Chapter 7 Jasmine
For the first time in days, I slept.
Not for long, not deeply, but it was something. Something I couldn’t ignore because only a few things had changed: re-entering the Dark Realm and… seeing Kane.
Even if it was just briefly, it must’ve… done something.
I showered too, but dressed in the same clothes as yesterday. Tied my hair back up into another bun. Still didn’t look in the mirror, or face the glass walls of the atrium either.
Before I fell asleep, I’d tried to plan. I rehearsed questions in my head, built neat little bullet points of everything I wanted to know.
Ezekial said I could ask questions, so I would—I will.
But all thoughts, all those carefully planned questions, eviscerate when I feel him arrive.
“They’re here,” Kacey murmurs beside me.
Of course, she doesn’t know I already knew that, because I can feel him. She doesn’t know about the slow sliver of cold tracing down my spine like careful fingertips. She doesn’t know how hard it is for me to keep staring at the plant in my hands when all I want is to just see him.
When I do look up, it’s to watch Kacey as she moves away from me—albeit only a few steps, but she’s done it on her own.
I’m proud of her for that.
“Kacey,” Amon says in a soft rumble.
I seek him out, his beaming grin filling his entire face, the warmth he emits surrounding him in a soft mist of heat. Kacey doesn’t say anything, but the colour in her cheeks blooms as she nervously toys with her gloved fingers.
Go on, be brave, Kace.
Just when I think she’s about to say something, she turns sharply, muttering under her breath about the foxes, and rushes away.
Amon glances at me, his amber gaze darting to Kacey’s leaving form. I feel his uncertainty brew—he’s worried, concerned he’ll push her away.
I shake my head, and his brows furrow, so I tilt my head in Kacey’s direction, twice, indicating he should definitely follow. He smiles again and eagerly chases after her in quick, powerful strides.
And again, just like yesterday, it’s just me and him.
Questions. That’s right. I’m going to ask him questions. Ask him so many that he’ll despise me even more, won’t even be able to stand in this atrium without getting PTSD from the type of personal, invasive, destructive questions I’m going to throw his way—
“Please, don’t ask me to go to the Dark Realm.”
What?
My brows scrunch tightly together. I bite my lip, patting the soil beneath my fingertips a little too hard.
Why… why did he say that?
No. I shake away the strand of hair that falls over my eye. No, that’s not the question I want to ask. That’s not personal enough. That won’t have him glaring at me with those dark eyes that never end.
But…
I remove my fingers from the soil.
But I want to know.
“Why?” I swallow, then clear my throat because I need to sound stronger. Firmer. “Why did you ask me that?”
I’m ready for the avoidance, for the silence that Kane was always so fond of creating, the vacuum he forms with single words and darkness.
“I was trapped there.”
Trapped?
But he controls the dark? How could he be trapped in the thing he controlled? My lips part, ready to ask, I lift my gaze and—
What the fuck.
What the fuck has happened to him?
My heart pounds as a deep anger spears into my chest, my blood boils, the room flickers from light to greyscale in seconds.
“What happened? Who did this to you?” I’m walking towards him before I can even stop myself, his form changing from solid and bold to a blurry silhouette as I try to shake my head clear.
But the closer I am, the worse it gets.
His caramel skin is laced in dark grey lines. Harsh, jagged shapes that plague his entire body, dipping beneath the collar of his shirt, marking his cheeks, unpleasantly outlining all his sharp, hard angles.
And his gaze… that bone-chilling, penetrating, all-consuming stare flickers all over my face… warily. Noting all my features, tracing the edge of my jaw, searching my eyes.
“When you suggested I went,” he says. “I couldn’t refuse.”
“I—I did this?”
I feel sick. Dizzy.
The colours bleed from the room again, and Kane becomes nothing more than a shadow.
We can help him.
But we did this!
No. They did this.
I’ve hurt him. I’ve—
He appears in the realm before me, and those grey lines marking his skin instantly darken.
“What—what are you doing? You can’t be here!” I shout, frantically watching the lines as they grow thicker. “You need to leave!”
“I need to… be with… you,” he pants, shoulders bunching, breaths ragged.
