Chapter 11 Feel Nothing Together
FEEL NOTHING TOGETHER
Marina
Evander’s blood encrusted on her cheeks, carving through each tributary of her nervous system.
No, not Evander’s blood.
Torin’s.
Marina’s fingers twitched with the need to rake her fingernails over her skin, to extract Torin’s blood from each of her pores.
The breath in her chest went light. She focused on the solid floor underneath her heels as she dropped down into an unknown place.
Cool air nipped at her arms. A strong earthy scent accompanied the crisp layer of charcoal smoke that filled the atmosphere.
She darted her eyes around the cavern, filled with hundreds of dense stalactites trickling from the ceiling.
The cave stretched into a clearing and then formed a tunnel leading further into the mountain above them, its entrance protected by icicle-shaped formations jutting up from the stone.
Marina’s awareness quickly came back to Torin’s blood stinging on the skin of her cheeks and neck.
She pulled at the collar of her dress, the nightmare resurfacing and drowning her all over again.
It was as if she stood in her bedchamber all those years ago, the silver moon shining in from the skylight and cutting through the darkness onto Evander—his head severed from his body in a puddle of cherry syrup, oozing down her bedsheets, seeping into the crevice of the crystal floor, in between her toes, decorating the walls.
No.
Marina slapped her shaking palm against the granite cavern wall and hunched over with her other pressed to her diaphragm, wheezing for breath that ran wildly from her.
“What is happening?” Acacius’s voice came from behind.
She’d forgotten he was with her. It was like stepping into winter river water—Acacius, the god who wished nothing more than to see her break, witnessing her at her most vulnerable.
Pull yourself together.
She swallowed, but the folds of her throat melded together. Her pulse magnified in her ears. She dug the heel of her hand into the gritted stone. The cavern felt as if it were closing in on her.
“I—” She looked back at Acacius, only to see him reduced to a shrinking speck stretched down a narrow path.
It was as if she were looking through the end of a telescope.
His mask was off, though. That much she could see—his blond hair pulled back, the animalistic skull laid off to the side on a nearby boulder.
Shit.
“His blood.” She pulled her trembling hand down her face. The dried streaks felt like patches of papier-maché against the insides of her fingers.
What if it never comes off?
A sickness flooded up in her esophagus.
She forced herself to swallow against the strain in her throat and pressed her hand harder into her diaphragm, desperate to control the rough motion of her breathing.
Acacius reached inside his pocket, his movement slow as he analyzed her closely, and pulled out a black handkerchief. “Let me wipe it off.”
She searched his face, frantic and uncertain by his sudden mercy.
Her eyes dipped down to his handkerchief, and she nodded, giving him permission. Even if he ended up shoving the piece of cloth down her throat, she didn’t care. So long as there was a chance the blood would be washed from her skin.
Acacius lifted the material to his lips, his eyes never leaving her face, and wet the fabric with his saliva.
She held onto his gilded gaze as if it was her salvation.
Acacius took a step, reaching out his arm.
“You really are something, Rina.” He wiped the damp cloth, gently, over her cheek.
His other hand came up to cradle the back of her head, and he applied tender pressure down her face as he washed the scourge from her jawline.
“First you arrive late to your own duel, and then you nearly lose your title.”
What was the fucking point? Nothing in her life mattered anymore. She loathed herself and only needed a reason to stay down instead of walking the path forward.
A god challenging her title was the perfect excuse—a fateful opportunity to wallow in the misery of her sins.
The deeds she’d committed over the centuries, unintentionally following in her mother’s trail of greed and violence.
Back then, Marina longed to be just like her, and now that she was, all she felt was disgust.
Relinquishing her title felt cathartic, like she was somehow going against the vision of herself that Mira made.
But then, Naia’s call cut through the noise and reached her. She’d never heard her sister’s voice so angry.
Naia’s disapproval jarred Marina back to life.
Although, she didn’t have enough time to consider the fact that, without her nightrazers, she would have to fight with her own hands.
The repercussion ultimately led to the virulence now plastered on her skin.
Another part of herself that she was ready to let go of.
Acacius’s fingers lightly twisted in her hair and guided her head back, running the cool material in a path down her neck.
“What is in your hair has already dried, but it’s all gone from your skin,” he murmured, unraveling his hand from her strands. He tucked the cloth back inside of his cloak and held up a layer of the thick fabric around his waist. “Wipe your hands on my robe.”
Marina held out her shaking hands between them.
He leaned over her palms, and a string of his saliva dripped over her encrusted skin. One at a time, he scrubbed them clean, applying enough pressure to rid the grime, but holding the back of her hand with a soft nuance.
Once he was finished, he stepped away and nodded. “There.”
She brushed her clean fingertips over the smooth skin of her cheeks and the valley of her neck, reassuring herself.
It is gone.
She leaned her weight back on the cavern wall, relishing in its cool surface against her spine.
You are all right.
She kept a palm snug against her chest to steady her heartbeat.
Focus on your surroundings.
Obeying herself, she swept her gaze over the stalactites, frozen like caramel dripping from the cavern’s roof.
“Are you well now?” he asked.
“No,” she answered truthfully, unable to bring her gaze to him. A few days ago, she would’ve spared her pride and lied. Though, after the last twenty-four hours, her will to shield herself had faded.
You are my legacy, Marina.
Mira’s words razed her again.
She clenched her jaw until the physical pain lanced through her molars.
Her stomach clotted with nausea, and the muscles in her neck clenched. Rage unfurled in her chest along with a restlessness to expunge it from her insides.
“Why did you allow him to lay his hands on you?” Acacius asked, his tone laced with discontent.
Unable to stand still a second longer, Marina pushed off the wall and stormed over to the cluster of stalactites. Their pointed ends hovered inches from the ground.
