Get Out
Iwake in the middle of the night to find Teorin in the corner of the room, awake, staring at me.
Sitting up is still too much effort. I turn my head toward him instead.
"Get the fuck out, Teorin."
He laughs. "No."
"Please."
"No."
He stands slowly and crosses to the bed and sits on the edge of it. Takes off his shirt. I stare at him with every ounce of fury I can produce, which is embarrassingly little given that I can barely turn my head.
"Get the fuck out. I don't want you in my bed. You are not—"
"I'm not trying to be your pathetic husband." His voice is flat. "The husband that let you get killed to begin with." He reaches over and takes my chin in his hand. "Every time I have left you alone. Every time you have been out of my sight. You have almost died, Ashen."
"Fuck you." My voice is hoarse. A tear runs down my face before I can stop it.
He takes his thumb and brushes it away. "Fuck you too."
"I don't want you in this bed."
"I am not letting you sleep here alone when you can barely move and when this castle is full of creatures that prefer human blood." He pulls the covers back. "Creatures who think they have free range now that their king is missing."
I go still. "Missing?"
"Sevrin. Whatever happened that night, Sevrin was also harmed. I do not know where he is or what his status is. Only that he is not dead."
I breathe out.
Teorin laughs. Bitter and low. "The man who treated you like shit from the moment you arrived.
You pine for him. Give him children. And his disturbed brother who starved you and locked you away, you're relieved he's alive.
" He looks at me. "But the man who has been there every single time, you hate. "
"That man is a liar."
"Maybe." He settles in beside me and I have no ability to stop him.
"Maybe, Ashen. I am a liar. I have done terrible things that make me unworthy of the dirt beneath your feet.
That is true." A pause. "But I am also something else entirely because of you.
I had the perfect window to take Rathmor.
All I had to do was let them bury you. Colsar would have been too distraught to fight. Sevrin is missing."
I say nothing.
"But instead I brought you here. I became regent to a kingdom where I am vulnerable.
Where I do not know a soul." His voice drops.
"There are creatures in this realm I have never heard of.
I do not understand why the humans are so obedient or why not a soul has questioned me sitting on this throne.
I do not understand any of it. And I hate it. It is a weakness I cannot afford."
He turns his head toward me. "Yet here I am. In Darkway Palace. I have given you pints of my blood. My marrow." A bitter laugh. "What else, Asharin? What else would convince you?"
"Convince me of what?" I say. "I am grateful for what you have done. You have always saved me and I know that. But you lied to me in a way that still hurts." I pause. "And the coin purse...that is something I cannot forgive."
"What coin purse?"
I sigh. Hating that this has become a conversation. Hating that I am in bed with someone I am too weak to push away. "Your sigil. Found on the coin used to pay the ones responsible for what happened in the mountain pass."
"What are you talking about?"
"I had to flee Alarna while eight months pregnant. On our way to Shalvar, someone gave us the wrong coordinates. It was not a safehouse. It was a trap. I was bitten. I went into labor. I almost died and so did my children."
Teorin goes pale. "What?"
I turn my head away. Tears are running down my face. The memory of it all pressing in at once. Not knowing if Colsar was alive, the woman who helped us being killed, Ari born not breathing. And then Colsar climbing into bed with me and the children afterward. The way he had looked at us.
I miss him. I miss all of them.
"I would never," Teorin says. He grabs my hand.
"Asharin. I would never do that. I am selfish, yes.
But why would I let you get killed? If anything your children's births would have benefitted me.
" His voice goes rough. "And you of all people should know I have no interest in seeing you die.
I had no knowledge you were even leaving Alarna. "
I say nothing.
"Then why was it your coin purse?"
He is quiet for a while.
Then, "Fuck."
"What?"
"Avaneer. I paid Avaneer for the ship. All of it was Avaneer."
"Avaneer? The one you said was responsible for the Thren attack?"
"Yes."
I searched my mind, but my head began to pound immediately. I could not remember anything that had happened the night I died.
I could remember The North Tower. King Orsin. All of it. And I desperately wanted to know if any part of it was real. Yet, some part of me knew that it was.
"Is Avaneer the one who killed me?"
"I don't know." His eyes narrow. "I don't know the answer to any of that."
He takes my hand again. I wish I had the strength to pull it back. The room feels blurry. "I need you to know that I would never harm you. Ever."
My eyes want to close. "You say that. But we both know you're a liar, Teorin."
He laughs softly. Reaches over and brushes a strand of hair from my face. "You are late," he murmurs.
His head moves closer to mine. Something in me is going numb. A familiar numbness I do not trust and cannot name.
"I am fond of you, Asharin."
"Teorin. No."
I try to move my head away. I reach for my lightcraft before remembering it does not work here.
His lips are almost touching mine. I bite down on his lower lip with everything I have and manage "Fuck off" though my voice is slow.
Slurred. The bite does not deter him. If anything there is more want in his eyes than before and a low sound rises from his throat.
He reaches for me again.
A knock at the door.
Dali enters. An amused look on her face. She takes in the scene and something darkens briefly in her expression before she recovers.
"Majesty," she says to Teorin. "There are rooms and rooms of humans downstairs for your eating pleasure. Please indulge yourself."
"I'm not hungry."
She smiles. "Oh but you are. Please do not tell me you believe that nonsense they tell you that feeders do not need blood to survive.”
She laughs. “To survive physically, perhaps. But mentally you will eventually deteriorate.” She looks at Teorin up and down. “Which is clearly the case with you.”
Teorin frowns. "I don't know or care what you're talking about."
"Perhaps you should. If you want to keep her safe." She nods toward me. "And if you want any chance of her ever allowing you in the same room as her again. Because what you almost just did, she would have killed you for it. Many women would have."
"What do you mean? What did I almost just do?" The look on his face is one of confusion which I find almost as unsettling as what he just attempted to do.
Dali laughs softly. "Teorin Rathmor. When is the last time you drank blood?"
He thinks for a minute. "That is none of your concern."
She tilts her head and laughed. “I bet you have only done it for pleasure. I bet you have never done a true feeding in your life.”
Teorin says nothing.
I lay there, still confused by what had just happened or almost happened and by the new information.
"That is what I thought." She gestures toward the door. "I need to speak to Asharin. Alone."
Teorin is a feeder.
Maridale was half herself and half a green woman who might have just saved me.
He looks like he might refuse. Then he gets up and walks out.
She turns to me.
"You cannot remain like this."
"Like what?"
"Like a fucking vegetable with breasts," she says, and laughs. "If word gets out of your presence and your weakened state, every creature in Morrath would love to get in line and have a turn with you, the Princess of Veynar. The Crown's obsession, as they call you."
"That is disgusting."
"That is reality," she says. The amusement in her voice does not reach her eyes.
She looks at the bed then asks, "May I sit down?"
"Yes," I answer, because I would rather have her here than Teorin and that familiar numbness I just experienced.