I watch him, eyes wide, utterly terrified.
This was his realm—why was it doing this to him?
“Let’s go, right now.” I clap my hands, like that will spur him into action. It doesn’t. “Come on, Kane. You need to leave, now.”
“I… I’m s-sorry… I—”
“No. Nope. You’re not apologising here. Not right now! Not like this!”
The lines grow. He falls to his knees. He’s… he’s in pain.
The sensation floods me, overwhelms all my self-preservation, all my burning hatred. All I feel and think and taste is his pain.
He’s in pain.
I reach out, my fingers gripping his shoulder—an action I’ve watched them all do to one another, time and time again. “We’re leaving, now.”
And we do.
Light spears into the darkness, shattering and fracturing the realm within, blinding me with the suddenness at which it does. Pieces of the dark break away, then fall, like ashy specks of dust, until the light consumes them too.
I’m still touching Kane, gripping his shoulder desperately, even after all remnants of darkness have gone. I need to make sure he’s here with me, that we’ve completely emerged.
He’s still on his knees.
Why is he still on his knees?
“Can you stand?” I murmur, and he flinches.
Did I… was that me? Did I cause him to flinch?
I stare down at my hand—at my fingers coated in darkness. Am I hurting him?
I instantly recoil, stepping back as I stare at both hands.
We’re healing him.
Healing him? He’s on his knees? I can feel his pain!
Touch him. Help him.
Kane still hasn’t spoken, eyes on the ground, hands on his thighs, grasping at nothing. I glance back at my fingers, at the inky tips already turning a lighter grey.
Was I… taking his darkness?
I kneel, almost touching his knees with mine, and place both hands on top of his.
He tries to look up, the tendons in his neck straining, but he doesn’t manage it. I concentrate, staring at my hands, my fingers, the darkness coating them, willing them to take, remove, heal.
Heal him.
My fingers begin to burn, darkness seeping in from the very tips before slowly sliding down, bit by bit, until my veins darken into inky blue. The coolness is instant, delving into me and threading through my body.
There’s pain but there’s also… comfort. Peace.
My eyes close as I remember the first time Kane ever touched me. The cold calm it brought, the silence. I’d never felt anything like it.
“Stop.” The word pulses through my head—rough, pained, and his.
I jerk my gaze up, my eyes locking with his.
Dark, but not entirely. There’s a crack, something lighter trying to pierce through.
And his voice, hearing it inside my mind…. after so long, it felt—
“Stop, Jasmine.”
But why? This is working. The black lines marking his skin are turning grey, the jagged edges smoothing.
“But this is helping. I’m helping you—”
“No more. You’re hurting yourself.”
He lies. Keep touching him—
“Don’t listen to it,” he urges, the pure black of his eyes igniting with more flickers of grey. “You’ve done enough. Stop. Please.”
Cold fingers land on my face.
I don’t know when he moved his hand. But I feel it—goddesses, I feel it—and worse than that… I lean into it. I push my cheek into his touch like I’ve been starving for it.
I relish it.
His other hand slips from beneath mine, and then—so slowly, his fingers leave my skin.
No.
The break from contact shocks me. The pleasant chill he brought disappears, too much heat rushing in its place, and the blissful fog shatters.
I stand too fast, stumbling slightly, and walk away from him.
What did I just do?
What happened to asking questions? What happened to hating him?
Why did I touch him? Why did I let him touch me?
Why did it feel like I needed it?
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say.
I no longer want to ask questions. No, I just want to remain in this awkward silence, trick my mind with mundane tasks, pretend he’s not even here. Like he’s not slowly standing. Like he’s not coming closer.
For the love of the Goddesses, why is he coming over here?
I watch his feet, clad in smart black shoes, as they come to a stop at the other side of the planting table.
“Thank you.”
Did… did Kane just thank me?
An apology and a thank you in one hour?
I frown down at the small plant, the one I’d left precariously hanging halfway out the pot when I rushed to him.
Maybe if I don’t look at him, he’ll just leave. Maybe this pleasant, numbing, soothing sensation will just disappear. Maybe then I can go back to hating him, renew my building rage and direct it all at him another day.
