Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
By the time I actually make my way down to Haldia’s house, I have managed to pull myself together enough that I no longer feel that acute sense of self-loathing.
It was a moment of weakness brought on by several days of forced abstinence right after I had suffered through an entire night of torture where I had to watch my parents die and Draven hate me over and over again.
I’m better now, and what happened in the dungeon will not happen again.
Night has fallen over the Unseelie Court as I walk down the street at a brisk pace. I know that Draven is waiting for me back in our room in the castle, but I really do need to see Haldia and have her heal the wounds in my thigh and shoulder. I also need to check on Orion.
Since he rushed through the portal the moment it opened, and my little breakdown in the dungeon took a while as well, he might already have left Haldia’s house. But maybe Isera is still there. She might know how it went.
The faelight gems that have been set atop swirling poles cast soft white light across the cobblestone street and make the water in the city’s many canals glitter.
In the distance, the huge waterfalls that surround the city rumble steadily as the water rushes down into the lakes at the bottom.
I cast discreet glances into the windows of the buildings I pass.
People have returned home for the night, gathering around dining room tables with smiles on their faces.
My soul yearns for that. For Draven. For the life I want us to have. For a future where we don’t have to constantly fight for our survival. A future where we can just explore everything that this world has to offer. See everything. Do everything. Together.
But seeing what Jessina did to Orion has made me terrified. I want everything. I want fucking everything. But now I’m terrified that not all of us are going to make it through this.
I study Haldia’s house as I approach it from the other end of the street.
Indecision flickers through me. She might still be working hard on trying to heal Orion’s eye, and if she is, I don’t want to disturb her.
Biting my lip, I consider while I close the final distance to the house.
But caution wins out, and instead of knocking on the front door, I sneak around the building to instead approach it from the back.
If I can just look inside the back window, I will be able to see into the room that Haldia uses when she treats people.
Then I will know if she is in the middle of concentrating on healing or if I can actually knock on the door without ruining something.
Gleaming light from the moon and the faelight gems on the street paint silver highlights on the deep green leaves as I sneak through the bushes and into Haldia’s garden from behind. If I can just—
I stop dead in my tracks.
My heart starts pounding in my chest as I stare at the person standing right outside the back door.
Orion Nightbane.
I can barely hear anything over my suddenly thrumming pulse as I drag my gaze over him.
He is just standing there, still as a statue, and staring unseeing at the thick foliage just a little to the right of me. As if he is here physically. But his mind is somewhere else. His soul is somewhere else.
My gaze settles on his eyes.
Eye.
Pain explodes in my chest as I take in the state of his normally so flawlessly beautiful face. There is still only an empty hole where his left eye used to be. And that brutal scar still cuts through his eyebrow and down to the top of his cheek.
For another minute, all I can do is to just stand there while pain and sorrow strangle my chest.
Then Orion’s knees buckle.
He crashes down on the ground right there, two steps from the back door. Drawing his knees up to his chest, he presses both hands over his face and sucks in panicked breaths.
I’m just about to rush forward and comfort him when I realize that I know Orion far too well for that.
After all the months I’ve spent with him, in all kinds of situations, I know exactly what kind of person he is.
And I know that he would hate it if someone saw him right now. If someone saw him like this.
So instead of trying to comfort him, I just stand there as still as I can, barely daring to breathe for fear that he will hear it and realize that I’ve seen him break down in this way.
Once he leaves, I will sneak back out of the garden and then pretend that this has never happened. Because that’s what—
The back door is shoved open.
Isera rushes out of it while whipping her head from side to side. As if she is trying to catch up to someone. As if she is trying to catch up to him.
And because of that, she doesn’t see him sitting right outside the door, so in her haste, she trips right over him.
He snaps his head up from his hands, his legs dropping fully to the ground as Isera crashes down on the grass right in front of him.
Scrambling frantically, she pushes herself up from the ground and twists around while whipping her gaze from side to side, no doubt trying to figure out what just happened.
But because of the way she fell, and the direction she turned when she tried to straighten again, she is now sitting on the grass with her back to him.
She looks down at his legs, which are stretched out on either side of her, and begins to turn around.
Right before she can, Orion wraps his arms around her chest from where he is sitting behind her and pulls her tight against his own chest. It stops her from turning to face him and also keeps her sitting there between his legs.
“Don’t,” he says in a broken whisper.
My heart clenches at just the sound of it. I desperately want to leave, because I’m not meant to see this, but if I try to move now, they will hear me. And that will be even worse.
Isera stops struggling, her mind at last catching up with the situation.
“Orion?” she says, her voice softer than I have ever heard.
Anguish floods his face, and he tugs her body tighter against his. “Don’t leave. Please.”
Pain flashes across her face, which he can’t see since he’s sitting behind her, but she keeps her voice steady as she replies, “I won’t.” Reaching up, she starts stroking her hand gently over his arm, which he still has wrapped around her chest. “She wasn’t able to heal your eye?”
A broken sob escapes Orion’s lips, and he tilts his head down and presses his forehead against her shoulder. “No.”
Sorrow and devastation crash over Isera’s face, and she squeezes her eyes shut and bites her lip hard. But she keeps her body exactly the way it is, and she doesn’t stop stroking his arm. So only I can see the depths of her emotions from here.
Tears line her eyes when she pries them open again, but she is careful not to let them fall. And her voice remains as steady as ever when she says, “I’m so sorry.”
Another sob rips from Orion’s lungs, and his arms tighten even more desperately around her. “What am I supposed to do now?” He gasps out the words between broken sobs. “I will never be beautiful again. My face is… was my greatest asset.”
Tears slide down Isera’s cheeks. Reaching up carefully with her free hand, she wipes them off before they can fall down to land on Orion’s arms and give away the fact that she is crying.
And she makes sure to keep her voice as confident and certain as ever when she says, “No, it was not. Your greatest asset is you. Everything about you. Your intellect, your cunning, your strength, the way you move through the world and bend it to your will. And you’re still beautiful. ”
More broken sobs tear from his chest, so violently that they make his shoulders shake.
“This wound will just make you more breathtaking,” Isera continues with that utter certainty in her voice.
“People will look at your face, see your extraordinary beauty, and then see the badass scar across your eye and realize that you are more dangerous than they could ever imagine. It won’t make you less beautiful.
It will make you look even more powerful and lethal. ”
He drags in a shuddering breath. “The scar… If it was just the scar, I could live with it. I could even learn to like it. Because you’re right.
It would make me look badass.” He lets out a broken laugh which quickly turns into devastating sobs.
“But my eye. I want my eye back.” Hugging her tightly, he gasps out heartbreaking whimpers.
“Oh God, please, I just want my eye back.”
Isera bites her lip hard, silent tears streaming down her face. Orion’s entire body shakes behind her. But she never stops stroking his arm with those gentle, reassuring movements.
Silver light from the moon shines down over them as they sit there in each other’s arms, Isera keeping them both together while Orion Nightbane cries into her shoulder. Cries for shattered hope and broken confidence. For sacrifices that he shouldn’t have had to make.
And in that moment, he is not the Unseelie King.
He is just a boy who lost his eye.