Chapter 37 #2
Roman and Ksenia spoke in hushed tones the whole way to my room.
I wasn’t sure if they wanted me to hear them or not but my enhanced senses didn’t grant me the choice.
So I listened as they worried about letting in the general’s men, discussed Adrian’s strange moment with the beasts, and argued about the best way to present the plan to attack Pavos and Sanctuary all at once to the king.
They didn’t stop when we reached my room.
They simply followed me inside, closing the door behind them as if they were welcome, not that they cared they weren’t.
That’s when I broke.
It didn’t matter that they were still there, still talking, still glancing warily my way from time to time.
It didn’t matter that I wasn’t alone and hadn’t been in so long.
My anger had faded and an immense sorrow had taken its place.
I’d told the king I’d made peace with what I’d done.
But I hadn’t. Not really. I was beginning to suspect I never would.
“She should have killed me,” I whispered aloud.
All conversation ceased at once. Ksenia and Roman both glanced at me before turning back to each other. I just closed my eyes and took a shuddering breath, collapsing onto the edge of the bed.
“I would have killed me,” I said.
“She’s better than you,” Roman spat.
A bitter laugh escaped me. I leaned back, smiling like a fool, and ran a hand through my hair as I stared up at the stone ceiling above.
“I know,” I replied. “I’ve always known. But still. She should’ve killed me.”
Silence fell once more.
“She wanted to,” I spoke into it, keeping my gaze set firmly on the glinting chandelier above the bed I sat upon.
“I could feel it. When she was choking me, when she poured the corruption into me, under my skin, inside me, she wanted it to kill me. For one brief moment it was like I could feel her again. I would do anything just to feel her again.”
I didn’t look at them. I couldn’t. Not when I was finally admitting this aloud, what I’d been too afraid to confess even to myself since pushing her into that hole and waking up in this hell.
“Having a bond like that is unlike anything you could possibly experience,” I told them. “It’s beyond words. And having it taken away…”
Someone touched my shoulder gently. Ksenia, of course.
“I wanted to die,” I said. “In that moment, I wanted her to kill me. Because if I can’t feel her like that ever again…then it should have been me in that pit.”
Tears pricked my eyes but I was determined not to let them fall. Not yet. That would wait until I was alone. All alone with only my own thoughts for company. And what dark and miserable company they were.
In that Trial, when the gods had given us a choice, the answer had been so clear.
It was me or her. On instinct, I saved myself.
I didn’t pause to consider the cost. I didn’t realize what I would lose.
What Adrian and I’d had transcended anything I’d ever found before and, I knew in my heart, anything I would ever find again.
She was my destiny and I’d ended us before we could begin.
I’d severed a connection so powerful that even now, weeks later, I suffered its withdrawal.
Seeing her only made it worse. Looking at her and knowing I would never have her again, never feel her the way I had, never hear her as intimately as before, broke something in me I feared couldn’t be repaired. And I didn’t have the heart to try anyway.
“You should tell her,” Ksenia said suddenly and I lowered my gaze until I could level it upon her. “Everything you just said to us, you should tell her. She should know.”
“She hates me,” I replied, tone flat.
“Can you blame her?” Roman asked, glaring at me with his arms crossed.
Ksenia cut him a sharp glare but he didn’t relent.
“She should still know,” Ksenia argued. “Even if she still hates you, she should have the choice. The bond has been severed but that doesn’t mean you two can’t be…”
She hesitated, watching me closely as if I would indicate to her what we’d been outside of partners in the Trials.
I didn’t react to her insinuation, schooling my features into careful indifference.
Ksenia didn’t need to know what we’d been.
She didn’t need to know how many times I’d coaxed her into my bed or answered the door to find her lips on mine.
She didn’t need to know I still felt those phantom caresses against my skin, still envisioned her body beneath mine, still swore I caught a scent of her on the wind now and then.
She didn’t need to know I still loved her with all the wretched sharp corners of my jagged, broken heart.
“I didn’t choose her,” I said. “So why would she choose me?”
“I imagine,” Ksenia answered with a roll of her eyes, “for the same reason she didn’t kill you.”
The smallest hint of hope fluttered to life in my chest. I banished it an instant later. She would never have me back. Not like that. Not ever again.
And I had no one to blame for it but myself.