“The dark has been… difficult lately.”
Is Kane trying to start a conversation? It sounds like he’s offering a comment on the weather.
“I thought you controlled it.” I stand the pot upright and begin gently replanting it.
“I do,” he answers immediately. It gives me no time to think. “But so do you.”
I look at him, I can’t help it. I can’t understand why he’s being so… open. So easy. Why he’s revealing these things like it’s simple, like they’re not life-changing pieces of information.
“I do?”
He nods once, his eyes never leaving mine, even when I peer away for a brief second.
“Yes. Yesterday, when you suggested I leave to the dark, it obeyed,” he says tightly, as though each word risks revealing more than he wants to. “My darkness was desperate to comply. But once I was there, it wouldn’t let me leave. It was waiting for you to release me.”
My mouth parts and a stabbing ache begins in my chest at the thought. “I didn’t mean—I didn’t know—”
“I know,” he assures me, the grey in his eyes re-emerging. “It realised, eventually. The dark knew if it kept me there, I’d never… It would never…” He trails off, his gaze peering away.
I’m so desperate for him to continue, I’m leaning towards him, only slightly.
“Never?” I repeat.
His eyes lock with mine again. “It knew I would never see you again if I stayed. That was the only reason I could leave.”
Stab me in the heart with a dagger. Drag me over broken glass. Burn me with acid. Because that was the only way I could ever feel more pain than right now.
His dark brows furrow. “I’m not telling you this to make you feel bad.”
“I know,” I say, my voice barely a whisper. “You’re telling me the truth, like Ezekial said you would.”
Kane looks so… concerned. A rare expression, one I need to memorise because I’m not certain I’ll ever see it again. The sad furrow of his brow, his eyes wide and soft, the swirls of ash in his obsidian stare.
“You haven’t been eating.” His statement is sudden, yet so quiet, so gentle—like he’s terrified to say it, terrified of my reaction.
I wet my lips, stare down at the plant. “I haven’t been very hungry.”
“That’s the darkness,” he explains. I feel his gaze tracking my fingers as I grab a bigger pot. “It quells your basic needs, like hunger and rest. The more power you gain, the less you eat.”
I freeze, my fingers hovering over a new plant. “I’m fine.”
“No, you need to eat.”
I glare up at him. “You never eat, why do you think you can demand it of me?”
“Because I don’t need to eat.” My brows furrow, a silent expression of confusion. Kane sees it, and somehow, he keeps his face perfectly blank as he says, “I’m immortal.”
What the fuck. We really are just telling the truth.
My mouth pops open again and I swear I see the slightest twitch of his lip. “What?”
He frowns. “I’m—”
“No, no.” I shake my head. “I understood, I understand what that means I’m—I’m just in disbelief that you said it like that.”
“How was I meant to say it?” He tilts his head.
“I really have no idea,” I say, half-laughing, completely disbelieving. “You…” I shake my head again. “I had all these questions prepared and you’ve just thrown that out there. I was never even going to ask… never even thought… wait.” I peer up at him. “Is it just… Is… Are you all immortal?”
He cants his head the other way. “How would you like me to answer that?”
So that means yes.
I stare at him, and then new questions burst into my mind. How long had they been immortal? How did it happen? Were they born that way? Did they become it? Was it because of the dark?
“You live… forever?” I search his face.
“Seems so.”
Seems so. What a casual response to such a momentous question.
“Wow. And that means you don’t need to eat?”
“No. But other things happen to us when we don’t fulfil our… basic needs.”
“Okay, right. So, I need to eat because I’m not...” I can’t finish the sentence, but he knows what I’m asking.
His gaze softens. “No, you’re not.”
I sigh in relief.
“Yet.”
I pause. Wait to see if he wants to add anything else, throw in some extra life-altering facts while he’s at it. All the while, I just stare at him and try to pretend that this isn’t the craziest fucking thing I’ve ever been told.
I’m not immortal—yet.
He continues studying my expression, waiting for me to respond, but how do I respond to that? I can’t even think.
So I don’t.
I grab my little pot, turn, and walk away without another word.