Chapter 56
J A N E
T he calm after such a destructive storm is one my body doesn’t know what to do with. Sometimes, I wake after a nap with a jolt and am convinced I still have to save Anya, while at other times, I stare at a brazier for far too long when passing by one in a hall.
Accepting that those memories did happen is one consideration, but fully embracing how close I was to a horrible life, or a tragic end, is not easy to manage. It’s similar to when I first made it to Coalfell and started to realize I might actually never see my father again, and accepting how easily I could have been stabbed instead of my mother.
I know it’s probably better for me to handle these emotions on my own, but the way Soren can spread through my heart and close off the chasms that threaten me… I let him. It’s what I wanted when we first met, and I’m going to let someone have complete control over my heart if he wants.
My unique healing with him might create a dependency of sorts, but we’re all dependent on something .
Who cares if my something is a behemoth of a killer?
I’m currently sitting in that very man’s bed chambers, the ceilings tall, the walls dark, and quite a few windows overlook a shoreline that merges into a forest, whereas the sitting room faces the rolling hills.
Nothing has felt this close to home since the Silver District.
“That’s the very shoreline I used to roam as a kid,” Soren comments, catching me staring out.
“Who lived here before you?” I ask, putting my hands on my knees.I’m sitting on the edge of his bed after having just woke up.
“No one. I had this manor built when I took over Serpent’s Crest in my twenties. It’s completely mine. I tend to like things that way.”
The corner of my mouth twitches into a roguish smile at his comment, before my imagination wanders to envisioning a Soren long before me. “Which came first, the name or you?”
“The name.” He stands next to me as I continue to look out the window, touching my hair as I lean my head against his bare stomach. “There’s a lot of snakes here,” he explains. “I watched how they attacked and used it as a tactic before I was properly trained. Thought it was only fitting to make the name of this place my emblem.” His fingers lace with my hair before smoothing his hand over the back of my head. “What makes you sad, love?”
“I miss home ,” I say, thinking of where I grew up.“I love it here, but I keep thinking of the Silver District... I’m just nostalgic, I guess.”
“We can visit the Silver District, soon.”
“I’ll probably be wanted, after killing Matthias.”
He chuckles, and I close my eyes as I lean against the thick muscles of his abdomen. “Corvus is said to take over. We could even have a home there, too.”
My eyes flash open. “For the Zenith stuff?” That would be perfect. He could tend to the things he’s obligated toward, and I get to put my heart back together after shattering all those years ago.
“I think I’m done with those cunts. I’ll keep the mask though.” Soren steps away, and I want him to immediately come back.“We can get one just to have one.”
“Corvus will be fine with that?” I ask.
“If he wants to keep using my ports and maintain an alliance, he will be,” Soren says, moving to a dresser where he grabs a thicker tunic to slide on, his back and shoulders flexing with the movement. “Speaking of home, there’s someone here for you that you should see.”
“ Who ?”
“Bones immediately reclaimed Kathleen,” he says with a partial grin, tucking the tunic into his pants before fastening them. “It would be good for you to see her.”
I lower my gaze to my hands, to the mark on my arm where Soren’s mask still sits underneath my skin. I have so much to share with her. “I’d love that.”
“I’ll take you to her.”
Soren’s manor is nothing like a castle, and I’m completely happy with it. It’s a large estate; formal with long halls, sitting areas, lots of hearths, and even a courtyard with an ancient oak tree casting the widest shadows. His mother lives in a beautiful cottage right on the property, with a pond, something I visited once when acquiring more of that salve.
Soren takes me to a room at the end of a hall, every piece of wood stained dark. When I enter, a pretty blonde presents herself as she stands from a chair. Kathleen wears a black cotton dress that’s cinched with a corset, reaching under her breasts without binding them. It’s too uncomfortable for her, otherwise.
“You two will have privacy for as long as you need,” Soren says, connecting his gaze with mine before the doors shut.
While I’m ready to pounce on Kathleen in a long embrace, I hesitate when apology stains her green eyes. Bright lighting from the many windows means no expression left hidden, the silence deafening.
I can’t tell if she’s happy to see me or not.
