51. CHAPTER 51
Zayne
The Capital
Kallum, Ciondo
Zayne scrubbed the last of the dried blood from Kira's shoulder when her weak voice drifted over him.
“You came back…” She spoke so unexpectedly that Zayne couldn't breathe.
“I'll always come back,” he said, cradling her on his lap still.
“Always…” Her eyes fell to where their bodies melted together beneath the water.
“Sorry.”
Kira's eyes closed again. “Please… don't let go yet…”
Not yet. She curled against him, her hands clutching his shirt. Gave herself over to him, trusting him to hold her together, when he didn't understand why she wasn't running.
Zayne dropped the washcloth to wrap her in his arms, letting her tuck her head beneath his chin while he blocked as much of her from the rest of the world as possible.
A sob shook her body. Another.
He drew his knees up to bring her even closer to him, squeezing her and whispering to her. They survived together, broken and lost.
Eventually, her tears quieted, her shaking stilled, and she pushed against his shoulders to look into his eyes, breath falling against his chin. “Thank you.”
“Don't thank me. I did this to you.”
Her soft fingers slid over the back of his neck. “The Phaedra did this to me… Will you help me up? My body feels strange.”
Zayne picked her up and held her weight.
“I think I can stand,” she said.
When he released her, he kept his hands close to her arms in case she fell. Though she looked unsteady, she remained standing. But when her eyes fell to herself and then his shirt, her cheeks flushed.
“I think I can handle this now,” she said.
He nodded. “Be careful.”
“You won't leave, right?” Her bottom lip quivered.
“I won't.”
“Promise.”
“I promise,” he said, backing out of the shower. “I'll be out here cleaning up the room.”
A nod. He looked anywhere but at her while he pulled the curtain closed. Without wasting time, he set to work scrubbing the room and preparing it for her.
She took long enough in the shower for him to set up her new bed. “Kira?”
“I'm okay.”
It must have been hard for her to do anything right now.
“Towels?” Kira asked.
He placed several over the top of the curtain and then cleaned up the footprints he left. The room looked back to normal except for the disaster zone outside of the shower where he had piled bloody clothes and washrags on the ground.
The curtain opened, and she steadied herself against the shower wall, wrapped in one towel, with another draped around her shoulders.
“Your clothes are—”
“It's too hard. It's all too hard.”
“Okay. That's okay.” Zayne took her arm and helped her walk to the bed. After she settled on her side, he covered her with the blankets.
Her hair wet the pillow and stuck to her neck. Mellie and Nadia always twisted theirs up in a towel. Furrowing his brows, Zayne wrapped a towel around her head, rolling it into an ugly lump. Well, that wasn't right.
A faint smile softened Kira's face. “It's okay.”
He wasn't sure if he returned it or not, but his face didn't feel so strained. “I'll finish up. Tell me if you need anything.”
Now Zayne cleaned what remained.
In the shower, he scrubbed his hands raw until there was no trace of his mom or her death left anywhere. Not visibly, anyway. Ice-cold skin stole his warmth again. He should have put more blankets on Mom. She hated being cold.
Zayne shook his head. He was living moment by moment through discovering his mom. And he couldn't do this here. He couldn't. Kira didn't know yet.
But even when he looked at his clean hands, he smelled the blood. Felt it. Doubling over behind the shelter of the curtain, he gasped for air, worried he made too much noise.
He gave himself over to the silence like Mom taught him, abandoning his fight against the feeling and memories.
After dressing and leaving the shower, he felt just as bad, but he could breathe.
Zayne tossed his ruined clothes into the hall, mopped up outside the shower, and searched the room for more blood.
He noticed then that Kira had been watching him, the worry in her eyes infuriatingly apparent when she'd been catatonic.
“You're shaking,” Kira said.
No, he wasn't.
Looking down, he saw the tremble in his hands. “I'm just angry.” He sat on the ground beside her so the bed hid most of his body. “Did you eat or drink anything the last three days?”
“I don't remember.”
“We'll start with broth and water. I might be able to get an IV for you.”
Tears trickled down her cheeks. How did he take the pain away from her? What did he need to do?
Zayne never knew holding back ached like this.
A deep, crawling ache that burrowed beneath his skin.
He tightened his hand into a fist to keep himself from wiping the tears from her face.
Each one ripped his chest open. The Phaedra watched, and he didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing him touch her, not after what he ordered Zayne to do.
No one got to think of Kira like that for any reason.
“Stay,” Kira said, voice hardly audible. “Just tonight, please.”
The same deep look filled her eyes as when she asked him to kiss her, only this time it was all pain.
His heart was broken, and for the first time in his life, he wasn't sure he could hold himself together.
As much as he wanted to comfort her, to simply be with her, he needed to protect her.
Now more than ever. But that same sentiment led his father to become the last thing Zayne wanted to be.
And he couldn't walk away from her when she looked at him like that.
“Okay.” The word came out far softer than he knew he could speak. He sat back against the wall, his arm resting on her bed. “I'll stay while you sleep.”
Kira’s touch eased over him, first the brush of her fingertips against his, her hand settling against his knuckles, sliding up to where a scar faintly lightened his wrist and hair no longer grew—almost too subtle to see.
No amount of time or distance could erase the memory of the shackles that stopped him from helping his men in the North.
“You can't stay forever,” she said. “I'll be alone.”
Dampness glistened against her slender neck and her collarbone. Glittered in her tortured stare.
