Chapter 38 #2
Roiven approaches and ties my right arm into a sling, so I can fight without it getting in the way.
I blink back tears, then squeeze my eyes shut and drag a ragged breath.
I don’t miss the armor, now that I know what it was doing.
But even if I haven’t had natural use of my arm since Roiven attacked my Hellion, I haven’t had to face it until now. Not like this.
“Do you want me to tie your hair back, too? For the flight?” Roiven’s voice is gentle.
My eyes open and drop down to the floor as shame blisters in my stomach. How can I simultaneously be Roiven’s last hope for his people, and be so incapable of taking care of myself that I need him to help dress me?
“You aren’t a burden,” he says flatly, reminding me he can feel what’s happening in my head. “Everyone needs help.”
“You don’t seem to.”
“I need yours,” he offers quietly. “I haven’t been strong enough to stop this. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve cost my people lives we didn’t have to lose.”
“Some of them at my hands,” I whisper. “I don’t deserve your help.”
Roiven shakes his head.
“I’ll ask Aria to do your hair. If you’d rather.” He steps to the door.
“No,” I say quickly.
“You want me to?” he asks. I shrug. My throat feels too tight to speak. From the corner of my vision I see Roiven slowly nod. He fetches a brush, the handle made of bone and the bristles dark, and slowly moves behind me.
“I’m making us waste time,” I tell him.
Roiven’s hand grazes the back of my neck as he gathers my hair together. A shiver runs down my spine and I stand straighter, far too aware of how close he stands behind me. If I took a step back I’d be pressed to him.
How can this man want anything to do with me?
“It’s not a waste,” Roiven says. With my hair gathered in one fist he brushes at the ends, unhooking the first snarls.
“Every minute we spend…”
“If we’re too late by thirty seconds, I’ll bear the guilt of it,” Roiven tells me. “We’ll make it in time. And rushing to battle unprepared isn’t virtuous.” He moves higher with the brush. I feel it tug at my scalp; hear the shush of the bristles raking through my strands of hair.
“Maybe I should just cut it all off,” I mutter. He’s right that it should be tied back, if it’s long. Having your hair snap in front of your face at a critical moment is a disadvantage, and if I’m not capable of braiding it myself… I grit my teeth.
“Whatever you like,” Roiven answers, his voice low. “I am… sorry for what I did to you.”
“I’m glad the armor’s off. I had no idea what it was doing to me.”
“Not that.”
I blink and glance back into the mirror, at the scars on the right side of my head where the hair no longer grows. Roiven has moved higher now, working out the last of the tangles. A section of my red-brown hair already falls smoothly past my shoulders.
“You can’t mean when we fought, years ago.”
“If I’d known who you were...” he starts.
“That’s ridiculous. I was trying to kill you and Sava. Of course you defended yourself.”
“Well, I was the one who attacked your ship.”
“A Hellion,” I remind him, and turn, even though he isn’t done yet. He lets go of my hair and stands there with the brush raised, looking down at me. “You can’t regret attacking a Hellion. We were in your lands.”
Even though I know better now, my ship’s loss still makes my chest ache.
The people on Rampage weren’t evil, at least, not all of them.
They were just people. The berth-boys were shipped off to fight and die, the Enchanted were consecrated to pour themselves into crystal, and if Harfor turned out to be a heartless zealot, well, so was I.
Maybe the great evil of the Empire was the banality of it all, and the lies we were raised to believe. How can I fight that?
“...No,” Roiven agrees. “I don’t regret that, exactly. But I can wish I met you some other way. I can wish I wasn’t the one who hurt you.”
“I’m glad I didn’t win. You’d be dead. And I’d still be one of them.”
There’s a silence. Roiven nudges my shoulder and reaches for my hair again. I turn and he continues brushing. I gulp.
“For my part… I’m sorry for what happened at the Bluff. When your people came to rescue you,” I say. My whole body feels tense with shame.
His hands freeze for a moment. Roiven’s knuckles brush against the back of my neck as he grips a section of my hair.
“They knew the risk,” he whispers.
“How can you bear to touch me, after everything? How can you look me in the eye and feel anything but hatred?”
His hands still haven’t moved. I close my eyes, my whole world narrowed to the feeling of his knuckles against my neck, and wait.
In my gut, despite everything I’ve felt through the bond, I’m sure he’s going to tell me that he hates me, because that’s what I deserve.
