Chapter 31 Nes
Nes
Lies were better than the truth.
The truth was never what anyone wanted to hear. Nes knew that, and yet she’d felt compelled to tell Toran the truth. She should have kept her mouth shut. Had she not given him her truth, then perhaps he wouldn’t have felt compelled to reveal his own.
It shouldn’t hurt at all. He shouldn’t be able to hurt her. But he had.
So she’d run. From the start, she knew this would end with one of them running away. But she’d never imagined it would be like this.
With Suri working, their room was empty. Nes toed the door shut. This would be the last time she came here. After tonight, the room would belong only to Suri.
She would leave this Goddess-forsaken city behind her, just as she’d always planned. She didn’t have it in her to be angry with Toran. It was her own damned fault for not following her own rules. No attachments. That was what she’d always said. If only she’d listened.
She shrugged out of the clothes she was wearing, dressing in the new outfit quickly. She tucked her toes into her boots and slid the ribbed dagger in the boot opposite the smooth one. She stole a scarf from Suri’s vanity and tied her hair up in a ponytail that looked just as jagged as her knife.
Then she snatched her winter cloak from the bed, leaving the rest of her clothes to wither and rot.
The raucousness of the gambling den was a drum in the back of her head. So loud, so distracting, for a time she couldn’t think of Toran. She sat at tables, wiping men clean of their coin in numerous games of Blank before she stole the last remaining seat at the bar.
I don’t love you.
In that moment, she’d forgotten where she was, forgotten who she was. Her heart had yawned open, and she’d foolishly thought the feeling was contagious.
But I feel it.
She curled her toes tight around the rung of her stool. Sudden anger pulsed inside her.
How easily I could.
It would still be easy. Like launching herself off a roof, landing be damned. Exhilarating but as easy as one step. And that, more than his reaction, was what angered her. Because now she wanted something she couldn’t have. She’d broken their game with those four little words.
She’d felt his heartbreak and his love, however small, and the most dangerous feeling of all. Her own hope. Goddess save her. She should have never put her own heart on the table.
Never bet with things of sentimental value.
It was the first thing she’d learned watching the card games in the Siren’s Hair.
The chances of losing were always higher.
The game or the odds didn’t matter. Once you put something you loved on the line, your focus lay with it.
Not the game. So you’d lose. Every time.
She knew better. Yet she had still played like an amateur.
The night eased on, and the crowd in the gambling den thinned. A few patrons sat at tables scattered about the floor. She became the lone person at the bar.
Pulling her flask from her belt, she unscrewed the top and brought it to her lips.
A few drops dribbled out before the metal ran dry.
It had only been a matter of time before she came up empty.
To go without, especially given their plans tomorrow, was a risk.
But she’d risked far more for far less in the past. She could last one more day.
Suri, in her violet feathered uniform, strode over to her at last. She set a glass down between them. “Want some?” she asked, raising a bottle of liquor.
Nes shook her head. The thought of putting anything else in her stomach made her want to gag.
Suri poured herself a shot and downed it upon impact. Then poured another, this time letting the liquor swim in the glass.
“Do you ever think about him?”
Nes had never asked Suri about the man she’d left at the altar back in Brevna. The story was Suri’s to tell, and Nes hadn’t wanted to pry. But now she wondered what their relationship had been like before Suri ran away—wondered if her friend ever regretted her decision.
“Him?”
“Your fiancé.”
“Ah.” Suri set the liquor bottle down, wrapping her fingers around the short glass instead. “Sometimes.”
“You left because you didn’t love him, right?”
“Not exactly.” Suri stared hard at the fingernail’s depth of liquor. “I always tell myself I left because I wanted a life of my own, but that was a lie.”
“Then why did you leave?”
“Because I did love him.”
Nes laid her hand out flat on the bar, but Suri kept hers tight around the liquor glass.
“But I could see he was falling for someone else,” Suri explained. “So rather than make the two of us live through that pain, I ran.”
Nes swallowed a tightness in her throat. She’d just done the same exact thing to Toran. Or maybe she was only saving herself from pain by running. “And are you happy here?”
Suri looked up from the glass, her green eyes solid. She pushed the liquor across the bar to Nes. “I’m not the one who needs to answer that question.”
Suri returned to work, leaving Nes to wade through her own emotions. She sat there, the liquor untouched in front of her, for what was surely hours. She felt the ebb and flow of the den’s patrons as they filled seats then slowly emptied them.
The longer she stared at shot of liquor, the more appealing it became. She’d never been much of a drinker. It had to be worth something, though, if Toran had so desperately wanted it.
She wondered how many drinks it would take for her not to feel the loss of him. She downed the shot. Felt nothing. But she didn’t bother Suri for more. There was already a bad taste in her mouth.
Eventually, the raucousness died down around her, patrons leaving, Suri heading to bed, until Nes was the only one left. She climbed up from her stool and lay down on the bar, like a body in a casket, set afloat on the sea. She closed her eyes.
The night felt long and wide. Like the gaping mouth of a cave.
She imagined the stars traipsing across the dark sky and skipping onto the rolling rooftops, pinpricks of dim light so easily lost between the tiles.
She wondered what would happen if she swallowed the stars.
If she pulled them from their posts and plopped them in her mouth.
If, after she swallowed, she would glow.
Not the green gleam magic gave off, but a luminescence so bright and pure it could wash away the taint inside her for good.
She’d seen such luminescence once before. Not of stars, but of something just as grand. As a child, she’d watched her companion flash with a blinding light so pure black had turned to white. That had been a time she’d felt whole.
Her stomach lurched, and something inside tugged on her gut. They were just thoughts. She couldn’t turn them into action no matter how much she wanted to. She couldn’t change who she was. Who the world had made her, who the world had forced her to become.
Nes sighed and pulled her feet flat against the bar.
She felt the hours pass, neither fast nor slow, but a steady waning of the night. The Siren’s Hair was quiet but for the light, rhythmic tap of someone on the second floor and the whistle of wind under the crack in the door. It was strong enough to carry the scent of the ocean with it.
The thud of a heavy boot sounded. At last, Toran had come down.
An eagerness stirred within her. She made her breath low and deep to feign sleep even as her heart thudded faster.
She wanted him to retract his last words. Say he was wrong, that he was an ass, that he could love her—did love her—even if she didn’t love him yet. She wanted him to fold her in his arms and whisper everything she’d ever wanted to hear.
Footsteps crossed the floor, nearing her still form. She felt their vibrations in a twitch up her spine. Toran stopped beside her hips. She didn’t peek at the broad chest she knew she’d see. She filled her lungs with a steady breath, then let it out slowly. She waited.
Something cool and smooth flicked the skin at her neck as a gruff voice hissed, “Thought you fooled me, huh, Witch?”