Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
RAE
So much blood.
Too much. It’s splashed all over the white marble tiles where Jai has collapsed.
He bleeds red, I think randomly, as two guards surge forward and lift him between them. Like all of us. He may carry Phaethon in him but he’s still a man.
Then again, I bleed red, too, and I’m something different.
I hurry after the two guards and Jai, stumbling a little as my leg muscles burn and my feet sting with a thousand invisible needles, but the sight of the Jai-shaped puddle of blood on the floor stays with me. Pushes me to keep going.
What about the draks? The thought hits me as I put my foot on the first step of the grand staircase going down into the palace. Glancing over my shoulder, I barely have time to see them both take off with their great wings flapping, and more people scream and run away not to be trampled.
Thank you, Keres, I send the thought, and I get an undefined… feeling? In return. A sort of smugness but not quite. A sort of pleasure.
Interesting.
But no time to dwell on that. The guards carrying Jai are quick on their feet and I have to run to keep up. I suppose they will take him to the infirmary, the same place where I was taken after the first trial.
And he’ll be fine, of course. He’s Athdara. Even if he bleeds red, he’s a powerful magical creature. Those aren’t easy to kill, and… and Phaethon wouldn’t let him die.
Who knew that I’d be relying on an asshole Eosphor to keep Jai alive? A jagged laugh escapes me, hurting my throat.
“Are you all right?” one of the guards following us asks, and I nod. We enter the palace, move through its maze of corridors and parlors, and it belatedly occurs to me that I left the terrace without even acknowledging the king, without bowing or waiting on his pleasure.
Shit.
Too late now. I’ll face the consequences of that later. First, I need to see that Jai is breathing. That he’s alive. No other outcome would make sense.
He’s not the boy you loved, I tell myself. Don’t let yourself become attached to him.
What did I say earlier? Too late.
So what if he’s not the boy I once loved? I’ve clung to my sorrow of Mars’ passing, honed my despair into anger for revenge—but he’s alive! A fae, whereas a human would be long dead from old age by now.
While Jai was the one who helped me, held me, touched me, kissed me, pleasured me. How can I not feel anything for him? He saved my life, so it’s natural that I’m attracted to him. But it’s just attraction, nothing more. How can he ever compare to Mars?
He’s a man of flesh and blood, set against a faded memory. Doesn’t it count for more?
No, because that memory… Mars was bright like a falling star, lighting up my mind every time I think of him. He was my everything, my other half, the missing part of my soul.
The love of my life.
And he’s not a memory anymore.
Clamping down my teeth on a sound that wants to escape my throat, I gather my sodden skirt because it slows me down and hurry on faster.
If I run fast enough, I may outrun the sorrow, the memories, the pain.
Funny how it never seems to work out.
Sometime later, Tru stops in front of me and goes to one knee, his long blond hair sliding over his shoulders. “Rae. Are you all right?”
“Tru…” I blink. I feel as if I’ve been sitting on the bench outside the infirmary for mere moments but the small crowd that followed us down the stairs is nowhere to be seen.
“Rae, talk to me. Is he still in there? Nobody told me, I…” He bows his head, mouth tightening. “It’s the Godsdamned sea. The finnfolk taking away everyone we love.”
The vehemence. Who did he lose to the sea?
“Did he make it?” He rubs a hand over his eyes. Heaves a breath. “Is he alive?”
I blink again. “I don’t know,” I confess.
Because I lost time. And a part of me is afraid to check.
He seems to realize that, because he gets up and nods. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
But I won’t sit here and wait for him to bring me the news. I get to my feet after he’s gone, bracing a bloody hand against the wall to steady myself. The door is half-open and I push it wider, stepping inside the infirmary.
I thought I couldn’t feel the cold anymore, but there’s crackling ice in my veins now. I’m terrified. It’s an odd feeling, one I hadn’t felt in an age. Not stressed, not frustrated, but utterly crushed by fear.
There’s a group of people gathered around one of the cots. I remember waking up disoriented on one of them not too long ago and finding Tru seated beside me. Tru who told me that Jai had spent the night by my side.
Darkness edges into my vision. Tru is bowed over, and there’s Arkin, too, his red hair in an unraveling braid, and the three annoying healers. They all look so serious.
So quiet.
Oh Gods, it’s Jai, isn’t it? He’s dead. He stabbed himself to control Phaethon and help me, save the humans and bring me to the palace alive, and he… and he…
The lump in my throat won’t let me breathe. My feet are made of lead. My knees are weak. I sink as I take a step toward the cot, then another. The floor is opening up to swallow me, just like the sea.
