38. Wretched Vulnerabilities
Wretched Vulnerabilities
The screams tore from my throat before I was fully conscious. My body convulsed, fighting against invisible restraints as the nightmare's tendrils still clutched at my mind. I thrashed wildly, my skin slick with cold sweat despite the inferno raging inside me.
"Thais." A cool hand pressed against my forehead.
I lashed out blindly, my fist connecting with something solid. There was a soft grunt, but the hand remained steady on my skin.
"Starling, you're safe."
The voice penetrated the fog. Reality slowly reassembled itself around me.
The silk sheets beneath my body, damp with my sweat.
The dim glow of crystals embedded in the dark walls, casting long shadows across the ceiling.
The familiar scent of cedar and oranges and old books.
This was his room, I realized with a jolt.
I forced my eyes open, blinking away the remnants of terror.
He sat on the edge of the bed, watching me.
His expression was neutral, but I could see the tension in the line of his jaw, the slight furrow between his brows.
A shadow of stubble darkened his immaculate face, and faint circles beneath his eyes suggested he hadn't slept.
"There you are," he said quietly .
My breathing was still too fast, too shallow. Each inhalation felt like someone had poured molten metal down my throat and into my chest. I struggled to sit up, and his hand moved to my shoulder, steadying me.
"You're always just… staring at me when I wake up," I managed, my voice a ragged whisper. "It's unnerving."
The corner of his mouth twitched upward. "Well, you keep getting yourself mortally injured. It's becoming something of a habit."
"Not intentionally," I muttered, pressing a hand to my chest. The pain there was deep, bone-deep.
Xül watched me, raising an eyebrow "How do you feel?"
"Like I swallowed fire." I winced, shifting against the pillows. "My lungs are?—"
"Damaged," he finished for me. "You channeled more power than your body could safely contain."
I remembered now—the desperate pull for more as the elementals closed in, the searing heat that had built inside me until I thought I would explode from it. The stars answering my call, pouring too much light into me. And then… nothing.
"You almost died," Xül said matter-of-factly. "Again."
"How long was I unconscious?" I asked.
"Three days." He reached for a glass of water on the bedside table, offering it to me. "You've been drifting in and out. This is the first time you've been truly lucid."
Three days. The knowledge settled heavily in my stomach as I took the glass with trembling fingers. The water, cool and sweetened with mint, soothed my raw throat. I hadn't realized how thirsty I was until the first drop touched my lips.
"Careful," Xül warned. "Small sips."
I obeyed, though it took all my willpower not to drain the entire glass.
"What were you dreaming about?" he asked finally, his voice uncharacteristically gentle.
I took a deep breath, wincing at the pain it caused. "Sulien," I whispered.
Xül's expression didn't change, but I sensed a shift in his attention—a sharpening of focus. He didn't push, didn't rush me. He simply waited.
"My father," I clarified.
"When the priests came to Saltcrest." My fingers twisted in the sheets until my knuckles turned white. "They took me and Thatcher both. But Sulien—" My voice broke on his name. "Sulien had hidden us all those years."
Xül stilled. I’d never told him about what had happened that night.
"They executed him," I said, the words painful to speak aloud. "In front of everyone. In front of us. The punishment for harboring the blessed."
The memory was so vivid I could almost smell the smoke from the bonfire, hear the shocked gasps of the villagers. I closed my eyes against it, but that only made the images more intense.
"He didn't fight," I said, my voice cracking. "He just knelt there, dignified until the end. And his last words—" My voice failed me, and I had to take another painful breath before continuing. "Love. For the children who got him killed."
A single tear escaped, trailing down my cheek. I wiped it away roughly.
I looked up at Xül, expecting to see indifference or perhaps that cold, analytical interest he often displayed. Instead, I found raw anger, a darkness that seemed to pull the shadows closer around him.
"The priests," he said, his voice dangerously soft, "have always hidden their cruelty behind righteousness."
"I wanted to die," I admitted. "After Sulien was gone, I just… gave up. When I woke up in that cell, I’d wished they'd killed me too. I think I would have faded away if it weren't for Thatcher—for knowing he needed me. "
Xül was silent for a long moment, his eyes distant, as if seeing beyond the walls of the chamber.
"The priests serve gods who’ve forgotten what justice truly means," he said, each word precise and heavy.
