Chapter 14
Eiko Is A Good Person
By the time Eiko dragged herself from the library, it was past midnight.
Cairn hadn’t come to check on her, or to ensure she had done the work he had given her.
It wasn’t surprising. Hovering really didn’t seem like his style.
He seemed the type to toss someone into deep waters and blame their drowned corpse for not being able to swim.
And deep waters, they were in.
They had remained in the library for another hour, huddled in Eiko’s alcove at the back of the hall for privacy, whispering about the events of the past few days.
Rion hadn’t just bargained with her monster, Sonette, to ensure their safe passage from Blackreach.
Sonette had promised to give her the power to always know when someone she loved was in danger—a power she didn’t know how to access or use.
Kaito had also bargained for the power to help the people he loved.
His monster, Bourdon, had promised that he could stop those he loved from feeling pain or fear, but he understood his gift even less than Rion understood hers.
Ren had shared that the name of his monster was Lamenth but refused to tell any of them what he had bargained for.
As Eiko trudged up the stairs to the Eclipse section of the barracks, she turned over Ren’s stoic tone in her mind, wondering at the immovable firmness she sensed behind his words.
“Eiko.”
She should have known he would follow her.
“Not out here.” She counted the doors her fingers brushed lightly against until she reached her own, and pushed it open, standing back against it to wave Ren inside.
He slipped in immediately, the soft thud of his boots and the faint rasp of leather giving away every small movement as he stood in the middle of her room, shifting around like he was taking it all in. Eiko shut the door behind them and leaned against it.
He didn’t speak at first. She heard him inhale, slow and steady, heard him turn towards her.
She folded her arms. “Just say it.”
Ren exhaled sharply. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice low. “For Blackreach. For letting go of you in the Quiet. For leaving you in that place.”
Eiko let her head rest back against the door.
There was a part of her that wanted him on his hands and knees, begging forgiveness.
It was the part of her that intimately knew the shape of his face, the bunching of his muscles beneath her hands, the flex of him inside her.
Their relationship—or whatever it was—had always felt so gossamer-thin.
It was luxurious and fun, but every passing shadow by the window threatened to expose it for something else, something she didn’t like.
That part of her was very complicated … and then there was the other part of her, which wasn’t complicated at all. He was her friend, and she didn’t really want to see him begging on his knees; she just wanted him to be okay.
“Ren—”
“No,” he cut in, quietly fierce. “You need to hear this. I knew you and Ky were slipping. I knew something was wrong. And I didn’t hold on.
I couldn’t.” His boots scuffed once against the floor as he took a step towards her.
“I’ve been trying to apologise since the moment we arrived here, but—” He let out a breathy, humourless laugh.
“Things have been a little fucking busy.”
“Actually, today was very chill. No lives or limbs were lost.”
He made a pained sound, and his steps came closer, slow and deliberate. She felt the air shift with him, felt the low hum of his presence settle around her.
“You scared the hell out of me today,” he whispered. “Several times.”
Eiko’s hand drifted sideways until her fingers brushed the sleeve of his uniform. He froze, his breath hitching like he couldn’t believe she was touching him.
Eiko— Hymn called out hesitantly, a warning in his voice.
I need a moment, she told him. This is private.
She could feel his worry and displeasure, but he faded into silence, like when he had gone to sleep the day before.
“I’m fine,” she told Ren, their fingers meeting and tangling.
“You were bleeding from the fucking eyes.”
“And every month I bleed from my—”
“Eiko,” he groaned. “I’m serious. That wasn’t normal. We all bargained for things in the Quiet, but none of us are pushing so hard to test the limits of our power that we’re bleeding from the fucking eyes.”
“Kaito gave me this speech an hour ago,” she reminded him. “You were there.”
He sighed in resignation. “Right. Who am I talking to?” There was a note of bitterness in his tone that surprised her. “You’re going to do whatever you want to do.”
“Hey.” She tugged on his fingers. “It’s not that serious, okay? I’m just … experimenting. Now I know not to push so hard again.”
“You make it sound so innocent. Experimenting with the power of the Quiet. With the power of a monster Alessandra called a ‘city-swallower.’”
