Chapter 19 #2
“I couldn’t reach you earlier. I’m sure it’s just being here. Being forced to do whatever I just did.”
Clare removes her contact with Ten, and he sits to inspect the wound. It’s still red and angry, his skin puckering around the cut.
“You should have stayed in Kirrasia to train instead of running off,” Crimson snaps.
“Hey, they’re helping us,” I argue back at her.
“The bone is set wrong. I’ve had numerous breaks growing up, and none of them felt like this after they were mended. Perrin would never have done such a poor job.”
“Perrin isn’t here. It’s done, Crim.” Ten shuts her down. “Now, heal her.” He nods to my shoulder, where the blood has stopped seeping.
Clare looks straight ahead and makes no eye contact before she reaches and puts her palm over the wound.
As soon as she does, I realise what the other two meant. It’s not the gentle hum and tug that you felt when Perrin healed you. It’s painful, as if she’s pulling the skin out of shape to close it together. It feels unnatural. Forced.
“No.” I stop them. “It’s fine. It’s just a scratch.” Still, Clare doesn’t make eye contact. And the three of them—a Triune of sorts, I guess—leave us. They retreat and vanish into the woods around the training ring, and for a moment, I could be fooled into believing we’ve been left alone.
“Ever, you’re hurt.” Ten reaches for me.
“It’s nothing.” I duck out of his reach, not wanting to cause any reaction that neither of us can shield or protect against. I’m not strong enough to keep my eyes away from his, though.
That’s a step beyond my restraint, and I happily drink in the familiar deep brown that’s always been a source of comfort.
He steps closer, and I lift my head to keep our gaze locked together.
“What I’d give to be alone with you right now, Little Siren.”
I smile beside myself, and feel a rush of heat at his words, even after everything we’ve just been through.
My mind drifts to the waterfall—The Opal Falls, where we first kissed, before everything started to unravel. And I see it in his eyes, too. The longing to be just us, to be safe, and have time for ourselves.
The spark that’s always been there helps kindle the rage and burning glow of my anger, which is fast replacing the cooling and calm well of water at my centre.
“If you two have finished,” Crimson interrupts, “there’s nobody here. We should leave. Run. Now.”
We both turn to her, but she has her sights on the trees around us. And then she’s just a blur and a cloud of dust.
“She won’t leave you, will she?” I ask Ten, suddenly relieved that he’s not here alone. “We need time to build a better plan. I can get stronger so I can get us all out.”
“She’s scouting. She won’t leave.”
“We can’t try what we tried last night again, Ten. It was foolish. And I can’t risk you any more than you already are.”
“Fine. But tell me what happened between the two of you. You and your brother. You didn’t need touch, yet your magic, it…” He takes my hand in his, gripping it tightly, as if that will give him the answer he’s looking for.
“I don’t know what I did. I just… Fenix has a way of making me madder than I’ve ever felt, and it triggers something inside me.”
He studies my eyes, as if he’s looking for whatever he saw earlier.
“It’s—”
Crimson’s cloud of dust returns in her wake. “There are guards all around, hidden in the trees. We aren’t going anywhere without them knowing about it. They are well camouflaged, but there’s no doubting they keep a strong perimeter.” She’s barely out of breath.
“So that’s why they’re happy to seemingly walk off,” I mutter to myself as I look around the small ring. “Ten, I don’t like this. You being here, both of you, gives them ammunition that I have nothing to fight back with.”
“Well, you’d better think of something fast, Ever. Or it will be more broken bones and cuts,” Crimson adds her thoughts.
“That’s not fucking helping, Crim.”
“But it’s the truth,” I cut in. “I know, Crimson. And I’m sorry. I am. What would you do?” I shove the words out and ignore the ones that I want to say. The angry, spiteful words are coiling in my gut like vipers.
She seems momentarily stunned by my genuine question.
“Learn. Practice. Play along. We all do. We all do what we’re told, like good little playthings.
Until we are sure, and I mean it, until we are fucking sure, we can win.
We are, Zuns knows where, on Nehandun. The only guide seems to be untrustworthy, and we have no means of transport or way home.
We are outnumbered. We have no advantage here. Apart from you.”
Ten and I listen to her words, and I can see that one day, she will be formidable with an army at her back. She’s pretty terrifying now.
It’s not much more than we’d already planned, but saying it aloud, discussing it like this, makes it feel like there is hope. A goal.
“What does winning mean for you?” Ten asks.
She gives him a seething look, and I know it’s about Calix. But she turns to me before she says, “It means we can take out Fenix. He’s the key and the source of the power that’s keeping us contained.”
“You mean kill him?” I whisper the words in case anyone can hear. “You want revenge?”
“Of course I do. But that’s a secondary motive now. If we want to get out of here alive, he’s the key.”
Ten is staring off into the woods, as if contemplating all the outcomes and options that Crimson’s plan suggested. He’s the strategist, although where that logic and sense were when he came here, who knows.
“Ten?” I prompt.
“We take it day by day. My guess is that this will be a regular occurrence. Fenix knows we’re your weakness and will use it. You need to do everything you can to dampen the need for him to lord that over you. You are powerful, Ever. You are a Fifth. You need to believe in yourself.”