Chapter 35 Kailia #2
Cethin started to lower onto the sofa beside her, and she stiffened, her aching muscles screaming as they tensed again.
He paused, and she saw the two males exchange a look.
Oddly, all she could think about was that it only took her nightmares to make the two be civil with one another, even if it was fleeting.
Taking a seat on the sofa, Cethin left extra room between them. She watched his fingers drum on his thigh as he studied her. She let her brow fall back to her knees, willing the small spots in her vision to disappear.
“You know nothing?” Razik asked, his tone tight.
“Why would I know anything?” Cethin retorted.
When Razik didn’t answer, she peeked out at them again, catching another exchange of knowing looks.
“If you had summoned me sooner, I may have been able to help more,” Cethin finally answered, returning his attention to her. Everything about him softened when his eyes found hers, and he leaned a little closer. “Tell us how we can help.”
“There’s nothing to be done,” she answered, forcing herself to uncoil. “I think I’ll take a bath.”
Cethin scrambled to his feet as well. “You don’t want to talk about what happened?”
“Why would I do that?”
“I can’t help if I don’t know what we’re dealing with.”
“There’s nothing to help with,” she replied, each step unsteady as she made her way to the hall.
It took far longer than it should have to get into the tub. Probably because of the icy water she’d filled it with to cool her heated skin. Then she was freezing when she got out. Slipping on her usual dress, she grabbed a fur blanket from the bed, wrapping it around her shoulders.
She shouldn’t have been surprised to find both males waiting for her in the sitting room when she reappeared.
The mess had been cleaned from the floor, and there was a small spread of food—breads, crackers, soup.
Cethin had changed at some point, but Razik was still in his clothing from the day.
It was dark, but not past midnight yet, and she sank back onto the sofa utterly exhausted, her wet braid making her dress damp where it draped over her shoulder.
“How are you feeling?” Cethin ventured, setting aside the glass of liquor he’d been nursing.
“I’ll be fine,” she replied.
“Can we talk about what happened?”
“There’s nothing to discuss.”
“There’s plenty to discuss,” he countered. “The tavern today. The dream. Why I suddenly can’t get near you without you flinching away.”
“We are trying to help,” Razik offered, and she glanced at him, thrown off by the unusual display of blatant concern.
“I already told you there’s nothing to help with,” she sighed, pulling the blanket tighter around herself.
“You were screaming, Kailia,” Cethin replied, the words sounding almost haunted. “You were screaming, and I— You were screaming like your soul was being tortured.”
“You can’t possibly know that,” she retorted weakly.
“I can,” he countered. “Because your screams of agony were the same as those I end slowly with my power. When I am…”
He trailed off, but she didn’t need him to finish.
When he was the one doing the torturing.
But she recognized they weren’t going to let this go. That she needed to give them something so they would stop pushing for more.
“I was raised and trained to be in complete control of myself and my power at all times,” she said, both of the males going still and quiet. “When I couldn’t do that, I was punished.”
“How?” Cethin asked, his voice a low growl that rivaled Razik’s.
She wouldn’t look at him, focusing instead on the soft fur of the blanket on her skin.
“Usually chained to a wall with metal that suppressed my magic while a fire wielder used their gifts.” There were simultaneous low rumbles from the males, but neither moved.
“It was the same way they got my magic to manifest when I was a child,” she offered. “Without the manacles, obviously.”
“I need you to clarify that you were a child, and to get your magic to manifest, they burned you until it did so?” Razik asked in a tone so dark and cold, her every instinct went on high alert.
Kailia glanced at him, his pupils having shifted and his body vibrating. Her brow furrowed, recognizing the struggle. “Are you fighting a full shift?”
“Yes,” he ground out.
“Why?”
“Why? Because you were— You were a godsdamn child, Kailia,” Razik snarled.
“I know, but you didn’t know me then. And why are you talking to me like it was my fault I was raised there?”
“He’s not. Not intentionally,” Cethin cut in. “We’re just processing. That was your dream? You were reliving…that.”
She nodded. “Usually in my dreams, I have more warning, but with the alcohol… It was my fault, really.”
“Absolutely not,” Cethin snarled. He reached for her, stopping right before he made contact, and pulled his hand back with a frustrated sound. “None of what you endured was your fault.”
