Chapter 33
CIARAN
After a successful dinner, I steer an exhausted Rowan back to my room. He’s completely wiped from sitting on a chair and listening to my dumbass cousins trying to—what, impress him?—and my aunts gossiping.
He didn’t have to come down and meet Mom, and judging by the way he looks now, slumped on my sheets, perhaps he shouldn’t have. Although considering he let me kiss him in front of my entire family, I’m starting to think self-preservation isn’t one of his strengths.
I, on the other hand, am having an excellent evening.
So he was hunted by the same person who destroyed Mom’s life. Who tried to take everything our family owns, everything we stand for.
The worst part is that it wasn’t even about winning anymore.
First, she handed an innocent boy like Rowan the music sheet. Then she spent years making sure nobody could ever use it. And when the least likely possibility of all somehow happened—when Rowan Ashford ended up at Caervast on Sero—she started hunting him again.
Back fucking home where the music sheet came from. Home to the place where he should have been all along.
Here on my sheets, under my protection, and buried so deep in my heart that I don’t know what to do about it.
Thank Light Vera Orlov won’t ever be a fucking problem again.
While I sat beside Rowan’s bed, refusing to leave, Dad’s people swept the tunnels beneath Düren, and by sunrise they found Vera buried deep inside the ruins of her own operation, taking every last secret she had with her.
Doesn’t mean I don’t want to kick my two-months-ago self in the ass for not checking those damn shadows better and stabbing what was hiding behind the curtains.
I would have loved to be the hero before Rowan got himself injured.
Rowan coughs, and it’s like someone’s jammed a knife under his skin. He pants for breath, his bruised hand resting on my pillow, the white bandages a stark contrast to the forest green velvet—a constant reminder that his glorious talent was used for cruel intentions.
“Lie down.”
I help him onto his back. He looks devastatingly handsome—all doe-eyed, those ridiculous long lashes fluttering as he clearly fights sleep and allows me to position him the way I want.
“You did so well down there.”
His lips part as if he wants to reply to that, probably one of his haughty complaints, but then he glances up at the water on my bedside table instead. Oh, he’s so done for.
“Here.” I grab the glass and put it to his lips. Once again, I think he’s going to refuse, but he just opens his mouth and lets me pour the water between his lips. “Mm, feel good?” My voice has gone all hoarse and low, and yes, the view is definitely making my stomach swoop with desire.
I should be focused on the fact that he’s injured. Instead, my attention keeps snagging on the curve of his throat every time he swallows. It’s an absolutely embarrassing use of my priorities.
Rowan is stretched across the bed, propped against a mountain of pillows in one of my old black shirts.
The sleeves hang past his wrists, the collar slipping just enough to expose the pale line of his throat and the edge of another healing bruise.
His hair is a mess from sleep and painkillers, falling into his eyes every time he moves.
He should look terrible. Instead, he looks dangerously easy to stare at.
His hand shifts, brushing mine where our fingers meet around the glass. The touch is brief, probably accidental, but it doesn’t feel like it.
“Did you know?”
I just look at our hands where they’ve ended up tangled together around the glass before clearing my throat and setting it aside. “Know what?”
“About Damaris and Lucan.”
A laugh slips out as I reach behind him and fluff one of the pillows. “You mean my cousin treating Damaris like his personal property?”
Rowan snorts, shifting carefully against the headboard. “I wouldn’t put it quite like that.”
“I would.” I grab the edge of the blanket and pull it higher over his legs despite the look he sends me.
“Ciaran.”
“You’re sliding down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You look like you’re trying to escape the bed.”
“I’m injured.”
“Exactly.”
His eyes narrow.
I keep fussing with the blanket anyway. “Besides, you should probably pay attention. That’s what your future is going to look like. Scared yet, mouse?”
“Terrified,” he deadpans.
“Good.”
The corner of his mouth twitches before fading again. His gaze drifts toward the window, where gray afternoon light spills across the room.
For a moment, neither of us says anything.
Then he looks back at me. “No, seriously. Since when is that official?”
I shrug, rubbing a hand across the back of my neck. “I don’t know if anyone ever officially announced it.”
His brow furrows. “But?”
“But I think the first time Lucan laid eyes on him, he decided your friend was his.”
Rowan’s gaze drifts back to the window. “She made me play it. That melody. Over and over. Until my hands were bleeding and I couldn’t see clearly because of my tears.”