Eiko flinched, dropping his hand. She walked to the door and fumbled for the handle. She flung it open, her temper flaring to the surface. “I’m not going to keep repeating myself, Ren. Not when you won’t even admit what you bargained for.”
He stalked to the door, pausing in the opening. She could tell he had angled his head down to hers, because she could suddenly feel his breath across her lips.
“I bargained to take on the death or injury of other people,” he hissed. “I ran out because Lamenth would only agree to it if I took him out of the Quiet, and I wanted to be a spare life if any of you didn’t make it.”
He strode off without waiting for a reply.
Shit.
She was frozen for a moment, her mind reeling.
Shit shit shit. She swallowed, tears gathering in her eyes.
Hopefully they were the salty kind and not the bloody kind.
She blinked, and they fell, hot and thin, down her cheeks.
Not blood. She quickly swiped at them, her chest aching, and then stepped out of her room.
“Ren, wait!” she whisper-yelled, but he didn’t answer. She hurried to the stairs and paused, her foot brushing the edge of the first step.
A hand closed around her wrist from a few steps below.
She knew the touch instantly. The warm, calloused palm. The steady strength behind it. The way his breath faltered as he stepped back up, pausing when his face grew level with hers.
“Careful,” Ren murmured, voice low and jagged.
“I wasn’t going to fall,” she said, but her voice wavered.
“You never do,” he scoffed at her lie, his hand slipping around the curve of her hip, guiding her until her spine brushed the cool stone wall. She felt the faint tremble in his hand, the kind that only came from adrenaline or hurt.
She opened her mouth to speak, but Ren stepped up to her level, now looming over her, pressing close enough that the heat of him bled through her uniform.
“Don’t … do that,” he whispered.
“Do what?” Her palm found his chest, the rise and fall of his breath frantic beneath her touch.
“Run after me when you can’t see where you’re going,” he said hoarsely. “When you’re crying.”
She stiffened. “I wasn’t—”
“Don’t lie.”
“I never do,” she lied.
His free hand brushed her waist, light as a feather. Her breath hitched. The darkness around her sharpened and thickened, becoming something electric.
“Ren,” she whispered, a warning and a plea tangled together.
She had been running on fumes and denial for days on end, but now, wrapped in familiar darkness, with the barracks deep in sleep, she felt it all. Painful and stark, the reality of what they had been through began to make her heart race and her breath catch in panic.
She had almost lost him. He had almost lost her. Both of them had thrown everything into the air on a dangerous gamble, because they were stubborn fools who would do anything to protect the ones they loved.
Because they were the same, her and him.
He leaned in, his forehead brushing hers, his breath ghosting her lips.
“Tell me to stop,” he murmured, his voice a rasp. “Tell me you want to be a princess. Tell me you’ve outgrown me.”
She didn’t speak.
He exhaled sharply, and his hand slid to her jaw, guiding her face up gently, reverent and desperate.
His lips slammed into hers with all the forcefulness his gentle touch lacked, greedily swallowing her thin moan.
She forgot they were in the stairwell, that she desperately needed sleep, that Chasin was not going to go easy on her tomorrow, that all the information she had pored over for hours was already slipping from her mind.
If she forgot it all, she could convince herself they were huddled in the food store at the back of his parents’ cottage.
The smooth stones pressing into her back became weathered wood, the unnatural cold became a breeze escaping through the hatch they had accidentally left open in their haste.
The dangerous stillness in the air turned into nerves over his mother returning from the schoolhouse early, or his father returning from the mines before he was due, or worse, her brother finishing his shift early to seek out his best friend, who had hands on his sister.
Those hands … they were the only thing that remained the same.
They were just as hasty as they worked her trousers open, one gliding to her neck as the other traced a hot path into her underwear, fingertips dipping into her slickness. He groaned softly against her mouth, trying to keep quiet.
She grabbed his wrist and pulled, communicating her need for him to hurry, but it was no longer because she was desperate for him.
The hand around her throat was confusing all the mental work she had done to convince herself they were back home and everything was as it was a few weeks ago.
Even as he dug two fingers into her, making her arch and gasp, the hand around her neck no longer felt like his.
The stillness no longer felt like anticipation.
The chill no longer reminded her of that creaking hatch.
His thumb brushed that sensitive bundle of nerves, driving her higher, but her fear ratcheted up with it.
She could smell death.