“Others experienced the same. Many worse than what I was subjected to,” she replied. It was how she’d survived. Constantly telling herself it could be worse. That she’d witnessed others experiencing worse, both inside those cliffs and outside them.
Cethin blinked at her, and this time he didn’t stop when he reached for her. There was no brush of his magic. Only skin-to-skin contact as he gently cupped her chin and tipped her face up to his.
“Someone else experiencing trauma doesn’t negate yours and the things you face because of it, Kailia. Do you understand?” he asked, searching her eyes.
It took her a minute to mull that over. Who was she to deserve sympathy and comfort when it could have been worse? When it was worse for so many others?
“You can have sympathy for others and what they went through, but it doesn’t lessen what you went through,” Cethin pushed. “It doesn’t invalidate what you felt and how it has affected you since.”
That made a little more sense, and she nodded, seeing the potential truth in his words.
“Tell us more about where you were raised, Lia,” Razik said, and she twisted to face him.
He’d taken a seat in the armchair across from them, perched on the edge.
“There are islands to the south of the main continent,” she said.
“The Southern Islands,” Razik supplied.
Kailia nodded. “One of them… There are enchanted cliffs there. They housed a large colony of people. Powerful people. Fae. Shifters. Witches. Other beings… Everyone was expected to contribute to the colony, and your power determined where and how you did that. We were told the cliffs kept us hidden from people who wanted to use us.”
She stole a glance at Cethin, his silver gaze pinned on her, but there was no other reaction to her words. Only an intensity as he gave her his undivided attention.
“Those of us with rare gifts were trained for other things, while those with powerful common gifts were expected to help supply even more powerful beings to the colony,” she went on, watching the king.
“After I found myself free of the cliffs, I learned that the Baroness, who ran the cliffs, was trying to create powerful beings using powerful bloodlines.”
“Are you saying the colony in those cliffs was used for essentially breeding experiments? With power?” Razik demanded.
She nodded. “I suppose that’s the most direct way to explain it. There were other nuances, but yes.”
“And you were forced to…” Cethin trailed off, a too-calm fury in his words, but the darkness in his irises betrayed him.
Her head canted to the side. “That would make you upset?”
He jolted back as if she’d struck him. “Of course it would. Only a monster wouldn’t be upset by that.”
She nodded. “I’ve found there are more monsters in the realm than not. They are just incredibly skilled at remaining hidden. Some are even beloved, with their true natures hidden beneath benevolent actions and perceived kindness.”
“How did you get out?” Razik asked, pulling her attention back to him.
She adjusted her blanket, pursing her lips as she stared out the window at the dark night sky.
“There was one who had escaped well before my time. Or that’s the story I was told.
He’d gone head-to-head with the Baroness and had gained his freedom decades before my time.
He was this enigma. A whispered legend among the people of the cliffs.
There were rumors he would come back, leaving a blood trail in his wake of the guards and those who enforced the laws of the colony.
I didn’t know whether or not he was real.
Not until he showed up on the night I was sent to— Not until he showed up one night and gave me a way out. ”
“And you don’t know who it was?” Cethin asked.
She twisted back to him, watching his features carefully.
“The only name I’ve ever known him by is the Reaper.
He eventually returned to the Cliffs, decades after I had left.
I’m told he killed the Baroness and anyone who sided with her.
There are rumors he bound himself to the Cliffs themselves.
That he knows if anyone tries to return to them, and he shows up to end them. ”
“You’ve never met him again?” Cethin asked. “Or know where he is?”
“Why would you want to know that?”
“I’d like to thank the male who saved my wife,” he said, each word tight and filled with violence.
“You sound like you want to harm him,” she said skeptically.
“The violence isn’t for him, Lia. It’s the entire situation. All of it,” Razik supplied. “Where did you go after you got out?”
“As far north as I could,” she answered, still studying Cethin.
“That’s when you went to Pyry,” Razik reasoned, and she nodded. “And then?”
She reached for a cracker, her empty stomach making her nauseated all over again. “I stayed with the Shifters in Pyry for quite some time. Until some of their allies came to visit. I was offered a position, and in exchange I was given a place to stay and additional training.”
“And how did you come to Avonleya?”
“On a ship.”
Razik rolled his eyes. “Obviously, Lia. Why? What made you decide to do so?”