hands with a thud, landing on its side.
A remorseful wince tugged at his mouth.
“Stepping, remember? And I know you don’t want to…” He sighed. “But we need to talk about…everything.”
That did the trick to shake me out of the stupor I’d found myself in.
This wasn’t some hazy frost- or dream-induced version of him I was seeing; the motherfucker had just used his magic to enter my room uninvited and was intent on acting like it wasn’t a problem.
With every step he kept taking, I backed away from him.
“No, we don’t.” My bed had to be coming up behind me soon, so I reached a hand back, trying to feel for it. “I have made it abundantly clear that I have no interest in talking to you.”
He stopped and sighed, raking a hand through his hair before he continued towards me. “And I’ve made it abundantly clear that we need to, Nor.”
“Don’t even start with that,” I seethed. “Jasper. I. Don’t. Want. To—agh.” I’d misjudged where my bed was.
Instead of backing straight into it, my foot caught on the bottom of the poster, and I went sailing straight back onto my ass with an inelegant string of curses.
Funny how the mage didn’t seem interested in using his magic if it meant, oh, I don’t know, making sure I didn’t go arse over fucking teakettle.
He approached slowly as I splayed my legs out in front of me and sighed.
I was too fucking tired to deal with him, with any of this.
Without a word or warning, he grabbed my wrist and hauled me upright.
My head swam at the sudden movement, and all my attention narrowed to his hand, holding my arm between us.
I realized then why he seemed to prefer wearing gloves.
Just like the blue-black veining that spider-webbed out from behind his eyepatch, his right hand and part of his forearm were afflicted as well.
Whether it was an injury or some kind of illness, I hadn’t the faintest idea, but it was captivating in the strangest way.
“Have you even slept?” he asked, the sudden shift in his tone disarming.
My attention flickered up long enough to see he was clearly just then taking in my stale and disheveled state before I dropped my gaze back down and shook my head.
“No,” I rasped. I had to lick my lips to get a bit of moisture back into them. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so…?” His free hand found my chin, and I kept my eyes down-turned as he nudged my face up. “Look at me for a second.”
“You reek of liquor.” I was deflecting, but it was the truth. Now that we were so close, I could smell the faint undertone of some warm, potent spirits rolling off him. Clearly, he’d had a rough night too.
“Enora.” His tone was full of exasperation. “Look. At. Me.”
Why he wanted to see my eyes was clear as day.
I’d been there a dozen or more times with Theo and the others, after all, when they suddenly disapproved of my recreational indulgences becoming a little less recreational. As if any of them could judge me for how I soothed my ailments with how thoroughly they all liked to indulge theirs.