Chapter 55
Thealina
Her steel grey eyes tear into me. Half a heartbeat later, she blinks.
“You’re back.”
Her rhetorical question settles in my gut like a sinking stone.
Yes. I’m back. But not for you.
She can’t hear me, and I’m glad. Those words would have sliced our heart in two, knowing what happens next. But it does need to happen.
I shove against the wall of anger, sorrow, and despair, my thumb brushing over the apples of her cheek.
I am so sorry.
“Do… do we get out?” She whispers, hands clasped tight against her chest, hope flickering in her eyes, begging me not to shatter it.
I smile. I nod.
I watch her chest rise and fall, the breath she’s been holding finally slips free as her eyes flutter shut.
Not before I see them glaze over with tears she keeps contained.
We don’t cry in this house. Not where someone might see.
And although I’m in my dressing room with her, either one of our abusers could walk in.
“Are we happy?”
We will be. I nod again. Smile again. I want to tell her everything: that our confidence grows, our strength soars…
that we meet a man. A man who proves the heroes we read about aren’t just fiction.
A man who forced us to choose ourselves.
One who drags us out of our comfort zone and shows us we can still be safe.
I wouldn’t tell her he’s now unattainable. She doesn’t have the fire in her gut yet to handle that.
“When?”
Very, very soon.
“Sweetpea! Down here, please.”
We both gasp. Our bodies stiffening. Hers at the sound of his stern voice. Mine because of what’s coming for her.
I grip her face in both my hands, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
We are brave. We are strong. And I am with you.
She backs away, lips pressed flat together and nods once before she darts from the dressing room, bare feet pattering down the stairs. I follow in the shadows of the house, dressed in black, moving soundlessly.
I listen. I wait.
“Yes, dear?”
Hearing my voice splits my soul to pieces, stopping my ability to draw in a breath. Soft, innocent, with a faint huskiness, as if I just awoke from a seamless sleep.
“This…” A thud—my book dropped on the side table. “… is playing on my mind.”
My body shakes reliving the horror.
“Darling, I explained the erratic behaviour of the Chief Defender. It was his way of apologising.”
“Don’t undermine how this has affected him,” his mother snaps, exasperation in her tone like I’m some naughty child.
Fire in my belly grows to an inferno. I grip the door frame of the wall I hide behind, knuckles white, stopping myself from storming in there, dragging his mother to her knees and cutting her fucking tongue out.
But I’m no fool to think my small frame could overpower them.
It’s why I’m trying this first, rather than telling my past self to run.
“I don’t mean to, but I’m being accused of something that isn’t there.”
“What is he to you?” My husband asks, and I remember he was tapping his lips when he said that.
“Excuse me?”
“What. Is. He. To. You?”
A long pause, then my voice, stammering in shock at their absurd questioning.
“I, I… he’s nothing to me. A… somewhat employer. I barely see him.”
“Do you speak to him?”
“I barely see him,” she repeats.
“What do you talk about?”
“I barely see him!”
This was the last time I raised my voice. Or used it at all.
“Do it,” his mother hisses, thick with vindication. She may as well say ‘See? See my darling boy, how she disrespects you with that tongue? Take it. Silence her.’
I squeeze my eyes shut; hands clamped over my ears to drown out my raw screams between choking on my own blood. Bile fizzes in my gut, and I shed a tear for her—for me.
“In due course, you’ll see, Sweetpea, this was for your own good.”
Another one falls. And another.
“Can no longer get on your knees for Mr Vale now, Thealina.”
Then another tear.
Until a sharp slap on the wood floor clears my mind and reminds me why I’m here. That slap was my flesh being thrown across the living room, discarded like rotten meat, landing in front of the open door I crouch behind.
The floor gleams with splattered crimson, blood dripping from the mangled flesh. I throw up my mental walls, dissociate from the horror around the corner and reach out for my tongue, sliding it toward me, quickly wrapping it in some dark cotton and tuck in my pouch.
At this point her body has long since passed out. The anger fizzes through my veins again. All I want to do is scream at my past self, shake her, slap her, yell at her; get up.
GET. UP. No one is coming to save you. Get. Up. It’s all on you. It’s just us now.
A single tear runs over the apple of my cheek. One tear is all I’ll shed for her now. For me. Because our voice was stolen long before this night, she knows it, I know it, and a dark, twisted part of me is glad tonight happened.
Without tonight, I wouldn’t be excited for tomorrow.
“We should blend her tongue into a mixture, make her drink a sip every time she’s insolent.”
I stand, turning in the direction of the kitchen to slip out the back door before I have to hear my mother-in-law spew some more venom.
“Mother! Shut the fuck up before I cut your tongue out too!”
“Son!”
I freeze. Oh my, I never knew that happened. Never have I heard my husband speak to his mother in such a tone.
Exasperated? Occasionally. Aggressive? Never.
“Oh, son, you’re shaking! This is what your wife does to you. Oh, my boy.”
Her heeled footsteps grow further away, some clinking of a bottle—more than likely preparing a drink.
“Not my wife,” he murmurs, low and bitter. “But my cunt mother.”
I pull in a breath when I hear his mumblings.
What does he mean? Why had he whispered that? He doted on her, always went to her for support, love and guidance. Agreed with every word when she cut me down… and now this?
Now he uses that awful word to describe her.
Although he’s right—his mother is a cunt. But so is he. And I’m done here.
Rustling, a grunt, then footsteps approach my position. I press myself into a shadowed corner beneath the stairs, hand over my mouth as he passes with a limp… me… in his arms. Blood drips from my mouth, the sound of it splattering on the wooden floor a sound that’ll forever haunt me.
“I’ll take care of you, Sweetpea, ok, all will be right, and soon our terrible years will be undone. I promise. I’m sorry.”
He’s sorry.
He’s fucking sorry! An apology without change is manipulation. He didn’t even have the decency to say it to me when I was conscious.
I can’t listen anymore. I can’t be here. My stomach is seconds away from emptying, and the more I listen to this nonsense the likelihood of that happening is strong.
The kitchen is dark, only one candle flickers on the table, the room smells of goat and potato curry I made for dinner.
My last proper meal.
My stomach growls, and I upend the whole pot of dinner all over the kitchen floor. Petty—sure. But knowing my mutilated state stays sleeping until late tomorrow evening, it’ll give my mother-in-law something to earn her keep around here.
My husband’s steps thunder down the stairs, and I take my leave, sliding out the door and into the courtyard, the cool evening breeze brushing against my heated cheeks, drying my sticky tears.
Are we happy—she asked. Yes. Yes, we are.
I smile, containing the little chuckle festering in my throat. We’re happy. We could be happier, sure, but we’re happy. Happy enough I almost skip from the house, through the courtyard, out the alley and over to the next town to another Portal Master.
My smile falters thinking of Rafe. I couldn’t have gone to him. Not now, not with another goodbye under our belts. It would be too hard, especially if I were to see him being the perfect husband.
And, gods, he would be the perfect husband.
I pray to the Fates, to the Goddess of Love, Ava treats him well. Pray she fills his heart, and he hers. Pray they have healthy children, a home filled with an abundance of love and laughter, even if it rips my soul into pieces thinking about it.