Chapter 20 #2
“The real pain came the next day when I went to a part of the mountain where I could see the sunrise. Rarely was the sky anything but gray, but some mornings I would get lucky and see a sliver of orange. I was just about to leave when I noticed a man hiding behind one of the rocks. I managed to fight him off and hold him at knife point, which is when he admitted to being hired by my father to kill me.”
Her mouth fell open. “Oh, gods.”
“The stiv was impressed with my fighting skills and offered to train me. After I killed my parents, I left the Points and became his apprentice, of sorts. He was the king’s executioner at the time, and he took me with him when he received names on his stone.
He spent a decade teaching me how to kill with stealth and precision. ”
“At seven years old you left your home and trained to become a killer? That’s . . .” She shook her head; there were no words for what that was.
He gave her a half smile. “It saved my life. If not for him, my father would have just found another way to humiliate me before trying to kill me again. I owe that man everything.”
He spoke with admiration for the stiv who had trained a child to become a master of death, as if sparing a boy was an act of kindness on a grown man’s part and not a show of guilt.
“So, this man took you under his wing,” she said.
He nodded. “He taught me how to use seidr weapons, how to spar with them, how to kill discreetly, how to build a fire and cook over a flame. I stuck with him until I was seventeen.”
“What happened when you were seventeen?” she asked.
“He died.”
She pictured a young Vade once again all alone in the world. Her heart ached for who he used to be and how much it must have hurt to lose the only person who’d ever watched out for him. “He must have meant a lot to you. I’m sorry you lost him.”
“Don’t be,” he said.
“Why not?”
His eyes held onto hers for a long moment. “Because I’m the one that killed him.”
“What? Why?”
“Because no one who takes a job to kill a child should be allowed to live.”
Orelia remembered their time in the river when she’d mocked him for doing just that. His reaction made perfect sense now.
“I killed him, then took his place working for Aradonis. I never regretted what I did, and that’s probably because there isn’t any good in me.
I didn’t feel an ounce of sorrow for the man who had practically raised me, not even as I plunged my dagger into his heart.
” His next words came out soft. “I truly am the monster you call me.”
She placed her hand over his heart, no longer worried about making his walls go back up. He needed to hear her. “Look at me, Vade.”
Slowly, he did.
“You have good in you. I’ve seen it. You saved me from the Freebeasts and got me out of The Pony.
You’ve kept me alive when I would have surely been dead on my own.
Yes, there are dark parts of you that I don’t understand, and sometimes you infuriate me so much that I want to scream, but there is good in you. ”
The look on his face gutted her. Cracks spread through his rough exterior, revealing a man who truly believed he wasn’t worth anything. “I’m broken, Orelia. I’m not worth putting back together.”
When she cupped his cheek, his lips parted. “You’re not broken, Vade. Fractured, maybe. But not broken.”
His eyes flitted between hers before he rolled away from her touch and went back to staring at the ceiling. “You’re wrong.”
“Vade—”
“Get some sleep. We’ll be in Dorsey tomorrow, and we can finally be free of one another.”
Orelia watched him for a few moments, but he never looked at her. Hearing how much he still couldn’t wait to be rid of her formed a crack in her own facade. His walls had gone back up, and she wasn’t sure they’d ever come down again.
She wished he’d talk to her more, but Vade turned his back to her, and she got the message. Orelia wanted to heal him. To heal his physical wounds and his emotional ones. She traced the outline of him with her eyes, watching his side slowly rise and fall as he drifted off to sleep.
She wasn’t sure how long she stared at him, wanting to reach out. Wanting to do something other than just lie there. But eventually, the exhaustion of the day caught up to her and pulled the witch into a deep, dreamless sleep.
She awoke to Vade trembling like he was lying on ice. He had slid down the bed, head resting on her chest with an arm wrapped around her so tight that she was afraid to move for fear of waking him. He mumbled something onto her skin, legs tangled in hers.
Ever so slowly, Orelia draped her arm around his back and held him to her.
He continued mumbling incoherent words, his muscles twitching occasionally. She’d never seen him have a nightmare in all the time they’d spent in the woods, and feeling him shake tugged at her heart strings. Orelia gently ran her fingers through the length of his hair.
“Please . . .don’t,” he mumbled.
She lightly scraped her nails against his scalp with one hand and swept her thumb across his back with the other, offering him what little comfort she could.
Orelia wondered if he was dreaming about being thrown from the mountain.
She pictured a young Vade, frozen and abandoned by the people who were supposed to care for him most.
She hugged him tighter, and he began to soften in her arms. When she slid her fingers through his hair again, he moaned.
There was so much to Vade and his past that she didn’t know and never would.
Come tomorrow, they’d reach Dorsey, then go their separate ways.
The mysterious Myrker from the mountains would go back to following the names on his stone, and she would go back to her life in Minro and beg Beron for her job back.
Vade had given her enough coin to secure passage home, but the thought of going to Ricaboro tempted her like honey on warm bread.
Surely, she could find work there in a tavern, or another brothel as a healer, perhaps.
Or maybe she could try growing a garden and selling her food on the main street next to the witch who’d sold her the necklace she had yet to take off.
Orelia was torn from her thoughts when Vade’s lips brushed her chest just above the neckline of her chemise.
He whispered what she swore was her name.
His body had relaxed, but he kept his arm draped over her waist. She went back to trailing her fingers in his hair, and he nuzzled her neck, sidling up to her.
With a careful touch, she snuck her hand under his shirt, thankful he was lying on his right side. She placed her palm on his ribs and let her light come to fruition as she healed his ribs. When she was through, she held him tight, enjoying his warmth.
Her sleepy smile grew, knowing if he were to wake, he’d surely shoot out of bed and chastise her for healing him, let alone getting so close to him. Orelia’s heart swelled when her whispered name slipped out of his mouth for only her to hear.