“You’re alive,” I say, taking a step near, testing the waters.
“Jane, I have to tell you something. Or else I’ll feel like a right asshole if I don’t.”
Dipping my head low, I nod a few times. “Okay. Yeah, go ahead, Kathleen.”
Her jaw is slack as she cants her head. “ Jane . You know you’re actually my friend, right?”
Oh, I don’t like this direction. “That’s the impression I was under.”
Her lips part before she looks around the room, returning to the chair she was in before I entered, leaning her elbows on her knees, her hands moving as she speaks. “I couldn’t say a word.” Familiar eyes flit to mine. “I swore him an oath.”
An oath? She swore who an oath ? “What is it, Kathleen?”
“I knew who Ern was this whole time,” she confesses, unable to look at me.
The words mean nothing for a while, like my brain doesn’t know what to do with that information. But the longer she sits in silence, her hands clasped like she’s trying to squish away the guilt, I realize what she’s saying.
My hands become fidgety, like I need to do something with them to alleviate the way my head spins. For a moment, I release my surroundings and get lost in my own mind as I deconstruct that, and honestly… there’s a part of me that just doesn’t care. Or maybe I do, but my desire to worry is completely gone. I’ve survived too much, reclaimed too much, to be angry at something like this.
Facing Kathleen, I steel my nerves and ask, “Can you just explain it all from the start?”
“You’re not angry?”
“I don’t know… maybe just explain it to me first,” I press, sitting down, touching my arm where the mask is, comforted that Soren is always with me.
He’s probably reading every wave of what I feel.
Kathleen’s gaze drops back to the floor, silent tears running down her cheek; that breaks my heart. “It’s been eating away at me, Jane. Ever since I heard your dad came back.”
“Well… I don’t know. I trust my dad, I think. I trust Soren , and he can read your heart—” I tut; I bet he knows, that’s why I’m in here “ —so, I’ll trust you, okay?”
She nearly smiles at me, the expression shaky, like that takes her off guard. “Did they hit you on the head too hard?”
A laugh rolls out of me. “I think a lot of wounds finally closed.”
That really does seem to ease her guilt, and she straightens her back before sighing deeply. “You have no idea how good it is to say this out loud. To even—well, let me go back to where it started. My mother,” her voice shakes with emotion as she moves her thumb along her forefinger, over and over. “My sweet mother. Sorry, I don’t mean to cry. I was thinking about her before you came in here. When mom died, I was only twelve summers, and the only work I knew was Rosmertta’s , and I knew I didn’t want that for myself. So I left, but I didn’t get far before I was caught by men who used to keep an eye on her.”
Kathleen connects her gaze with mine. I know her enough to know that I should remain where I’m at, rather than go to her; she wants the space. “I was born in Skull’s Row, Jane. In the very house where we were kept for a while. Rosmertta gave us free shelter in exchange for my mother’s services, and that just solidified as I got older and was willing to do the dishes, then the laundry, then clean. After Mom died, men who were willing to sell literally anything to make a coin caught me.” Her voice thins with rage. “And so they took me to an auction. I developed early, as they said. I had a lot of people betting on me, then suddenly, my auction went silent as I was taken off stage and brought to the man that purchased me.” She draws in a slow, steady breath. “It was your father.”
My jaw drops with a disgust I wasn’t prepared to feel. Kathleen raises her brows and shakes her head. “He immediately explained that he’s not buying me for that, but rather for something else. He wanted me to go to Coalfell and live there to be your friend. Said a witch told him I’d be good for you.”
Staring at my hands, I eye the tattoo on either wrist. To the goddess that may or may not have helped me, to thinking of Cypress serving her god. I simply never imagined Kathleen being involved in all of these secrets.
She sighs. “He then told me my gran lived there, which, turns out, she did. I honestly never knew, and apparently the entire time she had begged my father to learn about my whereabouts… your father told me that if I were to fail in befriending you, he’d send me back to Skull’s Row, because he couldn’t risk you knowing about him.”
My natural smile fades, my gaze lowering.
“I’m so sorry that I knew, Jane. If I said anything, he’d take me away. And once we got to know each other, I realized how much you needed me. And how I needed you. Same with my gran.”
