Chapter 30 #2
‘Just … just as a harmless joke.’ Or so Lark had said. I could still hear him saying it, that broad sunshine grin on his face, his large hand waving away my panicked stutters. ‘Just …’
‘Yes, of course,’ Durlain said, voice spidery soft. ‘Was it harmless?’
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘It did make it worse for a while.’
‘And was it funny?’
I swallowed. ‘Not … not particularly, no.’
‘No,’ he repeated, slowly, tasting the word as though it was a bite of rancid butter. ‘What a prize, our Leif.’
Our.
Only then did I realise that I had no idea – not the faintest idea, really – how well he’d known the man who’d slept in my bed for the past four years.
‘Cimmura’s sketchbook said he was a friend of your brother,’ I muttered, because I wasn’t sure where else to start.
Durlain’s face was alarmingly expressionless. ‘He was, yes.’
‘The same brother who tortured you to death?’
‘The very same.’
‘Right,’ I said blankly. ‘That’s not great.’
There was a minuscule twitch of his lips. It said, You have such a way with words, Thraga. ‘It’s not exactly wonderful, no.’
There was a world of meaning beneath those words, unspoken answers to a question I hadn’t asked.
Nalzen, who’d claimed a day without torture was a day wasted.
Nalzen, who ran the guard corps of the Averre capital with such ruthlessness they called him the prince of the noose.
That was the man Lark had called a friend; that was the man, no doubt, with whom Lark shared his sense of good fun.
A harmless joke.
The door was still glaring daggers into my back.
‘It is ridiculous, though,’ I said, voice feeble. ‘Someone who wasn’t Nalzen’s friend might also have thought it was funny to—'
Durlain made a small, exasperated sound. ‘At least pretend to show yourself some grace, would you?’
‘But—’
‘You’ve spent a lifetime doing nothing but surviving, you impossible creature.
’ Something uncannily close to true agitation tightened his voice, but his restraint didn’t snap.
‘Do you realise what that made of me? A wretched bastard without morals who can’t bear to look at himself in a mirror.
Whereas you still have your morals and the good sense to want out of this game – so how are you declaring yourself the insane one between the two of us, exactly? ’
‘Um,’ I said.
The look in his eye suggested he would set himself on fire before he’d take back a single word of that argument.
‘But you’re at least rational,’ I sputtered.
‘Me?’ Something joyless tugged at his lips, and my breath hitched. ‘Have mercy, thorn of mine. I wish I was. I’d have slept better in these past few weeks.’
‘But—’
‘Thraga, there’s nothing wrong with you.’ Every word landed like a blow to the ribs. ‘You count knives. I take baths. My father murders people by the dozens. Who is the real problem in this story, you’d say?’
‘But I don’t want to be like this!’ I burst out.
Too loud. If Belloc had happened to be stalking around our hut, he’d have heard me loud and clear, and that thought alone made me want to jump up and try that hell-cursed key again and again and again.
‘I’m so fucking sick of not trusting myself – of not being able to sleep – of being frightened – and—’
‘And that’s an entirely different point.’ Durlain averted his gaze, pale fingers rubbing his temple with tight, testy motions – the firelight glowing gold on his skin, adding deep bronze shimmers to the inky sheen of his hair. ‘What happens when you don’t check the lock?’
‘I’m scared,’ I said hollowly.
‘Ah, yes.’ He met my gaze again, lowering his hand. ‘On the other hand, if you do check the lock, you’re also scared.’
I blinked.
I wasn’t sure where he was going, but I had the strong suspicion I wasn’t going to like it.
‘As a matter of fact,’ he slowly continued, tilting his head not unlike a carrion bird smelling rot, ‘we know checking leads to more checking. It would be interesting to see what happens when you … don’t.’
My breath was quickening.
I realised it only in the silence that fell between us – that my hands had clenched around my blankets, my shoulders tightened halfway up my ears.
My breath was coming in little gasps. That horrible, horrible tension was drawing through me again, that urge that whispered danger, danger, danger, and—
‘Yes,’ Durlain said quietly, studying me like a pinned beetle. ‘Interesting. I haven’t even started making demands of you yet. It’s the uncertainty, isn’t it – the possibility of not being able to know?’
This had been a mistake.
What had I thought – that he’d take one look at me and understand? That he’d fix me with a few witty remarks and a casual wave of his hand?
‘Leave it be,’ I choked. ‘It’s fine. It’s all fine. I’ll just check one last time and then I’ll go to sleep, and—’
‘Oh, no.’ He held my gaze, contemplating me. ‘I don’t think you’ll be checking again, to tell you the truth.’
