22. Harlow
HARLOW
S hock freezes me in place. Those two small words echo through my mind: Henry died .
I have so many questions, but my chest seizes with a shocking grief.
“How?” I rasp.
He pats the claw marks on his chest. “The blood loss from these almost killed me.” He closes his eyes for a moment. “It’s been almost ten years. It feels like both a lifetime ago and like it happened yesterday.”
“I’m sorry.” Though I actually mean it, I’m so shocked it sounds like a reflexive response.
“You’ve seen the way the fort is set up—it’s like the city.
Fallback plans and safe zones. The Drained had never done more than climb the walls a few at a time.
We’d never even had a breach beyond the wall before that day.
” He shudders. “The first five levels of the fort fell that day. Holly and I—” His voice is hoarse, and he takes another slow breath.
“You’ve seen how strength is the most prized currency here and you know how it is being a ruling family.
If you don’t protect your people, you have no value.
We had to be on the front lines. My parents stayed back, trying to keep our people calm and help as many as possible to safety and to hold a final line to help the wounded.
Holly and I and the last of our hunters—Bryce, Carter, and one hundred others—held the level six wall. ”
He shudders and rubs a hand over his face.
“I grew up venturing into the woods. I know how the Drained act. You can’t hunt for game beyond the walls without a deep understanding of how the Drained operate.
You learn what’s normal and how they sometimes work in groups.
But this was like nothing I have ever seen.
A horde of them. Thousands . You have to understand.
Every man and woman who stands on that wall has faced down terror many times.
We have plans and contingencies—things that are drilled into us from the time we are children so they run on reflexes when something goes wrong.
But the front wall was overwhelmed in minutes.
There was a blast and the wall broke and it was madness. ”
I am torn between wanting to hear the rest and the desire to run from this.
Kellan thinks our family was somehow responsible, and though I have no idea how that could possibly be true, I trust my brother.
My stomach turns over. I feel guilty by association.
As if I wouldn’t choose to be in any other family.
“We lost so many of our best fighters in the lowest level of the fort,” he continues.
“We were on our heels and barely able to hold off the onslaught enough to evacuate our people. So Holly, Bryce, Carter, me, and one hundred of the best men fell all the way back. We knew if we didn’t shore up the level six wall, we wouldn’t be able to stop them.
With every level, the Drained fed on the warriors who fell.
You know how it is if they get blood in general, but the more vital the blood, the stronger the Drained become.
They were faster and more terrifying. So we held the line and it brought all of us to the limits of our magic.
I was healing people between fighting. Holly was laying down holy fire to cover the parts of the wall where we were thin. But it wasn’t enough.”
I think of the sheer size of the fort, of the levels that lead up to the manor, of the number of people I saw in the streets on my way into town.
Henry runs his hands over the crisscross of scars.
“We were down to the last big surge of Drained, but all of us were flagging. Bryce took a bad hit from one of them, and I was distracted for a split second, and one of them got me. I went down and I knew right away it was bad. But I’d healed so many people, I had nothing left for myself.
It was too slow and I couldn’t breathe, because one of the claws had punctured my lungs.
I felt myself fading, and Holly lost it.
She basically turned herself into a human fireball and jumped into the crowd of them and took out all of the remaining Drained at once.
But it cost her. She channeled too much magic at once and she burned herself up from the inside out. There was nothing left of her but ash.”
Henry looks down at the clear blue water.
“The last thing I remember was watching over the crumbled edge of the wall as my sister burned away to dust and took the rest of the beasts with her.” He swallows thickly.
“Then I closed my eyes, and I don’t remember this part, but my mother got to me right after I died.
She brought me back. I was lucky, I suppose.
If a soul has strayed too far, she can’t draw them back. ”
I’m speechless. The ethos of the fort has always been about strength, so I had assumed Henry’s scars were a way to show off his courage, but this is so much worse.
“She called back as many of us as she could—Bryce, Carter, Stefan, and about fifteen other hunters who stood on that wall with us—but Holly was gone. That day broke my mother. She had always been devout, but she couldn’t live with Holly’s loss.
She prayed to Asher for days, and he answered her.