I froze, the air leaving my lungs in a rush. Had I heard him correctly? The Prince of Death—condemning not just the priests but the gods themselves?
My eyes widened as I stared at him, searching his face for any sign that I'd misunderstood. But his expression remained grave, resolute.
"You—" I started, then stopped, afraid to voice the implication of his words. The room suddenly felt too small, too close. "Do you really believe that?"
"Of course I do.” He leaned closer. “But a word of warning—be careful who you share your grief with, starling," he said, his voice returning to its measured tone. "Not everyone who wears a crown deserves your trust."
"Right," I said softly.
He nodded once, the shadows around him gradually receding. His eyes focused on me again, studying my face. I met his gaze, letting him see all the broken pieces I usually kept hidden.
"Why didn't you call Miria this time?" I asked after a moment, changing the subject. "To heal me?"
"This was an unprecedented attack," he said carefully. "Kavik entering my domain uninvited, targeting my chosen contestant..." He paused. "It raises questions."
Then I remembered. Kavik's strange behavior, the unnatural emptiness in his eyes. The way he'd spoken like a puppet with someone else pulling the strings.
"He seemed… wrong," I said slowly.
"He was," Xül agreed. "Aelix and I have been trying to make sense of it since it happened. Kavik is many things—impulsive, hot-headed, occasionally insufferable—but this isn't in his nature. Not his character. "
"He killed his own contestant," I pointed out.
"That's different." Xül’s brow furrowed.
"Legends eliminate their own contestants all the time.
If a blessed proves unworthy or becomes a liability, they're removed.
" His tone was a reminder of the brutal reality of the Trials.
"But coming to a domain in which he has no authority and targeting another Legend's contestant? " He shook his head. "Unheard of."
"The timing was interesting."
His lips curved. "That he chose to attack while I was away? Almost as if someone knew I would be absent."
"Do you think they did?" I asked, watching his face carefully.
He considered this, his mismatched eyes narrowing slightly. "It's possible. Any number of beings could have known I would be gone."
"Kavik was trying to kill me. Not Marx, not Aelix. Me." I met his gaze directly. “Why?”
Xül paused, and in that hesitation, I read the truth—he didn't know. For all his power, all his knowledge, he was as much in the dark as I was. He shifted closer to me, the mattress dipping slightly under his weight.
"Kavik has been committed to the domain of Pyros nearly his entire life," he said slowly. "It makes no sense for him to target you. I don't know what Pyralia would gain by your death."
"He kept repeating the same phrases over and over," I recalled, remembering flashes of the attack. "Like he was stuck in a loop."
"Yes. ‘The girl is a threat. She must be eliminated.' Over and over, like he was?—“
"Brainwashed," I finished.
Our eyes met. Whatever happened with Kavik, it wasn't natural. Someone or something influenced him, used him as a weapon aimed directly at me.
"When I arrived," Xül said, his voice dropping lower, "he didn't even acknowledge me at first. Just kept trying to kill you, even with me standing right there." A shadow crossed his face. "Kavik may be reckless, but he's not suicidal. He knows better than to challenge me in my own domain."
"So someone powerful enough to make him forget that," I concluded.
"Yes."
A thought occurred to me, one I had been afraid to voice. "Could he have been sent by Olinthar?"
Xül's brow furrowed as he considered this. "If Olinthar wanted you eliminated, he would have sent Lightbringers," he said after a moment. "They're his personal guardians, completely loyal and far more efficient."
"Unless he didn't want it traced back to him," I countered.
Xül's eyes narrowed. "I can't be certain," he admitted.
"But Pyralia typically remains neutral when it comes to divine agendas.
She prefers to stay out of political machinations.
" He shook his head slightly. "I see no reason why Olinthar could convince her to be complicit in this.
Not without him revealing why he might want you dead. Which we both know is unlikely."
"What happened to him?" I asked. "To Kavik, I mean."
A shadow flickered across Xül's face. "He's dead."
"You killed him?" I whispered.
"When I arrived and saw him with his hands around your throat..." He paused, a muscle twitching in his jaw. "The dead tore him apart."
"I don't remember much," I admitted. "Just the cold, and the souls appearing, and then... darkness."
"Kavik was a Legend," Xül said, his voice low and tense. “His absence isn't something that will go unnoticed. When Pyralia discovers one of her Legends is gone..." He trailed off, his expression grim.
"You think there will be consequences," I surmised.