Fuck.
Was he going to try and stop me?
‘But I have to.’ My voice cracked. Hell take me, how was I going to make him understand – the way the door was looming like an eldritch monster behind me, swallowing every sliver of light from my mind?
‘It might be open. Anyone could walk in without warning while we’re sleeping.
You don’t want it to be open either, do you? ’
‘I don’t think it makes that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, frankly,’ he said, a note of sour amusement in his voice.
‘We’re hiding from fire mages in a wooden hut.
That said, the question is a wholly academic one, because it is locked— No, don’t turn.
If you don’t look, it’s still very much closed. ’
Danger. Danger. Danger.
‘You can’t stop me,’ I squeaked.
‘Perhaps not,’ he admitted, sounding unconcerned to the point of indifference. ‘Probably not, now that you mention it.’
‘So I am going to take a look.’ The words felt empty on my lips. ‘And then … then …’
Then I’ll look again.
Then I’ll look again and again and again until I’m crying with exhaustion, and I still won’t be sure, and you’ll look at the sorry mess that I am and probably never hold my hand again.
I wanted to hide.
I wanted to scream.
‘I wasn’t planning to stop you, Thraga.’ His voice was calm, unmovable like one of those jagged rocks in the seething sea outside.
‘And I’m sure you realise that, because you could have stood up and made for that door a dozen times by now.
Yet all the same, you’re sitting here. Fascinating, isn’t it? ’
I almost, almost wanted to jump to my feet just to spite him.
But my limbs didn’t move. Didn’t want to move, I realised, despite the fear dragging at them with all its might – because the fear wasn’t me.
The fear wasn’t my body. I was so very sick of it, that stifling force pulling me under …
and the simple truth was, Durlain had saved me from drowning once before.
What if he was right?
What if he was right?
The door was growing teeth and tentacles behind my back. I was going to die, I was going to die, I was going to die, and yet—
Yet I was still breathing.
Breathing is the first step of fighting, Kjell had said.
‘Very good,’ Durlain said softly. ‘Keep talking. Is it worse now than after you check it?’
‘Just about as bad,’ I managed, every fibre of me cramped with the effort not to turn around. ‘It … it’s still closed, isn’t it?’
His brow came up. ‘Oh, I don’t think I should tell you.’
‘That—’
‘Don’t turn, Thraga.’ He’d spotted the twitch of movement before I became aware of it. ‘Eyes on me. Keep breathing.’
Eyes on him.
Yes. That I could do.
Eyes on that gorgeous, otherworldly face, all sharp lines and cold elegance – on the sardonic curve of his lips, the knife-edge of his jaw, the shadows pooling in the hollow of his cheeks.
Eyes on the tousled waves of his hair. Eyes on the dark shield of his eyepatch and the darker gleam of his purple-black iris …
My heart slowed.
My breath deepened.
The door was still there. Gaping behind me, sucking half of my mind into its hungry void.
But Durlain was here too, sitting an arm’s length away from me, watching me with that bottomless, riveted focus I felt in the marrow of my bones …
and I sank into the temptation so very easily, drowning in his gaze to where even the grasping hands of my fear couldn’t follow.
And the tension …
Was it ebbing away?
Was it working?
Mists take me, he was beautiful. Not handsome but beautiful, the way only dangerous things could be – not the kind of beauty that invited touch but rather the kind that radiated warnings.
And yet in this moment, all I wanted was to cling to it with nails and teeth – to let that danger shelter me.
To let myself be swallowed by a fight I knew how to win.
The fear still smouldered in my chest. Pulsing like glowing embers, ready to flare up as soon as I offered it even the slightest breath of air.
I wanted it gone.
I wanted—
I knew exactly what I wanted, and if I just reached out, if I just stretched my arm and fingers, I would have it.
‘Thraga,’ he murmured.
A shiver trailed like gentle fingers down my spine.
His gaze didn’t let go. A lifeline, a last piece of driftwood floating on the waves. I wasn’t going to open my mouth, and then I was doing it anyway – a motion that was all instinct and desperate need, born from five days slow seduction and the dizzy, drunken sensation of feeling almost safe.
‘Perhaps you should distract me some more,’ I said hoarsely.
His breath caught.
A small response. But an unmistakable one, too, and the fear lost another inch of ground in the battle for my mind.
‘You …’ His voice was rough. ‘You really do have a knack for terrible ideas.’
‘Alternatively,’ I whispered, ‘you simply don’t recognise a good idea when you see one.’
A twitch of his lips – brief and involuntary. He didn’t move.
‘Durlain …’