Chapter 7 Resolve
Resolve
The words did not leave me.
Not something he survives pressed inward, deeper than everything else he has said, making it difficult to separate from the rest of what is happening. He watches me as though silence is something he can bend if he waits long enough, but there is nothing in me that will move toward him.
“We’re leaving.”
“No.” The answer comes immediately. “I’m not going with you.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“I always have a choice.” My voice rises before I can temper it. “I’m not getting on your ship.”
His expression does not change. “You are.”
“No.”
He steps toward me. I move back too quickly, my hand catching the edge of the bed to keep myself upright. The floor does not respond the way I expect, the motion of the ship out of sync with my body. It takes more effort than it should to hold my balance. “Don’t touch me.”
“I’m not asking you again.”
“I said no.”
He reaches for me anyway. "There is no time for this, Asharin."
I twist away, but I am too slow. His hand closes around my arm, firm enough that I feel it immediately, and I pull against him, forcing my weight back even as the room drags sideways beneath me.
“Let go of me.” My voice is louder now, carrying across the space between us. “Teorin, let go of me.”
“No.”
I push at him with both hands, my palms striking his chest, trying to force space between us, but there is nothing behind it. He shifts his hold without effort, one arm coming behind my back, the other beneath my knees, lifting me before I can brace.
“No—put me down.” I kick against him, my heel striking his leg, my hands pushing at his shoulders, trying to break free. “Put me down. Do you hear me?”
“We don’t have time for this," he repeats.
“You don’t get to decide that.” The words come faster now, pulled tight with something I cannot hold back. “You don’t get to decide anything for me.”
“I already have.”
The door opens and cold air cuts through the room, sharp with salt. The ship moves differently beneath us, the rhythm off in a way I feel immediately.
We are already moving.
I keep fighting him, twisting in his arms, pushing, trying to disrupt his balance, but he holds me easily, his pace unchanged as he carries me through the corridor.
A few people glance up, drawn by the sound of my voice, then look away again as though they have already decided not to involve themselves.
When we reach the deck, the wind hits hard enough to steal what little breath I have left. The sea has turned rough, waves striking the hull with a force that runs through me where he holds me.
Another ship moves alongside.
It rises higher than Eravic’s, darker, the wood nearly black beneath the lantern light. The glow catches along the wet boards and the ropes, leaving everything slick and shadowed. Men stand along the rail, watching.
“No.” The word tears out of me. “No, I’m not getting on that ship.”
He steps onto the plank.
“Teorin, don’t—” I twist again, harder now, even as my strength fails to follow through. “Put me down. Put me down.” I am no longer trying to hide the panic in my voice.
“No.” His voice remains unchanged.
On the other side, a man stands waiting. I recognize him after a moment, not from any direct conversation but from seeing him standing on the docks with Eravic and Junis. He clearly worked for House Vaelor. Perhaps he would help.
“Torphasyn.” My voice comes uneven. “You’re sailing this ship?”
“Yes." His voice is cold, irritated. His expression makes it clear he finds both me and the scene I’m making a nuisance.
“I’m not getting on it.” I look at him, forcing the words out with what remains of my strength. “I’m not going on this ship.”
He does not answer. He looks at Teorin instead. “Vaelor said she must be kept safe,” he says. “Do what you think is necessary.”
The word hits harder than anything else.
Necessary.
I know what that means.
“I said no.” I push against Teorin again, weaker now, my hands slipping against his coat. “I said no. Are you not hearing me?”
No one answers.
He steps fully onto the deck and continues forward.
I keep fighting him anyway, twisting, pushing, trying to force him to lose his grip, but he holds me without effort, carrying me across the deck as though my resistance is nothing more than movement to account for. The men step aside without a word.
He carries me through the nearest door and into the interior of the ship. The air changes at once, warmer and heavier, the scent of oil and leather lingering along the back of my throat. The corridor is tighter than the one we left, the light dimmer, the space closing in without effort.
“Teorin, stop.” My voice comes faster now, urgency breaking through everything else. “Stop. Put me down. I’m not doing this.”
He does not stop.
The door opens.
He sets me down inside.
My feet hit the floor unevenly and I catch myself against the bed, the room swaying briefly before leveling out again.
“No.” The word comes out again, immediate. “No, I’m not staying in here.”
He closes the door.
The sound carries more weight than it should.
Panic rises, breaking through whatever control I had left. “This is not happening.” I push away from the bed, moving toward him, toward the door. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to decide where I go. You don’t get to just take me and lock me in a room like this.”
“Asharin." His tone is as though he is trying to sound bored. There is something else underneath it.
“No.” My voice lifts again. “No, I said no. I have said no this entire time and you do not get to ignore that because it is inconvenient for you.”
