Chapter 25 #2
She would endure this—every jagged shard, every blistering wave—if it meant Sailen never had to.
That was the bargain she had made, even if she had never spoken it aloud.
The fire roared fiercer within her.
Ellaryn screamed, the sound ripping out of her raw and broken, her body convulsing as if trying to escape itself.
The pain was everywhere now—inside her bones, behind her eyes, in her teeth.
It clawed at her mind, shredding thought, shredding time. She couldn’t tell where one memory ended and the next began. She couldn’t tell if she was in the room or back in chains or dying for the hundredth time.
Her vision blurred completely.
She would endure it. She had to endure it.
Another surge hit, harder than all the rest, and something inside her fractured.
Her chest burned like it was caving in, like her heart was being crushed in a fist of fire. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
Black crept in at the edges of her sight, swallowing everything.
“No—” she choked, voice barely a sound. Her hand scrabbled weakly for Xander’s wrist, fingers slipping against his skin. “Stop.”
The word broke apart in her throat.
“Xander—please—stop,” she begged despite the voice inside her telling her to hold on.
His hand lifted from her chest, slow and careful, and the fire vanished with it—snuffed out so abruptly it left her hollowed in its wake. The absence was almost as violent as the pain had been, her body reeling as if it didn’t know how to exist without it.
Then it came.
Not pain—everything else.
The grief she’d buried, the fear she’d locked away, the rage she’d learned to swallow. Every memory she had caged and starved surged free all at once, uncontained and merciless. Her chest hitched, breath breaking apart as her strength finally gave way.
Ellaryn crumpled, folding in on herself as sobs tore out of her again and again.
She pressed her face into the mattress, fists clenched tight as if she could hold herself together by force alone, but there was no holding it back now.
The sound of her crying filled the room, ugly and honest and far too long restrained.
She had survived the fire.
But this—this was what it left behind.
“I bet you think I’m a monster,” she whispered, her voice ragged as she lifted her head from the mattress.
Her hands shook, trembling where they rested on the dark fabric.
She stopped herself from crying again, swallowing back another wave that clawed at her throat, and reached for the brown drink, the familiar burn of alcohol cutting a fleeting path through the ache.
It slid down her throat like fire, but even that spark was nothing compared to the blaze Xander had held against her chest—nothing compared to the heat that had ripped through her, scorching memories and leaving her raw, hollow, and gasping.
She couldn’t bear to look at him as he spoke.
“I only see one monster in those memories.” His voice was low and strained, his teeth clenched as his eyes bored into her, burning with that same impossible intensity.
“Why do you keep looking at me like that?” she snapped, lips trembling.
“Like what?” he asked, though his gaze flickered away, almost unwilling to meet hers fully.
“Like I haven’t done terrible things… like you feel sorry for me,” she breathed, each word sharp and jagged, before taking another swig. Her stomach twisted, hating that he could see her like this, that he might pity the Ruin she had become.
“I do feel sorry for you.” His eyes met hers this time, steady and unflinching, threaded with something warmer than pity, something that unsettled her more.
“How could you possibly feel sorry for me?” she shot back, disbelief sharp in her voice, brows drawn tight.
“You’ve seen the things I’ve done. The pain I’ve caused.
They call me Ruin, for fuck’s sake—because that’s what I am.
What I leave behind.” She sucked in a breath and chased it with another brutal swallow of liquor, as if it could drown the truth.
“I’ve seen what he has made you do,” Xander said quietly. “There’s a difference.”
She scoffed, shaking her head, but he didn’t stop.
“He took a terrified little girl and shaped her into something useful to him. A weapon. That doesn’t make you a villain.” His voice firmed. “Villains don’t endure agony for other people. They don’t hide children, don’t break themselves apart to spare someone else.”
Ellaryn’s throat tightened.
“You think that absolves me?” she whispered.
“No,” he said gently. “I think it explains you.” A pause hung between them before he spoke again. “And you are not your orders.”
The words landed heavier than any blade.
Ellaryn let the silence stretch for a moment, letting his words settle deep into the cracks left by years of fire and ash. Her heart still hammered, a frantic prisoner in her chest.
“Now I feel like an idiot,” Xander muttered, shaking his head as if trying to shrug the weight of her pain off his shoulders. A laugh almost slipped out, and Ellaryn’s brows furrowed, puzzled by the sound.
“I thought your real name was Ruin,” he added, teasing gently.
“You thought my parents named me Ruin?” she shot back, a small laugh breaking free. The sound startled her, raw and unfamiliar. She handed him the bottle, and he shook his head with a grin, taking a long swig.
“What is your name?” he asked, eyes locking on hers. She caught herself reflected in his gaze, and for the first time in years, there was a flicker of something lighter—a smile, fragile but real.
“Ellaryn,” she answered, snatching the bottle back with a small smirk.
“Ah…” he murmured, leaning back slightly, his lips curling. “That suits you much better.”
He watched her drink, a quiet warmth in his eyes that had nothing to do with pity and everything to do with seeing her.
Not Ruin, but her—
Ellaryn.