Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Survival
Mal stalked closer, too blinded by rage at first to realize that he wasn’t actually gripping his dagger by the hilt. In his whiskey-induced stupor, he had the blade by … the blade, sharp edges cutting into his palms where he clutched it with both hands.
Maybe he liked that, actually, he decided as he stalked toward Griff. He could strike Griff or Alys with the hilt while also effectively cutting himself, letting him feel something other than the agony of yet another betrayal.
No one ever chose him. No one put him first. There was always betrayal.
He expected nothing from Griff but the letdown.
So why didn’t any of that make it hurt any less?
Somewhere out of sight, a raven cawed some low commentary, and Mal snarled.
The birds would have their chance to gloat over his downfall soon enough.
They would probably pick at his corpse when he collapsed here after the pain of Griff and Alys having so little regard for his feelings that they would make out beside his unconscious body just ended him.
Sure, Alys had just kissed Griff on the cheek, but that was awfully close to his lips, and there was no telling where things would have led if Mal hadn’t interrupted.
“You,” Mal seethed, rounding on Alys first when he reached them. “You’re never fucking satisfied, are you? It wasn’t enough to have him back as a friend? You wanted to, what, marry him and take his side and forget all about me?”
She recoiled as if stung, eyes welling, and strode off toward the mule without a word.
Next, Mal took a staggering step toward Griff, raising the dagger a little higher; Griff winced, though apparently not out of fear of being struck, as he murmured, “Mal, your hands …”
“And you,” he rasped, spitting somewhere near Griff’s feet, his face dark with anger as he stared into the other man’s.
“Talk about a pathetic repayment for all those years of friendship—did you come out here just so you could fuck her and fuck me over at the same time? Two-for-one special where you steal my only friend? Is that what this is to you, some kind of game? Do you have any idea what it’s cost to keep—to keep from hurting you all the time? ”
That was too close.
Still, even though Griff was the one killing him right now, he couldn’t bear to turn the knife on him.
Mal dropped the dagger from his shaking hands, grabbing a bloody fistful of Griff’s shirt to taunt the larger man into wrestling him to the ground, bad leg and all. This dance, at least, was familiar.
But the words Griff shouted in his face down in the damp grass were not.
“What friendship?” Griff demanded hoarsely.
“We’re not—you can’t possibly—you don’t know the first thing about me!
” He broke off for a breath, and twisted away as Mal tried to shove his face into the dirt to prevent being shouted at any more.
“You certainly don’t know my heart, or you’d know exactly who I wanted to be kissing just now, and you’d know that it’s always been you, you craven piece of shit!
I love you. I’ve been in love with you since before I left—it’s why I left that day, after that fight—and I’ve never been able to stop, completely to my own detriment. ”
Mal heard the words as if from a distance over the rush of blood in his ears, and suddenly, he stopped fighting Griff altogether and collapsed in the grass.
“I … I didn’t mean …” Griff gasped.
Mal had to be dreaming. All of this had to be the whiskey talking.
It would make more sense than any of the alternatives.
“Didn’t mean any of it?” Mal tried to finish for him, the words slow and dazed.
Of course he didn’t mean it. Griff was always spouting nonsense, which was surely a by-product of having lived with the elves, who were so out of touch with reality.
If he meant it, Mal would have to rearrange his entire worldview, which seemed like an awful lot of work right now when he was on a damn deadline.
“Didn’t mean to say it. Because what’s the point?” Griff answered just as slowly, clearing his throat in the quiet. “I know it would never work anyway. You’re a drunkard and a thief and a con man with the meanest mouth. And you hate me.”
Mal said nothing, his head spinning sickeningly from the whiskey. Stewing in silence, he curled his bloody fists until a bit of red ooze leaked out the sides, but he didn’t raise either hand as if to strike again.
He did hate Griff. So much. He meant that. And he also wanted him to keep talking.
Eventually, seeming to have had enough of the tense silence broken only by the odd pop and crack of the flames, Griff murmured hesitantly, voice a little rough from shouting, “I should take a look at your hands. Get them wrapped. We have plenty of bandages.”
“I can do it myself,” Mal said almost automatically, without looking up from toying with the ends of his black scarf.
Why had he really kept the ratty old thing all these years?
Why did he care so much about a kiss on the cheek that he had been willing to spill blood over it?
“I’m fine.” For one who had seen ghosts for so many years, the words now echoing in his ears haunted him worse than any dead girl with a torn throat.
“Griff,” he added suddenly, unable to swallow the words that came bubbling out.
“If you meant those things you said … tell me again tomorrow. Say them again in the daylight. Because right now, I just can’t believe a word. ”
The edges of his vision burning and blurring, he staggered quickly to his feet and hurried closer to the firelight, but he realized bitterly that he wasn’t quite fast enough to prevent Griff from seeing the rush of tears that streaked his face.
He made his way toward Alys, who had returned to crouch at the edge of the blaze she’d made. She watched him approach with a hand pressed to her mouth, her face drawn and wary.
He took a breath, and for a moment he was confident he would hold it all together, hold it in.
But the recipe of anger and hurt and helplessness rushing through him proved too much, and he darted his foot out to kick one of the soup mugs into oblivion.
It crashed somewhere nearby in the bracken, sounding like it might have shattered on a rock or dead branch.
It was at least enough of a release to put him in motion again, if nothing else.
He took a few brisk steps toward the bramble where he had hunted for herbs, then turned back to the fireside and Alys, sinking down next to her and putting an arm around her shoulders, the only comfort he had ever known.
She let him lean against her despite his earlier heated words, asking for nothing in return. Almost like she knew exactly how the sight of a gesture between friends had swiftly cut to something at the heart of him that he hadn’t touched in years.
Griff’s parents might be as long gone as Mal’s own, but at least Griff had the elves.
Alys had had Wynnie and Rhun, her own family, for longer than either of the boys did.
But all Mal had ever had—his one constant for as far back as he could recall, even after Griff left—was Alys, who was as good as a sister to him.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Alys began tentatively, trying to work her mouth around some sort of apology. “I just thought—”
“It’s fine,” Mal said firmly, cutting her off, but he leaned against her a little more in a show of wordless forgiveness.
“Me and Griff,” he muttered, shaking his head.
“What a joke. That judgmental fuck has probably slept with half of Linden—half of Stormveil, too, for all we know. He can’t commit to anything, probably not even himself.
And no, a guy he paid to sleep with doesn’t count.
I’ve heard enough about how they got together.
” He attempted to snort derisively, though it held none of his usual conviction as he stared into the flames.
He didn’t really know what Griff was capable of, it turned out, because he’d never even known how the other man felt. There was so much he didn’t know.
“Him and his straight jobs and his stupid boyfriends,” Mal went on, because at least this rant was familiar. “And he wants to be the hero like his daddy, for what? So he can die young and have his name in a bunch of songs while everyone who ever cared about him picks up the pieces? No thanks.”
“I heard he sucked off twelve visiting knights from Kattan in a single evening once,” Alys murmured unhelpfully, a little drunk or high, or both. “Or was it eight?”
Looking away from her, outside the circle of their fire, he didn’t even recognize this world anymore—one in which Griff loved him. Didn’t know how to tell if it was real.
But the part of him that had kept that scarf all these years wanted him to figure it out, and it was getting louder, more demanding.
Mal reached for the whiskey bottle Griff hadn’t wanted to use on his leg and took a few gulps. He needed just enough to put himself back on the ground and into the welcome relief of darkness, where he was alone. Where he could count on himself to do what needed to be done. To survive.