He stands a few feet away, watching me.
There is nothing in him that suggests he is going to stop.
“You carried me here when I said no.” The words come faster, anger cutting through the panic. “You put me on your ship when I said no. And now you’re going to keep me here until I stop fighting you?”
“This is to keep you alive.”
“Fuck you, Teorin.” I say his name like it is poison. “Don’t pretend this is anything else. You need me alive so the Threns can win their war.”
A brief change touches his expression, gone before I can make sense of it.
“I am not part of your war.”
“You already are.”
“No.” I shake my head, the movement unsteady but certain. “You made that decision. Not me.”
He says nothing.
And suddenly the anger intensifies into something else, something colder, something that sinks deeper than anything I have felt since he first spoke. I should never have left Veynar.
Sevrin had disappointed me. He had broken whatever I thought I understood about him in the end.
But he had never pretended to be something he wasn’t.
He had never stood in front of me and lied with this kind of precision, never made me believe something that wasn’t there just to pull it away when it suited him.
I had seen what Sevrin was from the beginning. In a twisted way, I had understood what he was. I had chosen to walk away from that, admittedly because I had come to trust Arven. Teorin. And I had walked straight into this. A fucking trap.
“You don’t get to do this,” I say again, quieter now but no less certain. “You don’t get to decide where I go.”
He moves toward the chair.
I saw it too late. “No.” I step back immediately. “No, you are not doing that. I am not sitting in that chair.”
“Asharin.”
“No.” I keep moving until there is nowhere left to go. “I’m not doing this.”
“You’ve already shown me what you will do if I don’t restrain you.”
“I said no.”
His jaw tightens, then his power moves. It closes around me before I can react, holding me in place, cutting off movement in a way that leaves me straining against something I cannot touch.
“Let go of me.” I fight it anyway, my body pushing against it, my breath coming faster as I try to force it to give. “Teorin, let go of me.”
“You’re not well.”
“I don’t care.” The words come out raw now. “I don’t care. Let me go.”
“No.”
“You lied to me.” My voice breaks. I cannot hide the pain of his betrayal. Stupid, stupid, stupid to think that someone like him was capable of caring about me.
He does not respond. He guides me forward, my body moving whether I want it to or not, and presses me into the chair. The cloth tightens around my wrists before I can stop him, his hands working quickly, securing it in place.
I feel sick. Sevrin locked me in rooms. Now Teorin ties me to a chair.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The difference was that, with Sevrin, I had believed good behavior would earn me something. Time. Privilege. Enough to hold out until Colsar returned. It earned me nothing.
Now, I was done being good. But this time, it wasn’t will I lacked. It was strength. By the time I pull, it already holds. “You’re unbelievable.” My voice drops, lower now, the anger still there but dragged through something heavier. “You think this is going to make me cooperate?”
“If I thought there was another way to keep you alive, I would take it.”
“You mean contained.”
“I mean alive.”
“Same thing.”
He does not argue. Instead he turns toward the door.
“You can force me onto your ship,” I say, quieter now, the words more controlled. “You can tie me to a chair and tell yourself this is necessary. You can shut me in here and pretend this is protection.”
He pauses with his hand on the door.
“But I am not going to help you win your war.”
He remains at the door, his hand resting against it, and then he leaves without looking back. The door closes behind him, and the space he occupied gives way to the low, constant movement of the ship, the rhythm of it carrying through the floor and into my body.
I test the restraint once, more out of instinct than expectation, but it holds. The strain settles gradually into my shoulders, the tension building as the minutes pass, my hands losing feeling where they are bound.
My leg did not hurt anymore. I do not know why it comes to mind or what it matters in this moment. But at least my leg does not hurt. Because everything else certainly does. My body, my feelings, my pride.
After a while, I lower my head and turn inward, searching for something that refuses to come into focus. There is something there, but it is faint, too distant to hold onto with certainty.
I sit back and close my eyes.
If the child is gone, then there is nothing left for anyone to use against me.
I fight back tears, wishing for Colsar, yet questioning whether Teorin was right...what if he did not come?
What if he had forgotten me?
My thoughts drift back to the words Brinette had told me.
That Jessamy, the woman from his past, had returned to Shalvar after the ball.
That Jessamy was a beast of some kind, like him.
He had gone to Shalvar borders to fight the undead, perhaps he had decided to return there.
Perhaps he had decided they were more compatible.
I try to shake off the thought. Focus on what you can control.
I cannot change any of it. I cannot make Colsar appear. I cannot make Teorin be reasonable. I cannot make my child live.
When I open my eyes again, the panic has burned itself out, leaving something colder in its place.
Resolve.