She tugged his wrist toward her so gently that he thought it was in his head. Another pull, and he knew it wasn’t. He could give in, crawl into bed beside her and hold her again, feel her, soften the pain they both felt…
Why cover her in blood when they'd just gotten her clean? Zayne would never be rid of it, but she could be. Besides, it would make the Phaedra too happy.
“When I'm gone, find a place to go in your mind,” he said. “Just run there and shut everything out.”
“Where did you go when you were in the north?” The life was stripped from her raspy, hollow voice.
A deep, terrible moan clawed its way up from his depths.
He didn't release it, but he'd never be rid of it.
Back then, he hadn't had the strength to even scream.
Only to groan words they didn't want. The useless words that got his friends killed.
He blinked, trying to believe he wasn't still trapped in that room. That he was here with Kira.
“My mom's house.” Dangerous, guttural pain churned in his depths.
“I closed my eyes, and I heard her voice… I smelled the vanilla and the fire…” He could see it now.
Feel it. Kira closed her eyes, and they were back there together.
Back home with his mom. “I felt that heavy blanket she always draped over me when I slept.”
A little sob slipped from Kira. She curled, missing the home she'd grown to love, the mother who'd taken her in.
And it was the only mercy in his life that Kira cried too hard to see because it all hurt so terribly that Zayne couldn't hide it.
He clenched his jaw until his jowls shook to hold the pain at bay.
To keep his voice steady and his eyes clear.
He had to find a way to bring Mom home. She couldn't be gone.
“She'll never forgive me,” Kira said. “They're all dead because of me.”
“No.” Zayne shook his head and cleared his throat. “That's not your fault.”
“It is. I fooled myself into believing there was hope. I didn't do the one thing I could do.”
“None of this is your fault. None of it.” He pleaded with her to listen. “Hate me. Hate the Phaedra. Hate your mom. Hate anyone but yourself because you've done everything right.”
“I could have killed myself, and I didn't.” Dead eyes. Dead voice. Dead spirit. She was a wilted flower. Nothing like the woman who climbed buildings with him despite being terrified of heights. “I let all those people die because I wanted to live.”
“This isn't on you.” He bent, whispering, not sure if she'd hear such quiet words.
“I told you I would save you. I told you I would protect them.” The words were the most devastating injury he'd ever dealt himself, but they were true.
“I let this happen. Then I did this to you. I covered you in blood.” He gritted his teeth until it felt like his jaw would break.
He spoke louder now. “I can never earn your forgiveness. I'm sorry.”
Gentle fingers worked into his hair, kissing his scalp. The opposite of how the Phaedra's felt. “You didn't have a choice.”
“Don't, Kira.” He recoiled at the soft touch wandering through his hair.
“Please don't justify what I've done.” Zayne couldn't say more.
His mom was dead now because of him. He had all the power in the world, and he'd left these two to fight with no weapons.
This happened because of his failures, his cowardice, his stupidity.
Kira didn't even know. Wasn't allowed to know. “I chose all the wrong battles.”
When he sat up, the pain in her eyes silenced him.
He'd been so full of wrath against himself that he didn't even see it.
He didn't see that he was hurting her. Her wound ran so deep that one wrong brush might rip open the strands of flesh left holding her together.
One wayward strike from Zayne, and he'd take the last of what she had.
Kira whispered on a sob that destroyed him. “No more blood… Not even yours…”
He almost flattened his face to the ground and begged for forgiveness all over again. Instead, he shook his head, panic ripping open his chest. “No more.”
Zayne wanted to tell her that she had always been right, even when she hadn't said anything. He'd been doing this all wrong.
This time, he would give every single part of himself for one purpose. This time, he wouldn't fail.
Because before, when it was impossible to choose, Zayne made the decisions that led to his mom's death. He made decisions that were now leading to Kira's death.
Zayne had never been fighting for the power to destroy the Phaedra. He'd been fighting for the power to keep himself in submission until he realized that no one ever hurt the Phaedra inside his own house.
The Phaedra didn't fear the dissidence in Zayne because he bowed his knee, and he took his seals. And no matter what damage he caused toying around in the territories, he wore his allegiance etched into his body for the entire world to see.
That would never change like this.
One day, when Zayne took his father's place, he'd be just as powerless and useless as right now.
By then, he'd have sucked the life out of so many good people that there'd be nothing left to save, and he'd be too cruel to use any power for good.
The Phaedra would always own him, holding Kira's life over him.
Zayne couldn't fight the Phaedra from within the regime.
But he could save Kira.
If he focused only on her. If he made her his single purpose, Zayne could break her free from the Phaedra's prison and let her loose upon the revolution.
As for him, if he survived that, then he might begin to make himself useful. Until then, Zayne was the Phaedra's pawn. A pawn who got his own mother killed.
Though Zayne told Kira none of this, he made a silent promise to her, just like he had the first day they met.
He looked into her eyes, into all the good there—so much good that she couldn't see his bad—and he vowed to her with everything inside of himself to fight this war for her. Only for her until she was free.
He'd forge a path of escape for Kira where there was none. He'd force the United to provide them with a skilled pilot, no matter what it cost him. Or them.
Because the truth was, Zayne would abandon everything and everyone for Kira. He lacked the power to protect her in this empire, so fuck it.
Fuck it all.
He'd take her home himself, not to Ashantae, but all the way into the safety of Caspador, and he'd spend the rest of his life making sure no one touched her again. Standing at the Phaedra's side ended with his mother dead, and Kira covered in her blood.
Zayne was leaving Ciondo and never coming back.
He'd burn the empire down to save her.