But I’m beginning to think it will destroy me.
“I hate the Empire,” Roiven says. “But you… aren’t them.”
“I was, though. And recently.”
“They took you from us and made you that.”
I turn around again, and he lets go of my hair. I need to look him in the eyes. My heart pounds.
“Roiven, you’re making excuses. I’ve done terrible things. Things you could never—”
He brings a hand up and rests it on the right side of my face, his thumb running over the scars Sava left.
“I know,” Roiven says. “I know. Believe it or not, Cai, I’ve done terrible things too. I’ve killed sailors who tried to surrender because I was too angry to let them live.”
“Oh.”
“They fed you lies and Enchanted you. It could have been me, or anyone, and I can’t say I wouldn’t have become just like you did. And you made up your mind before I even got that enchantment off you.”
“Still.” If he ignores the truth now, and then later realizes he should never have been kind to me, I won’t survive it.
I don’t think I could bear to feel him hate me.
And I’m not sure I want him to be kind to me now at all.
It makes me feel guilty, like I’m hiding the truth about who I am from him.
Even if he’s the only one refusing to see it.
“Do you know how we formed the bond so quickly?” he asks. I think back to Aria, asking me whether it took more or less than a day.
“The kraken,” I answer. He’s made clear my familiar is the source of my power.
“No. Most kin bonds take time. Hours, at least, of just working on the bond before the marks grow on your skin. Some couples are at it for weeks; some find it so challenging they take it as a sign of incompatibility and part ways. But you can’t just meet someone and forge a bond this strong.”
“But ours was…”
“Some people go together easier than others,” Roiven whispers.
“Our magic knows us better than we know ourselves. When I made that deal with you, I had to say it would be permanent, because that's the risk. But I didn’t think the bond would form all the way, not if we only tried for an hour or so. I thought it would just give me a grip on you, then fade away over time. But it didn’t.
In a matter of seconds our magics tied us together, for good. ”
“Fate?” I whisper.
“No,” Roiven counters. “Bonds this fast are rare, but they still grow from choice. You could have said no. Or I could have stopped asking. And we’d never have known.”
My heart falters as I stare at him, trying to wrap my mind around this.
Around the idea of Roiven and I belonging together.
My body and my heart agree that it feels natural; that I want him the way I want air, and water; that we are halves of a whole.
That last night felt right in a way that had nothing to do with the lust and pleasure pounding through my veins.
But my head knows better. My head knows that even if he is no longer my enemy, I am still his doom. Because I cannot possibly be good for him.
“But you should hate me. You have to hate me,” I tell him.
“And what if I don’t want to?” he whispers, staring into my eyes. “What if I want to believe redemption is possible? That after everything they took from our people, they didn’t get to keep you. Finding out we still had a queen was the first time I’d felt hope in years.”
There’s nothing I could possibly say to that.
Emotions swarm my brain, so chaotic and lost I can’t put them into words.
There’s an emptiness inside me and if I don’t stay balanced, I’m going to fall into it and drown, like falling in the middle of the pool, thrashing and unable to save myself without his help.
If me existing made him hope, I’ll do whatever it takes to prove him right.
Not for my own glory. Not even just because it’s the right thing to do, though it would have been enough.
But now, more than anything, I never want this man to realize how foolish and wrong he is to believe in someone like me.
Tears prick at my eyes. The smile he gives me is painful, his mouth curling up while his eyes hold nothing but sorrow.
“Enough guilt,” Roiven says, brushing his thumb against the corner of my eye to collect the tear. “We can’t change the past. Give me your fire instead, Cai. Let me finish your hair.”
With a gulp and a nod, I turn. He sets down the brush and deftly braids my red-brown hair down my back. I can’t remember the last time anybody did this for me. The feeling of his hands gently tugging at my scalp, his warmth at my back…
There’s a knock at the door, and then it swings open.
“Roiven!” It’s Aria. I glance over to see her armed to the teeth, her hair tied sharply back. “What’s taking so long?” She holds a pair of boots in her hands that might be for me, since she’s already wearing some on her feet.
“Nothing. We’re ready,” Roiven says to his sister.
“Then let’s go,” Aria says. With one last glance at me, Roiven strides toward his doorway. When I reach Aria she shoves the boots into my hand.
I follow them both, up to the caldera—and to war.