A muscle jumps in my jaw. Instead of answering, I reach for his hand, turning it over carefully in mine and brushing my thumb across the bandages wrapped around his fingers.
“It was awful. The way she made me turn on the Noctis, hate the one thing I’ve always loved the most.” A small shrug. “But she didn’t succeed.”
Understatement of the fucking century.
I keep holding his hand, and despite myself, I picture Rowan alone in that room, exhausted, crying, still dragging the bow across the strings because somebody wouldn’t let him stop.
Something dark twists inside my chest. If Vera were still alive, I’d kill her myself.
Again. Again. And fucking again.
Rowan’s eyes find mine, steadier than they have any right to be for someone held together by bandages. “You’d kill for me.”
“Without blinking.”
“Good.” His bruised thumb moves against my knuckles. “Everyone keeps waiting for the part where I finally get scared of you.” A tired breath leaves him. “I stopped being afraid of monsters the day I decided to keep one.”
Something in my chest pulls tight. He says it so simply, like it costs him nothing, like choosing the villain in the room was the easiest thing he has ever done.
“The first year after my mother lost her sight was hard,” I hear myself say.
Rowan turns his head on the pillow, watching me as I turn his hand over in mine.
“She was furious. At everyone. At herself. At walls, furniture, doors. She hated needing help and hated people pretending she was suddenly made of glass.”
I look down at our joined hands, swallowing as an old, familiar helplessness stirs somewhere deep inside me. Back then, there was nothing I could do except watch.
“Most days, she’d disappear into the music room and play for hours. Sometimes it sounded beautiful. Sometimes it sounded angry.” I swallow, remembering those notes drifting through the house long after midnight. “Sometimes it sounded like her heart was breaking.”
Rowan doesn’t say anything. He just stays there, listening.
“Back then, I thought she was trying to get better.” My thumb catches on the edge of a bandage before smoothing it. “Now I think she was trying to remember who she was.”
The words hang between us.
“When you’re blind, people start deciding things for you. What you can do. Where you can go. What your future looks like. Back then, she trusted music more than she trusted people.”
Rowan’s fingers curl around mine, stopping me from letting go. Somehow, that feels like an answer. “I was twelve.”
The words are so quiet I almost miss them. I lift my gaze to find him staring at the ceiling, his head sunk deeper into the pillows while I keep hold of his hand.
“It was market day. Sola convinced Ma and Pa we were old enough to explore on our own.”
A snort escapes me. “You weren’t.”
“We absolutely were.”
“You were twelve! Nah, too young.”
He huffs at that. “So? We were very mature twelve-year-olds. Anyway, we wandered away from my parents. There was a merchant stall near the eastern square. At least I thought she was a merchant, but she wasn’t.
She was Vera Orlov. I—I remember telling her I wanted to become a Noctis player.
I wouldn’t shut up about it. I was carrying around this terrible practice bow and talking to anyone who’d listen.
” His eyes narrow when he catches my huff. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Ciaran…”
I hold his gaze. “I’m just realizing you’ve always been like this.”
“Like what?”
“Obsessive.”
His mouth falls open, and I don’t even try to look sorry. “That’s a bold statement coming from you. The man who tracked my heart rate for months is calling me obsessive.”
“I prefer thorough.”
He nudges our joined hands, looking far too smug for someone currently held together by painkillers and stubbornness.
Fuck me, I could listen to him argue with me for hours if it meant never seeing him in that basement again.
For a second, he almost looks like himself again. Then the expression slips away.
“The merchant—Vera—gave me the page. Just like that.” His gaze drifts toward the window. “For years, I kept wondering why me. I thought if I burned it sooner, maybe they would have left us alone.”
The confession lands harder than it should. Or maybe exactly as hard as it should.
“The first year after it happened, every time I saw someone standing too long outside the house, I thought they were there for us.” His voice grows quieter.
“Every time the comm rang late at night. Every time somebody looked at me for a second too long. At first I thought if I was careful enough, they’d go away, but they didn’t. ”
For a second, all I can think about is him being twelve years old and carrying that alone.
“Sometimes I think I should’ve just stopped running.” He stares back up at the ornate ceiling overhead. “Just once turned around and asked them what they wanted from me.”
Without thinking, I shift closer. “Rowan—”
“I was scared,” he admits, the words cracking somewhere in the middle. “Scared for Sola. Scared for my parents. Scared for myself.” He swallows. “I didn’t want to die.”