Chapter 10
Reis immediately regretted his words.
The fury vanished in a puff of air and left only horror behind.
He watched her stare at him. At first she looked confused. Then came understanding. Not of what he meant, but of what she thought he meant. The color drained from her face. Her silver eyes widened. Her hand covered the terror painted on her mouth.
Reis felt his stomach drop.
No.
Not fear.
Please, not fear.
"Mirielle—"
She flinched as though he had struck her. He winced at the sight of it.
Her eyes shimmered. Then they cracked, like the surface of an icy lake succumbing to a heavy wave.
Wet tears surfaced at the edges, pooling over her eyelashes and streaming down her face as she slipped away from him.
The beautiful hope that lit them to a polished silver this last week dimmed to dull grey.
The fragile, hopeful thing she had allowed herself to show him, now faded and gone.
Reis had seen villages burn. He had watched men die. Neither unsettled him as much as watching Mirielle lose that light again.
"Princess—"
Heavy tremors wracked her body as tears spilled down her face.
She crumpled to her knees and he watched her face contort in pain.
Her gasping cries pierced the shack. Reis felt his limbs go numb as her cries reverberated through his bones.
Only moments ago she had been looking at him with relief—relief born from the fragile trust he had spent the last week building.
Now she couldn't.
"I'm sorry," she whispered through shaking sobs.
The apology carved something from him. He stood there for a moment, stunned by his own cruelty.
The thrill of battle had melted his core into something twisted and unrecognizable.
When he saw her tracks in the woods and heard her scream, he thought he might lose her.
His fear twisted into anger and he had directed it at her.
"I..." The words that formed in his throat were locked away by his own body.
He had no excuse. He had been thinking about stone walls, about a kingdom that had taught her to run and hide, the men that harmed her, about a cousin who had sold her hand like livestock.
All the things that robbed her of her ability to trust and made her run from him.
But he knew exactly what Ambersaith held for her.
Her only home, he knew there were people there that she cared about. He had threatened every single one of them, everything that Mirielle held precious, everything she loved was in those walls.
Regret filled his chest like leaded sand. She ran from him because she thought him a monster and now he had gone and proved it with certain clarity.
And now she had to marry him.
What he hated more was what he had to do next.
He sheathed his sword. Then slowly, carefully, Reis stepped forward.
Mirielle visibly braced.
Self-disgust raked its claws through his chest. More slowly, he bent and lifted Mirielle into his arms. He carried her from the shed and the gore within.
She shook so violently he could feel it in his teeth.
Her shoulders had slumped in that way she did when she tried to make herself smaller, her body collapsing in on itself as if she could disappear.
He carried her to the edge of the stream and carefully settled her down on the rocky shore.
She didn't move from that spot, probably too afraid of what he would do if she did.
She only sat as shivers wracked her body, her arms crossed against her stomach.
The moonlight glinted on the tears that fell endlessly down her face.
Reis waded into the icy water and ducked his head underwater. Red unfurled from him in thin ribbons, staining the water pink. He rose from the river, scrubbed his hair and ducked again. The stream seeped into his armor, moving through the cracks, freezing his skin.
Water streamed from his hair and clothing. He tore a strip from the bottom of his shirt with violent force. He plunged it into the water and scrubbed it vigorously as if he could cleanse it of something deeper than blood.
Then he walked up the shore and crouched in front of Mirielle. She sat unmoving where he had left her, arms braced over her stomach, her dark hair hiding the tears slipping silently down her face.
She wouldn't look at him. Her eyes were fixed on the gravel below her.
Reis reached for her carefully. The cold wet cloth brushed against her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” he confessed quietly. Another pass across her skin. “I’m sorry.” Again. “I’m sorry.” The cloth cooled her reddened cheeks.
Mirielle didn't move away from him, but she stiffened with each touch. It was as if she had retreated somewhere deep inside herself to a place she could hide while the world did whatever it wished to her.
Her tears continued falling to her wrists and skirt like dying stars falling from the night sky.
Reis lifted Mirielle onto Hank's back and they rode in solemn silence back to camp. Tears fell down her face the whole way, leaking her soul into Hank's black fur.
*
Reis left Mirielle on Hank nearby while he struck camp, not wanting to subject her to the gruesome horrors again.