She ripped her foot up and drove her heel through the spired piece of rock.
It crumbled and shot off into pieces. Reverberations traveled up her leg and into her ribcage.
It felt good, causing the destruction of something.
She could not control the ruination within her own life, but inflicting it on something else released a bit of the strain coiled in her chest.
“It was me who called upon Torin to take your title,” Acacius confessed.
A harsh breath scuffed out of her, not the least bit surprised.
When she was summoned to a duel after leaving Acacius in the middle of the forest outside of Tenebris, stuck on her spikes, she’d suspected it. He was ruthless that way, and after their clash, it was his turn to act in their mindless revenge war.
He’d gone after her village, and then her title.
All the things of importance to her—just as he said he would.
And yet, he failed to succeed because he did not truly wish to hurt her.
He was like a predator playing with its food, only to never eat because they enjoyed the game.
In the grand scheme of it all, Acacius and his stupid, elementary vengeance was so miniscule.
She clawed the hair out of her face, turning on him with wrath overflowing. “Do you think I care about Torin? About your revenge? You think my title means anything to me after what I’ve done?”
“Then what do you care about?” Acacius snapped back. “Or is it still nothing? Because it doesn’t seem that way to me, Rina—”
“I was nothing to her!” Marina whirled around and slammed her fist through another column. Pieces of broken rock sliced her knuckles. The pain lasted seconds before her skin mended. “Just like Finnian fucking said!” She punched through another.
He stared at her, his mouth in a tight line. Something akin to sympathy crinkled across his brow, and Marina could feel the jab of it like a spear through her ribcage.
Hair stuck in her eyelashes and in the corners of her mouth as she swung her arms out again and again, blasting through the pillars.
“She sent those gods to my bedchamber! Night after night. They hunted me down in the palace as if I were prey.” She gritted her teeth and smashed her foot through the trunk of a stalagmite.
“They tried to lay their hands on me, plunge them inside of me, take me as their prize.” Tears bit at the back of her nose as Mira’s betrayal ripped through her heart all over again.
“I thought she loved me—” A sob strangled her words.
“Marina.”
“No!” She slung her arm at him, rejecting his pity.
“I thought as long as I had her, it was enough. No matter what, her love was all I needed.” Tears gushed down her cheeks and dripped from her chin.
She shook her head, pressing a hand into her abdomen.
The debris of shattered rock on the floor around her feet blurred, and her breath left in loud gusts through her mouth. “I am such a fucking fool.”
You are the monster I made.
A guttural scream tore out of her, purging her indignant ardor. The earsplitting sound ruptured the stone ornaments in the cavern. Their broken pieces rained across the earthy ground as a void floated up from her feet and hugged her, protecting her from the sharp debris.
In her darkness, there was reprieve. Within its safety, she folded in on herself and succumbed to her forceful cries.
The worst part of it all was how she’d let Father down, over and over again—thinking less of him, of Naia and Finnian; claiming his wisdom to be ignorance; believing him to be inferior for remaining silent in the face of Mira.
She understood the truth now. Choosing to see Vale as a miserable, worthless father convinced her that she wasn’t missing out on anything he had to offer.
She hung her head and wept.
Acacius’s broad arm slipped around her neck from behind and pulled her back into the warm hearth of his chest.
“You are many infuriating things, Rina, but a fool is not one of them.” The sorrow in his voice traveled through her and fused with her own. In it, she did not feel so alone.
There was solace in his hold, a security she did not realize she’d craved until the urge to lean into him lulled her bones.
Her head fell back against his shoulder. Tears traveled down her temples and into her hairline, catching in her ears.
She stared up at the jagged ceiling of the cavern through the misty blur, watching stalactites reemerge from the stone like water freezing in the winter wind.
Her chin quivered as she said, “I just wanted to be loved.”
Acacius tightened his arm around her chest, his fingers curling around the top of her arm. She could feel the stride of his heartbeat, powerful against her shoulder blades.
“True foolishness is allowing a goddess to take advantage of you, knowing very well that she does not truly love you in return.” His cheek met the side of her head.
“I learned to live with the pain, because it was the closest that I’d ever come to affection—” His voice cracked, and tears dripped in the hollow of her neck, a silent stream catching like rainwater in her clavicles.
Marina wrapped her fingers around the forearm that lay over her chest. It was the only small form of comfort she could offer.
Together, they both cried, their snivels echoing lightly.
Time passed, though Marina was unsure how much—just that the snot on her skin had crusted, and the muscles in her face ached from the strain.
She brought her hand up and wiped her nose.
Acacius’s damp lips brushed over her jaw.
A spark fluttered low in her belly, stirring a part of her that was starved to feel anything other than the rot in her chest.
She angled her head closer to his mouth, suddenly aware of his breath in her ear.
Her pulse quickened, and gooseflesh fluttered across her nape as she arched her spine, pressing the back of her hips against him. Her body chased the electric sensation, parched and dying to feel anything that did not bring her pain.
Acacius’s fingers dusted over her neck and loosely gripped under her chin, propping her head up. He forced his thumb against her flickering, pulsing skin. “What are you thinking?”
Perhaps, even if just for a passing moment, they could staunch one another’s wounds.
“That I wish to feel nothing, because even nothing is better than this,” she said.
Acacius sunk his fingertips into the sides of her throat. Enough to provide a dull sting, but light enough she could still breathe.
A fierce heat dripped between her thighs. The pleasureful tide washed over her grief and heavy mind. She let it carry her away as he moved his hand down her torso, his palm dragging in between her breasts, over her abdomen, and to the side of her waist, finding purchase on her hip.
He guided her around to face him. “Then let us feel nothing together, Rina.”