Chapter 41
MYRA
Myra knelt beside the river. She dipped her hands into the water, and the cold liquid nipped at her skin as she brushed it over her arms.
"Can I ask you something?"
Myra’s hands stilled beneath the water at the sound of Laurince’s voice. As he crouched beside her, Myra hoped he couldn’t see her face flush red in the water’s reflection.
"It’s been bothering me for a while, but it’s somewhat…personal," he said.
"What is it?" she asked cautiously, returning to washing her hands. Although she struggled to focus on the simple task as Laurince rolled up his sleeves.
He dipped them into the river and spread the water up his arms, scrubbing the grime from his skin. She tracked a droplet of water running down his arm, over the nook of his elbow, down his forearm. She licked her lips, suddenly feeling parched.
"Why didn’t you use your ability?"
Myra nearly flinched at the question. "When?"
Laurince shook out his hands and sat back on his heels. He draped his arms over his knees, and water dripped from his fingertips. "When you were captured. Why didn’t you manipulate their emotions? Make them feel…sorry for you or remorseful? Or anything that would make them untie you?"
Myra blinked, speechless. Her tongue was like a stone in her mouth, a heavy weight that she couldn’t move. After a moment, she whispered, "I—I didn’t think to use it."
"Why not?"
Myra shrugged, and suddenly, her body grew cold. Her hands trembled, and she wiped them across her trousers, leaving a dark smear on the fabric. She curled her fingers inward. And although her palms stung as her nails etched half-moons into her skin, her hands at least stopped shaking.
"Myra." Her name was a whisper on his tongue, as if he feared she would run away and flee into the forest if he spoke any louder.
She took a deep breath. "I guess I didn’t because…because I was afraid."
"Afraid of what?" Laurince asked, folding his legs beneath him as he sat flat on the ground. He placed a hand atop hers, and the sting of her nails lessened. "If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to."
"It’s not…" She shook her head, struggling to find the words. "It’s not that I don’t want to…"
"But?"
"I don’t know how, I guess?" Myra chanced a glance at him, and the look on his face nearly broke her, which was so incredibly silly. She shouldn’t have been overcome by Laurince’s sincerity, but no one had ever looked at her with such unmotivated interest. He did not view her as a tool or a specimen to be studied.
He simply cared. And somehow, that made it less simple in Myra’s mind.
"Can you try?" Laurince asked.
She wanted to try. She needed to.
She brushed her hair behind her ear and began, "When I was under Domitius’ rule, I…
I didn’t have a say in what I did, where I went, who I spent my time with.
Although I could walk the castle grounds and breathe fresh air, I was still a prisoner.
I had tried, though…" Her voice became thick as thoughts of her past surfaced. "I had tried to alter the king’s emotions on more than one occasion. Most of the time, especially when I was younger and didn’t have full control over my ability, it was by accident.
But he knew every time. When he realized what I was doing…
" Myra rubbed a hand across her neck. Her throat seized, and breathing became harder. Her skin became clammy.
Laurince reached for her, but she leaned away. He immediately retreated and gripped his knees, as if to keep himself from reaching out again.
All Myra could feel was pain.
All she could smell was whiskey.
All she could hear were insults spewed from the king’s mouth.
Arrogant, girl. You think you have power? I am power.
"It’s all right, Myra." He placed his hand beside her, not quite touching her, but close enough to let her know he was there. "He can’t touch you anymore."
Myra nodded, but it was unconvincing.
She wanted to believe Laurince, but it was as if his words danced around her, just out of her reach. She didn’t know whether she would ever feel safe. Not until Domitius was dealt with. Not until Kalisandre won.
"I didn’t manipulate their emotions because I was afraid of what would happen.
Every time I used it to fight back, it only ever made things worse," she admitted quietly, tears springing to her eyes. As she thought of her parents, of her mother’s sorrow-filled gaze when she looked at Myra before she was murdered, she could hear her parents’ screams, Mynhos’ cries.
Myra hadn’t been strong enough when she was a child to save her family.
Why would she be strong enough now? When the captors came, when the man pressed a blade to her throat, she had frozen.
Nothing had changed. She was still the weak and powerless girl she had been when she was in the pantry beneath the floorboards.
"You’re not weak."
Myra’s gaze snapped up to meet his. She hadn’t even realized she had said it aloud.
"I am," Myra argued. "Everyone knows it."
Laurince reached out again, his movements cautious and slow. When Myra didn’t flinch away this time, he caressed her cheek. "You’re not weak, Haze. You have spent most of your life as a prisoner, forced to make yourself small."
"I’m only a—"
"Don’t," Laurince said, squeezing his eyes shut for a second. "Don’t say it. You are not just a handmaiden, Myra."
"Then what am I?" It was a question she had been pondering since they had left Ardentol. A question that was more for her than Laurince, but a question she craved the answer to all the same. And to her surprise, Laurince gave her one.
"You are whatever you want to be, Haze. You’re kind, caring, loyal, occasionally uptight but usually for good reasons."
A small smile poked at the corner of her lips. Laurince continued.
"You protect those you care about, even if it means risking your own life, your own happiness. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for."
"But when it mattered, I failed. When it mattered, I let fear get the best of me. My ability only hurts people," she said, voice shaking and her gaze falling to the river. The water rolled over the rocks, gliding across them as if they weren’t even there.
Laurince shook his head. "Only if you let it."
There was some truth to his words, yet she struggled to believe them.
"Look at me." He tipped her chin up with his thumb, beckoning her.
"The next time you are in danger, I want you to do whatever you can to save yourself.
Promise me?" With his free hand, he reached behind his back and offered her the small knife he had given her before they left Tetria.
"I gave this to you for a reason, but you didn’t take it that morning. "
"I’m not good at—"
When he shook his head, she snapped her mouth shut.
"While I promise to do whatever I can when it comes to protecting you, I need to know you have a way of defending yourself."
His thumb brushed across her cheek, and Myra wasn’t sure if he even knew he was doing it. She didn’t care, though, as long as he didn’t stop.
"I c-can’t kill someone. I’m not…"
"Like me?" he asked.
The rising guilt was sour on her tongue. "That’s not what I meant."
"Even if it was, you wouldn’t be hurting my feelings, Haze.
I hope that you never have to use this. I hope that if the time ever arises when you need to, that you don’t have to kill someone.
Taking a life is not easy. It’s not a weight I wish on anyone.
But a war is upon us, and we are about to walk straight into the heart of it.
I cannot…" Laurince’s words became thick, and Myra didn’t need to read his emotions to see the concern twisting at his heart.
His comrades, his friends, and his family lived in Frenzia.
The three of them didn’t know how bad things were inside of the capital, but they had seen the remains of the Tetrian village that was burned to the ground, they had seen the fear in the Borganian village that they had stopped at for supplies, the paranoid gazes, the closed doors.
"This time you were lucky, but who knows if you will be the next time? I need to know you will do whatever you can to survive." He stared at her, his gaze unwavering, as if he wished to sear his words into her soul. "Got it?"
Using her power should have been the first thing Myra did. Instead, she had hesitated. Instead, she had waited. She had tried to think of what Kallie would do. But Myra wasn’t Kallie.
Maybe she didn’t have to be.
"Yes," she said, opening her hand.