They traveled upstream for several hours before they dipped back into the treeline.
The stream swallowed their tracks. Its gentle murmur followed them through the sleeping woods as they traversed its silted banks.
He found a site on a small hill tucked against a ridgeline.
An offshoot of the creek ran just below it.
By the time they had moved to the new site, Mirielle had retreated far into herself. Her eyes held a vacant expression as if the act of crying had leaked something vital from her.
Reis gave Mirielle his bedroll again. He carried her from Hank's back onto the pile of wool and fur. She neither protested nor thanked him. She simply folded into the blankets and stared at nothing.
Reis set about making camp. He set the horses to graze in the nearby field. Then he gathered firewood, checked the forest, built a fire. They were simple, necessary tasks. Tasks that kept his hands busy while his thoughts tried to tear him apart.
Mirielle sat with a dazed expression, her mind somewhere in a far-off place. Then, after a long while, she rose. She grabbed a pile of clean clothes from her pack and walked to the river's edge.
Reis watched her. Something in her movements felt all wrong.
Then she started stripping.
He went completely still.
She tore her clothes off in frantic, jerky movements, pulling fabric over bruised skin with trembling, desperate hands as though she could not get them off fast enough.
Reis’s chest constricted violently as he realized what she was about to do.
She waded into the river. It was snow-fed, cold enough to make most men curse.
Mirielle didn't seem to notice. She tore fistfuls of river grass from the banks and rubbed them hard against her skin with frantic force.
Her shoulders. Her arms. Her stomach. Her chest. Again and again until angry red streaks bloomed across her skin.
She was trying to remove what had happened, trying to scrape the memory from her own body.
A broken sound escaped her throat. She scrubbed harder.
Reis watched her in silent penance. He was angry at himself for not seeing it all coming.
The signs were all there. She was a virgin to battle, a woman who flinched at hands, a woman who was covered in injuries from other men.
What would keep her there? How could she not run?
Trust? Not a chance. He was the Blood King.
He knew the rumors. The butcher mothers warned their children about.
The warnings that had built piece by piece while he failed to see it. Failed to stop it. Failed her.
And what she had seen was a side of himself he never wanted her to see. He knew what he was like in battle—unhinged, feral, ravenous for blood. He was known for it. He had fought without mercy, and he had allowed himself to drown in it.
And when that piece of shit pulled her from her bed, he had lost all restraint. Something in him came undone and all he wanted to do was break him apart. He relished in destroying him from the inside, crushing his organs and bleeding him dry.
And now he had lost her trust entirely. Anything that was there, he had thoroughly destroyed. Now all he could do was watch her tear herself apart.
He stood watching her helplessly, in punishment for his cruelty. Every sharp breath she drew, every desperate motion carved into him.
And then she stopped. She emerged from the water shivering from the cold and began hastily putting on her clean clothes. She returned to the bedrolls and began wrapping herself in furs.
Reis made her weed tea again. Mirielle accepted the cup and drank quietly. He watched her shivers ease as her body warmed through.
Reis gathered firewood and added it to the fire. It flared with generous heat.
Then he burned her clothes.
Then he went for the rope.
He grabbed it from a pack off Maisey and then slowly walked over to her as though approaching a wounded animal already taught to fear hands.
He crouched down next to her.
"I can't let you run again." His voice was soft and full of apology. "And I need sleep."
Mirielle looked at him with those hollow grey eyes for a long silent moment. Then quietly, obediently, she lowered her gaze and held out her wrists.
It fractured him.
Gods.
Not even argument. Not anger. Just obedience. As though being restrained was the natural consequence of disappointing someone.
He hated this side of her. It feasted on her softness and turned it into submission. He hated the people who had done this to her and now he hated himself for making her use it.
He bound her wrists and then her ankles in silence, taking great care to ensure the rope wouldn’t bite painfully into her skin while she slept.
"Your bedroll," she reminded him. Her soft voice held a hollowness to it.
He regarded her with heavy sadness for a moment. He deserved none of her kindness. "No,” he said quietly, but the word cracked apart halfway through.
Before she could see the devastation threatening to surface on his face, he stood abruptly and retreated to the other side of the fire.
There he sat alone beneath the dark trees, staring into the flames while guilt hollowed him out from the inside.