Shaking my head, I say, “No… it’s—I’m okay. It’s so strange to think the Scorpion orchestrated my life, along with Cypress. And now I just feel...” I look at the tea table in a home that belongs to Soren, the details so comfortingly mundane. “Different.”
“Well, I always thought you just needed a good fucking, but honestly Jane, I think you do need the violence to think straight.” I throw my gaze right back at her, and she smiles. “You’re so much more confident in yourself when hitting people. Maybe it’s just who you are.” She grins as if she’s been eager to say this for so long, “Makes sense given it’s in your blood.”
I return the warmth, and it feels so healing to believe that in all of this shit, Kathleen is still my family. “So, if this is all true, then you knew my dad was Ern this entire time?”
Kathleen nods, reluctance returning in her green gaze. “Alright, fine. I’m really sorry, though, Jane. I mean it. I wouldn’t have?—”
I interject with, “It’s okay, Kathleen. I—” pausing, as I’m about to admit words I didn’t realize meant so much to me, “I understand. We do what we have to.”
Her plump lips curl into a smile as she brings her clenched hands to her mouth. “He would also sometimes act as a merchant traveling through to check up on you. I was always so scared when he’d ride into town because I was afraid he wasn’t going to be happy, but eventually I realized he just literally wanted you to not be alone.
“There was one time, when we were about sixteen, and you drank too much. Oh, he was so mad. Someone else had been slipping you extra ale when Ern—your dad, really—wasn’t looking. He took me out back, and we got you on a carriage. I think he might have killed that man, actually.”
My gods, it’s real, isn’t it? Something in me knows this is the truth, even if it’s too much to grasp. “Yeah, Ern told me later that he was sorry it happened…” I whisper, speaking while emotionally removed. “He said he knew I hated being that drunk, which I still do.”
“It was really sweet,” Kathleen confesses, like she’s been hiding a secret for so long and can finally talk about it. “He had touched your hair. He looked so sad.”
There’s something about that image that ignites everything in my bones, and somehow saddens me, because where is that man now? Where’s that loving father? My nostrils flare, my lips trembling. The heavy rise and fall of my shoulders makes my injured lung hurt. Gods I’m ready to get all this healing over with so I can stop wanting to cry.
Kathleen pivots on her seat, but still doesn’t rise. “Jane, I know you said it’s okay, but I mean it—if I could have hinted at it, I would have. It killed me not to tell you. To play ignorant when speaking of your father. But then he told me, after a time, that it was a witch that bound him from seeing you, and that if the witch found out—and that she would if we spoke of it to you—then everything would fall apart. Including your own life. I played the role because I had to. But it was easy, because you are my friend. The only part that royally pissed me off was seeing how broken you were, and knowing why , but not being able to help you.”
I crinkle my nose, touching my eyes and trying to control myself until I stand and near Kathleen. No words are said for her to understand that I want to embrace her, and the next thing I know, I’m gripping her like she might disappear. “I’m sorry those people tried to sell you,” I say through a shaky voice, imagining killing them for her, especially now that I know I can . I’m not helpless anymore. I’m not stuck .
She laughs into my shoulder and pets my hair. “It’s okay. I think Bones plans to kill them and make me something out of their bones. He was royally pissed when I told him.”
I pull back and touch her hair that’s on her shoulder as we face each other, brimming with new purpose. I’m also not alone, not with Kathleen. Not with someone who has known me for so long.
“Where did he stash you?” I ask.
“Stash me? Like I’m his acorns?”
We both share a deep laugh; I missed her so fucking much. “I asked about you, and he refused to tell me but reassured me he stashed you away nice and safe.”
She looks away, shaking her head. “Oh, that man… I got taken to a small village in the Restless Peaks. They mine metals there, and he let me take my gran. We just said we were refugees from Coalfell. I dyed my hair and eyebrows for it. Spent five days washing it once I got the word that we were safe.” Those green eyes finally look like the woman I know. “Everyone trusted us because Bones sent us with his cousin, who is a traveling merchant that frequents the area.”
“His family ?”