“Rae?” It’s Arkin, turning toward me, grabbing my arms. “What’s wrong? You’re pale as death.”
Speaking of which… “Is he?” I manage.
“Is he what? Dead?”
I nod. Can’t breathe. I can’t even swallow, my throat is bone-dry and closing up fast. Shit.
“See for yourself,” he says.
Why isn’t he telling me? Isn’t that a bad sign? Wouldn’t he tell me right away if Jai was alive? I can’t. Oh Gods, I can’t…
Not again.
Arkin moves to step aside and I grab his arm to keep him there, blocking my view. I don’t want to see, and if that makes me weak and a coward, so be it. I’m not ready, what will I do if Jai is dead, what—?
“Rae,” a rough, rusty voice says and my knees almost give out. “Come here.”
Oh Gods… “You’re alive,” I whisper.
Definitely alive, seated on the cot, his back to the wall behind, black hair in his eyes and a crooked smile on his lips.
My heart starts beating again. I hadn’t realized it had stopped for a long moment. Most definitely alive.
“The bastard is hard to kill,” Arkin agrees, “didn’t I tell you?”
My relief is almost too much. I want to laugh, but I don’t feel so good. When Arkin tugs on my arm and sits me down on the edge of the cot, I don’t resist. It would be mortifying if I passed out now.
I can’t stop looking at Jai, from his long legs stretched in front of him, his pants cut to allow for the thick bandage around his thigh, the strong set of his shoulders and his callused hands resting on the sheets, the smears of blood on his cheek, the messy mop of hair.
That thick, silky hair… I want to run my fingers through it again, tug his head back to see his dark eyes. To kiss his soft lips and press my body to his chest. To draw sounds of pleasure from him.
But I also want to hurt him, scratch him, slap him, punch him, because… Because…
I jump back to my feet, sudden anger choking me. “You… asshole, Jai. Just sitting there like nothing happened. Smiling! I thought you’d gone and died and I…” I draw an unsteady breath. “I thought…”
Silence spreads around us. The healers are staring at me as if I’ve grown a second head. Tru and Arkin, too. I probably sound like I’m off my rocker.
“You were scared,” Jai says slowly, still with that broken, raw voice that reminds me of the way he dropped from the drak, so pale and still, bleeding out, as if he was already dead and—
“Of course not,” I scoff. Here I am with all my walls down, crumbled and shattered, lying in pieces on the floor and he can see right through me, but I’ll never admit it.
Me, scared? Ha. Of course not.
“You were afraid I’d died,” he continues.
“Screw you,” I hiss, “that’s not it at all, you’re mistaken—”
“So I wasn’t completely wrong. You felt it.”
“Felt what?” I’m backing away from the cot, plowing into Arkin but he moves to the side, so I back away some more. “I felt nothing. There’s nothing to feel.”
His smile falls. “Makhair—”
“I have to ask…” Tru interrupts this strange conversation we’re having. “Were you the one who stabbed him in the leg?”
“No, but I should have been,” I snap.
Jai’s dark brows go up.
How dare he make me feel all this, turning me into this hot mess? He scared me to death. I can’t believe how terrified I was, when he’s just… sitting there, being… so alive and smiling and…
Shit, what’s wrong with me? It had felt as if my heart was about to crack into two, each piece about to shatter like thin glass, leaving me empty and aching.
Hells.
“Rae,” Jai whispers my name, but I shake my head.
Turning on my heel, I stumble to the door of the infirmary and step outside. There, I pause for an infinitesimal beat, then start down a corridor I barely recall. It doesn’t matter where I’m heading. I have no destination in mind, I only need to get away from the infirmary.
Away from Jai and my traitorous, confusing feelings.
Various hurts make themselves known as I hurry as fast as I can past closed and open doors, and then a group of fae nobles who start saying something and stop when I slip past them.
There’s a group of them having drinks against a frame window, and another group playing music and singing against a tapestry depicting some bucolic scene.
Hypocrites.
And screw all of this. I’m still so angry, so…
disoriented, but it’s not a spatial disorientation.
Rather, it’s mental. It’s a maze inside my mind, and the signs pointing to an exit are all lies.
They only send me deeper, when I need a moment to collect the thoughts flying inside my head like tiny darakins, butting against my temples, giving me a headache.
Blurring what’s real with what isn’t real, making me believe things I shouldn’t…
But someone blocks my way.
Panting, angry, sad, and aware of wet tracks on my cheeks, I shove at them—then stop because I realize who is standing in front of me, flanked by the royal guard.
The man standing in front of me is the fae king.