He gifted her a way to ensure she would never lose another child.
” His eyes meet mine, and I can’t look away from the agony in them.
“Divine Asher gave her the method and the will to answer her plea. Whatever end I have met once, I cannot meet again.”
It takes a full minute for me to understand what he’s saying.
“You can’t be killed the same way twice,” I whisper. There’s no way to claw back my composure because this is much worse than him simply being immune to my magic. I might not be able to kill him at all. I point to the pale scar on his neck. “She did that?”
Henry chews his lip. “Technically, my father did that part. She just brought me back. He does the violence. Naima does the healing, and my mother calls my soul back.”
He points to the scar on his left ribs. “Blade to the heart.” He brushes the hair on his left temple aside so I can see the bare line where his head is scarred. “Cracked skull.”
He leans an arm against the lip of the well, looking alarmingly casual for a man describing his many painful deaths. I want to ask what was the worst. I want to ask what happened after he died, but I won’t.
“And then there are all the invisible ones: crushed to death, broken neck, drowned, fever, and hypothermia.” He says them all so casually, but his aura flares violently. “And, as you noticed the night we met?—”
“Poison,” I finish .
He nods.
“That’s why I can kiss you.” I look up and blow out the breath that’s been trapped in my chest. “There’s nothing wrong with my magic.”
I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but my relief is so profound, I can’t help it.
Henry arches a brow. “You thought you were moving miles of vampire-infested forest from home, with a man who hates you, while your magic wasn’t working?”
“Yes.”
He whistles low. “You’re braver than I thought.”
I shrug a shoulder. “Or more reckless.”
He smirks. “Or just a complete idiot.”
I’m too shocked he’s making a joke right now not to laugh. “Did you think that’s what I would be? A pretty idiot?”
He smiles sheepishly.
“You must be pretty Divine-damned disappointed.”
He laughs, and it’s a real laugh. He looks relieved for the lightness, but my skin itches. I can’t get out of this room and away from the uncomfortable intimacy soon enough. He probably thinks I’ll feel indebted by the secrets he’s shared, but I just want to run.
There’s a knot in my throat threatening to choke me. “I’m sorry about your sister,” I rasp.
I’m surprised by how much I mean it. I know what it’s like to watch someone dear to you slip away.
I think of Aidia’s face in bed beside me the night before I left the city.
I can’t imagine what I would do if I lost her.
Just like I can’t imagine that he would let it go if he blames my family for what happened.
He lost the sister he loved—and he died .
Then, there’s the matter of all the different ways he’s been killed. I may have finally trapped myself in the one mess I can’t kiss my way out of—an indestructible husband.
If I marry him tomorrow, I won’t have any escape.
An involuntary shudder ripples through me.
This sham marriage is so much more than I bargained for. I need to send a message to Kellan. I need Gaven to help me find a way out of here. I need at least three more creative ways to kill a man.
“Well, I appreciate you telling me, and I won’t share that with anyone. I feel quite refreshed and I’d like to go back to my room now,” I say as I turn away from him and press up to stand.
Henry’s gasp startles me. I freeze, standing on the ledge.
I know what he’s seen, and I can’t believe my stupidity.
My desire to escape left me exposed. I entered into this nude game of daring with him without considering that he might see the thing I’ve managed to keep hidden from everyone for years through carefully selected dresses and clothing that covers it up.
I meet his gaze over my shoulder. His eyes are narrowed and his jaw clenched.
“A gentleman would avert his eyes.”
His gaze lingers on my scars. “You’re to be my wife.”
“So you have a right to my body?” I ask, venom creeping into the words.
I’m mortified by the fury and pity in his eyes.
“Of course not. I thought—” He swallows. “I’m sorry. You were so comfortable in the library that I assumed and I shouldn’t have. I can leave and you can pull the string over there when you’re done and I will come lead you back to your room.”
We stand there, staring at each other over the water. The candlelight reflects off the surface. It casts an eerie glow on his face and stretches his shadow tall and strange on the wall behind him.
“Who did that to you?” he asks.
“Did what?”
His jaw ticks and his hands fist at his sides. “Who scarred your back? Who burned you, Harlow?”