“She’s the nosiest shit I’ve ever met, but damn if she didn’t get word of something suspicious if it was over ten miles away. Once, we even left for a town over to run some errands for the village when she caught wind of people from Skull’s Row checking out the village.” She looks me over, at my arms and then the wound at my chest that’s no longer bandaged but is clearly going to scar. “Jane, how are you?”
It’s so much. I want to blurt out that Anya died, but then I’d have to talk about the entirety of being taken. “We definitely need to have a few days’ worth of talking about it. Just… maybe not right now.”
“Anya’s funeral is later,” she presses, as if she can’t believe it.
It makes me want Soren. There’s still something about Anya’s death that gets to me in the middle of the night, even if we’ve been here for a week. Kathleen places a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, one day at a time, okay?”
I nod. “Yeah… yeah, how’s your gran, by the way?”
My transition is not very elegant, but she goes with it because she’s a good friend.
“Relieved to see me. Still upset about my dad being a dick, but she was happy to be with me. She wouldn’t stop pestering me about Bones.”
Yes, let’s talk about him. “Did you know Bones is known as someone people actually pay good money to have him train them?”
“ Yes .” Pride overtakes her expression. “He flexed that once or twice.”
My eyes narrow slightly from how big I grin. “Okay, well did you know he and Soren met because Bones was hired to kill him?”
Her lips part in surprise. “ No .”
“Bones couldn't hit Soren because he could feel Bones’s intention, and apparently Bones is damn near impossible to hit. Then, Soren offered Bones more money to not kill him. Apparently, Bones just loved that and was Soren’s man ever since.”
Her chuckle that rolls into a slight giggle is a sound I missed more than I realized. “How’d you learn that?”
My smile falters drastically. “Anya told me.”
There’s that pause again, as if someone feels sorry for me. “What happened to her?”
I should probably fill her in a little, even if I’m genuinely struggling to speak on it.
“She got taken with me. And there was a whole fiasco in the castle, with Jesper—the leader of the Order of Ash.” I pause, uncertain as to why this feels so private . “They were going to be brutal with me, but Anya took the fall for it all, and they killed her.” I step away, my body heating up as if I drank molten hot soup. “It’s actually hard to talk about.”
The moment between Anya and me feels so personal. We both were locked away, and she was tortured; I even healed one of her wounds. We plotted desperate plans for freedom, and I have the necklace she gave me, her deathbed confession. No one, except maybe Soren, will be able to feel what it was like to live that.
“I hear the funeral today will be impressive,” Kathleen says, as if to make me feel better. “Probably the safest we’ll be with over half of Death’s Wing here.”
“The safest I felt was when I heard Tempest approaching with bloody flags,” I blurt out, recalling the profound relief and gratitude. “I knew sirens were in the waters, then.”
Staring at the ocean from this window… I actually wished it faced the forest.
“ Gods that must have been wild, Jane. I heard that the Sea Wolf was lost at sea.”
My breathing feels constricted, my lung even slightly burning as I never got to see that. I just remember Soren…
“It was bizarre,” I force out, trying to divert my mind. “Misery even touched me.”
It’s easier to talk about that dumb god. Ruining him is my only true triumph.
“I feel like such a bad friend for just sitting casually in a village while you lived all of that ,” she says, and I can tell she means it.“I couldn’t do anything for you. I didn’t even know you were suffering .”
“Are you kidding?” I ask, turning to face her. “I actually thought of you once, right when I wanted to give up. I kept thinking about how we promised we’d talk about this when we were older. Thought of you got me through it.”
Kathleen gives a partial smile. “Alright, well, give me a bit to gain some grand tales to tell, too.” Her face blanches. “I don't mean it like that because, you know, a lot of people died.”
I’m just so ready to not have to talk about any of this with anyone . “It’s okay, Kathleen. I know you don’t mean it like that. And it’s also okay that you knew all of that about my dad. I get it. Some things you can’t share without hurting someone else.” I think of Soren and knowing of his god before him. “Thank you for being my friend, even if that must have been hard to navigate.”
She embraces me like it’s a hug she’s been holding back for years, and I return the affection. “It’s good to have you back, old friend,” she says.